“I fully immerse myself in the group of professionals and make sure all members can reach their full potential. The better the teamwork, the better the achievement and it is my goal to make everybody part of that. As a consultant, I often communicate with clients about technical and procedural matters, and since my language skills are quite good, I usually document the automation processes. In the future, I hope to develop my coaching skills and integrate the human factor even further in my work as engineer.”
Professionalisation
Eric is an expert in Wonderware, a programming system specifically for industrial automation processes. Having had some years of experience in providing software training, at ICT Group another dimension was added. “Together with some colleagues, we developed an applied Wonderware training with a basic guideline for how we want to build systems. In general, engineers are quite inventive and will find a solution for any challenge they find themselves confronted with. But if each of us does their own thing, it will become very complicated to follow up on each other’s projects without compromising the high standards in quality we all strive for. Due to the increasing complexity of projects, it is evident that we need to apply a consistent approach to warrant the quality.” In the meantime, dozens of colleagues have been trained in the Wonderware guideline and clients are already benefitting from this method. “The best thing is that we haven’t taken away the autonomy of engineers and still reach an optimal implementation. It is great to make such a big step in professionalisation with the support of so many colleagues. Sometimes, I feel things aren’t moving forward fast enough, but I’m very pleased with these results.”
“Soon enough, I noticed that my talents and competencies were put to use.”
Work-life balance
“When I joined ICT Group seven years ago, my decision was based on the good work-life balance they stand for. In my previous job, I travelled the world for many years and I loved every minute of it. But my oldest child has just turned eight and I really wanted to always be there for my family. Nevertheless, I never feared a lack of professional challenges at ICT Group. Soon enough, I noticed that my talents and competencies were put to use. I’m being involved in recruitment activities, I counsel graduate students, and I’m working on a variety of projects. I’ve studied engineering, but psychology would also have matched my interests. At ICT Group, I have the opportunity to do both.”
Variety
“Just recently, a junior engineer and I delivered a major migration project for a client in the biochemical food industry. We’ve upgraded a Wonderware system with 80.000 I/Os (input/output data) 16 servers and 35 clients while the production plant was fully operational. Beforehand, we invested quite some time in designing a solid structure for the migration, resulting in a virtual flawless upgrade on location in only four days. Such a professional accomplishment makes me proud,” Eric says with a big smile. “In my experience, ICT Group offers employees a lot of space to pursue their professional interests. For me, it’s important to find a good mix between challenging engineering projects and other work. Other work refers to internal projects, the Wonderware training and recruitment activities. I also want to use my technical expertise as a senior project engineer and design systems as a technical consultant. It’s the variety that keeps me on edge and that is the reason why I’m very content with my job.”
