Brian Whittingham - Technical Support Manager

What is your name and job role, describe your typical day to day activities and how long have you been working in the industry?

My name is Brian Whittingham and I’m the Technical Support Team Leader. I’ve been at Bosch Rexroth for 25 years and prior to this I worked at one of our partners for 12 years. My everyday role is responding to customer queries from a products point of view for components.

What is a product or solution you are most proud of having worked with recently?

I’ve worked with many products and applications in every industry. This includes the industries of renewable energy and industrial and mobile applications. The wide variation of products that I have worked with, ensures that every day is a school day which enhances my knowledge and flexibility.

What were some key challenges faced and how were they overcome?

The key challenges are ensuring that our customer always receive an excellent service as standard, and also a solution; not just what was required, but what the application needs. It’s about foresight, predicting the customer’s problems and providing suitable solutions.

What were some key learnings from the challenges mentioned?

We’re in a constant state of improvement; we don’t go backwards. Because of new technology, we’re always going forwards - not just with our people, but alsi with our solutions. We’re always looking to bring young people in and we strive to improve their learning. It’s about having different processes and content that our guys can train from for the future.

How does the product or solution benefit the customers you work with? What is the value that we add?

We add value by providing both solutions that customers can trust, and solutions to take them forward in a world that is changing every day. Energy, sound and noise are now very important because nowadays we want the machinery working a bit quieter and we want it to work more efficiently; more cycles, less money! That’s one of the biggest things we do, we always look for those added benefits.

What are you most excited about in terms of upcoming innovations/technical progress?

Digitalisation and electrification within our products excites me because electrification and hydraulics go well together. Hydraulics is considered to be a bit archaic, but there has been a lot of advancement in this area lately and I’m just excited by how quickly the world is going forward with this. As a team, we’ve got to be part of it and we’ve got to think quickly about the future. That’s it, it’s just being on our toes really.

How has hydraulics evolved over the years, what is new?

With our Sytronix solutions, Rexroth is now offering the way forward. Instead of having a 250-litre power pack, you’ve now got a small power pack which is very efficient, quiet and will do the same job as a larger power unit. That is one of the big differences now.

What sets Rexroth apart in the world of hydraulics? What added value do we provide to customers?

It’s known in the industry that our products are very, very good. But what we do try to match that with is our service levels, lead times and responses to customer enquiries and breakdowns. We review this on a day-to-day basis within our teams and at management level. This is to ensure that, we’re not just offering a solution, but we’re also offering a very, very good customer service, because we want to retain those customers for the future..

What advice would you give to young people interested in working in hydraulics?

It’s simple really. Work hard, know what you want and do the best you can for your company. Be very flexible in your learning and working habits, learn from other people who have been in the industry a long time, but also put your own spin on it. Still be yourself, but just be constantly wanting to improve in everything that you do. Whether you’re an engineer, work in technical support, or in commercial role, just try and do the best you can, and always keep in mind that no matter what, there’s a customer at the end of it.

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