Orgalime elected Tomas Hedenborg of Fastems as its next President

“Orgalime is delighted to welcome Mr Hedenborg into the fold.  His experience of leading a company whose mission is central to the digitalisation of their clients’ products and processes will prove invaluable at this time: the synergies are enormous, as we in Orgalime try to ensure that the full potential of the digitalisation of industry and the economy contributes to revitalising manufacturing investment in Europe. Europe has always recovered from difficult economic situations, such as the one we are living today, through technological innovation which has allowed us to maintain our global competitiveness. And today the opportunity is there again.” said Adrian Harris, Director General of Orgalime.

Mr Hedenborg who is leading the strategic change of direction within his own group said “The advances brought about by automation and now digitalisation of products and processes is a fantastic opportunity for us. Maintaining our competitive edge is a constant driver for us and this is of course based on constant innovation. This is true for our company and it is true for our industry as a whole too.  The renaissance of manufacturing here in Europe is starting and I am convinced that growth in this area can be exponential. It is up to us to seize this opportunity for the uture of our company, our staff and employment.”  

Having hosted a ‘hackathon' event at his company back in May this year, Hedenborg recognises the potential of the younger generation to come up with new ideas on which to build new Industrial Internet solutions for Fastems.  “We wanted people that don’t know our company well to “pay us a visit”; such people are not bound by existing norms and ways of thinking inside the company. Instead, they can more freely question the way we do things around here, and then come up with fresh ideas.”  As many as nine concrete ideas were conceived during the event and even if only one of those ideas is eventually commercialised, the hackathon was clearly worth the investment. “The ideas are all related to themes already present in our R&D programmes; however, this event gave us interesting, fresh angles which will allow us to better exploit the potential that the industrial internet offers companies such as ours” he added.

“It is with such alternative ways of thinking coming from both well established companies and new entrants that we can expect our industry to be at the centre of the “Industrie 4.0” and the Internet of Things. And here we expect the institutions to help us to achieve the right framework conditions in the Europe so as to allow the EU to reach its stated core goal of jobs and growth” concluded Harris.