Joe O’Connor, Director of Marketing at Wynright says the living lab has been dually beneficial to Wynright.
He says the lab is fulfilling three of Wynright’s business needs, including:
1) Giving customers a hands-on experience with their products
“We wanted to showcase our products so that anything we manufacture is available when customers come in,” O’Connor says. “They see it working, rather than looking through a brochure. Having a hands-on experience is important to us.”
2) Showing customers their proof of concept on site
“When those customers come, a lot of times they have this reservation, “it looks good on paper but is it really going to work?”” O’Connor says. “It was commonplace for customers to give us skids of sample product and we would take their product, put it on the system, dial in the rates we’re trying to show, turn on the system and show them the piece of equipment they are considering. They literally can see their proof of concept.”
3) Having a proving ground for products
“We have our engineers that are consistently over [at the lab],” O’Connor says. “They may have a new product that needs a test. There’s a chance we can approve a product, or ship and install it in the tech center and work out a couple of programming bugs.”
O’Connor says the collaboration between Olive-Harvey College and Wynright creates a greater sense of community with students.
“There are so many times when you think to yourself, how can we give back, what can we do, and maybe what we do will help us in the material-handling industry as well,” he says. “[The lab] is geared towards getting their students ready for the real world. It takes real life job opportunities to prepare people for those career paths.”
O’Connor also says he hopes the educational relationship between both institutions will influence a new wave of pedagogy trends in higher education. He says programs like Olive-Harvey College’s help students stand out to employers once they graduate.
If you enjoyed this article and want to receive more valuable industry content like this, click here to sign up for our digital newsletters!
Leave a Reply