Interview with Alwin Beck

“Communication is the keyword”

Before joining Yokogawa Alwin Beck worked for large international companies specialized in the production of power and boiler plants: “I could never have imagined many years ago, when I used Yokogawa’s measuring equipment for the first time within one of these organizations, that I would be hired by the same company as one of their project managers.”

From the very beginning Alwin was impressed by the pleasant atmosphere within the German office of Yokogawa in Ratingen. “Approximately 120 colleagues work closely together on many different projects, in very good harmony, regardless of their position within Yokogawa.”

The projects of which Alwin is in charge, all deal with modular control systems for power plants. The processes within these power plants are based on burning gas, coal and waste: “My job is very diverse. After a control system project has been sold by our sales colleagues, I am responsible for the technical and financial execution of the project. In the execution phase I deal with both our technicians and our customers. It’s always a challenge to translate the requirements of our customers into the best possible solution.”

The project managers play a vital role in the project execution. “Every customer is different and none of the processes are the same”, according to Alwin. “We advise our customers in case specifications seem to be incomplete. On the other hand we provide support by developing complete control systems based on their functional needs.”

The majority of the projects from the Yokogawa office in Ratingen take place in Germany. On occasion projects are executed abroad, for example in England, The Netherlands or Rumania. Many projects are complex and take some time for completion. Therefore Alwin finds it difficult to describe his most prestigious project. “Recently we finished a project for a new customer in Saudi Arabia. It was a DCS (Distributed Control System) for the polyethylene industry. We managed to meet all the customer requirements offering a tailor made multi-unit control system.”

Alwin is happy to work for Yokogawa for several reasons: “I get the opportunity to develop myself through training and education. I get challenged to use my creativity by finding technical solutions. Within the context of our quality management system and our global engineering standard I have quite some freedom to perform my job.” Commuting takes Alwin 30 minutes. In his private life he discusses the projects he is working on with his friends: “I have to make sure that I don’t go into difficult technical details.” Alwin would definitely recommend Yokogawa to people as an attractive employer.

The thing that strikes Alwin the most about Yokogawa is the open culture: “Yokogawa stands for high quality equipment and solutions. It is an honour to represent such a prestigious company. And it still impresses me that everyone is so co-operative and open. We are result driven, but at the same time we take time to learn from each other, for the benefit of our customers. I believe that “communication” is the keyword.”