Make a plan, work hard, and stay flexible, adjusting as the dynamics you can’t control flow around you.
Greg empowers his team to work collaboratively with customers. Greg empowers his team to work collaboratively with customers. For Greg, partnering with customers is crucial to conceptualizing solutions that they can implement globally and evolve flexibly around new opportunities, such as the market shift toward integrated technology that's increasing with the emergence of Industry 4.0. Enabling customers to grow their business around these opportunities begins with helping them understand tooling innovation and interoperability. To achieve this, Greg keeps a close eye on how industry is working to define future-state production. Across his team, he drives the documentation and standardization of core processes, to focus on innovation and avoid redundancy to optimize every workstation within the manufacturing environment to seamlessly synch operations, transmit data across systems and servers, and commonize terminology across regions to optimize continuous operations.
Which challenges are shaping innovation in global tooling?
Right now, it’s about accommodating high-mix/low-volume customization in the high-voltage arena. For example, automakers are looking for differentiated solutions, and this is driving TE to develop equally unique solutions, including connectors and harnesses. To support them, my team of Application Tooling engineers has developed a high-voltage applicator capable of quick die changes as well as a new high-force terminator.
In the automotive and industrial segments, manufacturers are moving toward smaller wire sizes, especially for hybrid electric mobility applications. With this, they are developing solutions in ultra-small sizes, so they can expand infotainment and intelligence functionality within a smaller, denser space. These trends require unique tooling solutions that were uncommon just a few years ago.
To ensure we are moving at the customer’s pace, as well as the market’s, I encourage my team – particularly the early-career engineers – to be bold when analyzing requirements and making decisions. I like to remind them that no one ever has all the facts they need to make a decision, but a good engineer and future leader will understand how to take the information available and make the best decision possible at that time. It takes time to gain this confidence, yet it is crucial to thinking big and keeping pace with the speed of innovation.
How is your team helping customers take advantage of market trends and technology innovations?
Flat out, we focus on providing our customers with the highest quality solutions that offer the longest product life available. By designing in flexibility today, we enable customers to keep TE products in service longer than a competitor’s product. Providing solutions designed for longer service life and reliable productivity means higher profits for our customers. We design our tooling for optimal integration and adaptability, with not only TE products but also with those complimentary components required for a full manufacturing facility.
For example, we are seeing that an increase in global expectations for accountability is driving the need for unprecedented levels of traceability. The ability to trace the origins of a crimped terminal down to a specific machine with date/time stamp is still not reality today but it is quickly coming. To enable this, all production equipment must be connected and tracking every crimp. From manual bar code scanning to artificial intelligence tracking, the evolution of data connectivity within factories is set for a rapid evolution.
These are the kinds of challenges we help our customers resolve. I love the challenge of a difficult problem, it pulls me in, and I approach it like a game. First, take the time needed to learn the rules of the issue and follow the logic until you find the right path, then attack it 100% to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. My maternal grandfather was a tremendous influence on my approach to problem solving. A product of the Great Depression, he instilled in me an indominable work ethic and nurtured an ability to adapt to ever changing situations: Make a plan, work hard, and stay flexible, adjusting as the dynamics you can’t control flow around you.
Make a plan, work hard, and stay flexible, adjusting as the dynamics you can’t control flow around you.
Greg empowers his team to work collaboratively with customers. Greg empowers his team to work collaboratively with customers. For Greg, partnering with customers is crucial to conceptualizing solutions that they can implement globally and evolve flexibly around new opportunities, such as the market shift toward integrated technology that's increasing with the emergence of Industry 4.0. Enabling customers to grow their business around these opportunities begins with helping them understand tooling innovation and interoperability. To achieve this, Greg keeps a close eye on how industry is working to define future-state production. Across his team, he drives the documentation and standardization of core processes, to focus on innovation and avoid redundancy to optimize every workstation within the manufacturing environment to seamlessly synch operations, transmit data across systems and servers, and commonize terminology across regions to optimize continuous operations.
Which challenges are shaping innovation in global tooling?
Right now, it’s about accommodating high-mix/low-volume customization in the high-voltage arena. For example, automakers are looking for differentiated solutions, and this is driving TE to develop equally unique solutions, including connectors and harnesses. To support them, my team of Application Tooling engineers has developed a high-voltage applicator capable of quick die changes as well as a new high-force terminator.
In the automotive and industrial segments, manufacturers are moving toward smaller wire sizes, especially for hybrid electric mobility applications. With this, they are developing solutions in ultra-small sizes, so they can expand infotainment and intelligence functionality within a smaller, denser space. These trends require unique tooling solutions that were uncommon just a few years ago.
To ensure we are moving at the customer’s pace, as well as the market’s, I encourage my team – particularly the early-career engineers – to be bold when analyzing requirements and making decisions. I like to remind them that no one ever has all the facts they need to make a decision, but a good engineer and future leader will understand how to take the information available and make the best decision possible at that time. It takes time to gain this confidence, yet it is crucial to thinking big and keeping pace with the speed of innovation.
How is your team helping customers take advantage of market trends and technology innovations?
Flat out, we focus on providing our customers with the highest quality solutions that offer the longest product life available. By designing in flexibility today, we enable customers to keep TE products in service longer than a competitor’s product. Providing solutions designed for longer service life and reliable productivity means higher profits for our customers. We design our tooling for optimal integration and adaptability, with not only TE products but also with those complimentary components required for a full manufacturing facility.
For example, we are seeing that an increase in global expectations for accountability is driving the need for unprecedented levels of traceability. The ability to trace the origins of a crimped terminal down to a specific machine with date/time stamp is still not reality today but it is quickly coming. To enable this, all production equipment must be connected and tracking every crimp. From manual bar code scanning to artificial intelligence tracking, the evolution of data connectivity within factories is set for a rapid evolution.
These are the kinds of challenges we help our customers resolve. I love the challenge of a difficult problem, it pulls me in, and I approach it like a game. First, take the time needed to learn the rules of the issue and follow the logic until you find the right path, then attack it 100% to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. My maternal grandfather was a tremendous influence on my approach to problem solving. A product of the Great Depression, he instilled in me an indominable work ethic and nurtured an ability to adapt to ever changing situations: Make a plan, work hard, and stay flexible, adjusting as the dynamics you can’t control flow around you.
