This is how innovations are created

Our company will soon turn 25. During this time, we managed to achieve success on the market and become an important player among the manufacturers of medical electronic equipment, industrial automation devices, renewable energy, monitoring, and lighting systems. On the one hand, our industry faces the challenge from constantly changing standards that we must meet. On the other hand, we have to meet our customers’ expectations regarding durability, quality and, of course, price. Keeping balance can be difficult. That is why we have been investing in the research and production facilities of our company for years.

We have implemented several projects using the EU funds. When the opportunity to obtain further funds appeared, we decided to apply for money to purchase research and development infrastructure enabling the development of the earlier facilities used for our innovative activity. Thanks to the subsidy, we bought laboratory and measuring equipment along with software. We equipped the stand for electromagnetic interference tests and ground heat pumps. We also invested in electrical safety tester, thermal imaging camera, modern oscilloscope and several other devices. The purchases, which we synchronised with the schedule of the research conducted, allowed us to extend our experience in all industries where the enterprise operates.

The new equipment considerably improved our production capacities, mainly the research-related ones. The inventions we could only dream about several years ago are not bound to the sphere of our imagination, but begin to materialise. We have plenty of innovative ideas. The time has come to realise them.

During the performance of consecutive research stages in our company, several changes of direction took place resulting from the clients’ expectations, binding standards or our own ideas. The assumed parameters for the subsidised devices would sometimes fail to “keep pace” with such changes. Luckily, the Silesian Centre of Entrepreneurship, being an institution that granted us the donation, turned out to be very helpful and offered its support at every stage of the project implementation.

A modern company offering state-of-the-art technological solutions, which not only plans to be visible on the market but also aims at being its true leader, needs to have several component elements. For me, two of them are particularly important. The first one obviously is people. We should remember that without best engineers, laboratory staff and structural designers, the company has no place on the market. Our enterprise employs over one hundred personnel.

It just so happens that I head one of the groups and I can assure you without any hesitation that the team is an absolute top. Its skills, creativity, determination in pursuing its goal, as well as constant strive for knowledge mean that new ideas for innovative solutions pop up regularly. And at this point the second factor comes into play because from the idea itself there is still a long way to go. No artist can “conjure up” anything unless they have proper conditions to do so. Of course, you can commission certain solutions or systems from subcontractors. However, it takes a while and the effect is not always what we would expect. That is why I think that equipping our research centre with the latest technologies is a great idea.

The infrastructure purchased under the project enabled us to conduct a great part of the research directly in our facility. Thus, the implementation period of our projects is visibly shortened. Besides, the ideas stay inside the company, which is also important for us. We can control everything, which means that our products are exactly what we would like them to be. And this is what our clients expect from us.

The purchased equipment greatly improves the company’s capacity – this is a fact. Performance of the research on the premises, speed, quality – these are all important factors. However, with this type of investment, you rarely pay attention to one more aspect, which is in my view equally important. Namely the use of the most advanced measuring equipment in the world enables the personnel to improve technical competences. They notice new opportunities, they develop, and the advantages apply to the company, benefitting us in the future.