What is your name and position within Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence?
My name is Paolo De Bortoli and I’m the Sheet Metal Product Line Manager.
How did you get into this line of work?
I started my career as a Junior Buyer and after three years I moved to the role of Export Manager for Emerging Markets in 2000. I fulfilled this role for several years, developing Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence’s business in Eastern Europe, Mediterranean, Middle East, and Africa. Then I took the opportunity to start a new challenge with the Sheet Metal Product Line, first covering the EMEA market before taking on Global responsibility.
What does your day-to-day look like at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence?
I’m responsible for technical development and the introduction of sheet metal solutions to the COs. On a day-to-day basis I’m working to improve cooperation between the factories, COs and R&D departments, in addition to visiting customers, who remain the most important source of information to better understand how to improve our products.
The sales process for our different sheet metal solutions are various and can be highly complex. For some customers, we need to support them with setting up foundations for their coordinate measuring machines (CMMs). For some, such as in the automotive industry, we will support them with their own specific and industry standard machine tests. There’s a lot to consider to ensure that – both internally and externally – the right people get the right technical information they need and the right commercial support.
What major changes do you see impacting sheet metal inspection over the next five years?
As with many areas of manufacturing, we’re seeing an increasing push toward automation. There’s a thirst for getting measurement results in the fastest possible way, so there will be greater adoption of different technologies to achieve this. For example, in the automotive industry I think we’ll see more use of white light scanner systems alongside the familiar horizontal arm CMMs, which are crucial for achieving the high accuracy required. Likewise, where we typically see gantry CMMs in industries like aerospace, shipbuilding, and power generation, I think we might also see increased use of laser tracker systems.
What are your future goals?
As a personal goal I’d like to grow my knowledge, learning from colleagues with more experience than I and from our customers as well.
In my role at Hexagon, I want to make sure that we are fully supporting the demands of our customers all over the world and maximising opportunities in our market. In my opinion the only way to grow is to stay very close to our customers, building a real partnership with them. Our success depends on our ability to deliver value and help them move their business forward.
My goals are to work to build greater confidence with our products, to expand Hexagon’s presence into more territories, and to develop solutions to meet future customer needs.
What do you do for fun outside of working at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence?
I travel a lot with my work, so when I have time I enjoy spending it with my family. I have a boy of six and a three year old girl, so they consume my few remaining energies! Nevertheless, from time to time I like playing basketball with friends.
What is something that most people don’t know about you?
Well, despite the sometimes hard positions we have to take in day-to-day work, I’m a very friendly person who really likes to laugh and joke.
