Fritz Studer AG (STUDER) is focusing on its motto ‘The Art of Grinding’ about the world of art, with its new image campaign. It presented its S31 artistically designed by Swiss artist Ata Bozaci, at the Motion Meeting in February 2020, which will also be shown at future trade fairs and exhibitions. Bozaci has designed key visuals for STUDER's three fundamental values: Quality, precision, and passion.

Sandro Bottazzo, Managing Director & CSO, Fritz Studer AG shared in this context, "Grinding is more than just machining. You must master all the parameters. If you are in control of all those, then you have mastered – ‘The Art of Grinding’. Grinding is an art, which not everyone can master with this degree of precision and quality."

Even in these challenging times, the company wants to make an impression with this campaign and does not want to rest on its past laurels. In this backdrop Bottazzo said, “In recent years we have concentrated increasingly on product promotion and are now consciously pursuing an image campaign, despite the current difficult economic environment.” Describing 2020 year as ‘Testing’ he further stated, “We should not worry about what we cannot do, but we should talk about our strengths."

Machines, Services, and Processes

Many projects and investments have already been pushed forward, like the company's continuing investment in its Steffisburg location. The targeted location has three highly automated, networked 5-axis milling centers are now in full serial production and are producing more than 400 different, complex machine components, partially unmanned. Consistent use of the latest machine, tool and process technology enables the highest precision requirements to be fulfilled efficiently and in the best quality. The Customer Care customer service is being further optimized, by incorporating a third tier between the Regional Service Manager (First Level Support) and Technical Support (Third Level Support), among other things. This so-called Solutions Support (Second Level Support) enables even faster and better service. Internally, the PuLs® initiative is being expanded and further intensified in collaboration with the other brands of the UNITED GRINDING Group.

Awareness of Quality and Deliverables

The company measures quality not only based on quality costs, measuring documents and checkpoints, but also places a strong focus on customer satisfaction and the number of repeat orders. It has been measuring the satisfaction and recommendation rate of the customers for years using the Net Promoter Score®. This is an important tool for receiving permanent feedback. The results are analyzed and interpreted monthly, in order to promptly define and implement improvement measures.

"Quality means fulfilling customers' expectations in every respect. This quality is defined by the requirements placed by a STUDER customer on our products and services", asserted Stephan Stoll, COO, Fritz Studer AG. "To ensure the required quality, every single employee must be aware of the overall concept of quality, and each one must ask themselves, where is my contribution to this".

 Overall Workpiece Precision

"Precision means the quality that a workpiece needs to deliver at the right time, in the right place. This does not just relate to fundamental parameters such as dimensional stability and the required form and position tolerances. All types of environmental influences must also be considered: Coolant, sensor technology, vibrations, climatic conditions, as well as the precision of bought-in parts", defined Alexander Heiter, Head - Mechanical Production, COO, Fritz Studer AG. "During the scraping process highly experienced employees work components to the required flatness and angularity using scrapers. No machine can do this so precisely".

Passion and Persistence

"Passion has to do with persistence. You do not instantly applaud the first result, but look to see how it could work even better. Passion is connected to the demand on quality of work. I believe this is central for STUDER. If 100 percent of all employees can agree on one thing, then that's quality. With our corporate and lean philosophy, PuLs®, we are constantly optimizing our processes", elaborated Daniel Renfer, Head - PuLs® Lean Management, Fritz Studer AG. "It is quite remarkable that many employees have been with us a very long time. And passion also means that when the going gets tough, when push comes to shove, you stand together and do much more than the average".

Understanding the Imagery for ‘The Art of Grinding’

The artist Ata Bozaci has designed the STUDER S31 with vivid imagination, with the suggestion of an eye comprising shapes in different blue tones, components drawn with a fine line, as if one could look through the metallic outer skin. Bozaci's implementation of the key visuals for STUDER's fundamental values is very striking: An eye stands for precision, a hand for quality and a heart for passion.

"We developed the concept so that the observer perceives the machine differently from different distances. We have integrated many typical parts and products from STUDER without going over the top", describes the artist on his work. "The key visuals were a graphic client work, intended for an ad campaign with different applications".

For more information: www.studer.com