Technical Applications and Digital Services Engineer

An ARBURG customer today can use a digital customer portal to get live application support in real-time, a host computer system (ALS) to digitally optimise their entire injection moulding production, and a ChatGPT-based engine to respond quickly to technical troubleshooting. These and other digital services will only become more advanced and more important. Therefore, Technical Applications and Digital Services Engineer Derek Cheetham is a busy man. His job has developed to help companies to implement and use these services, plus knowledge of evolving hardware including electric machines, robotics and automation, and – essentially – to communicate digital services to ARBURG colleagues as these tools change and improve.

Derek has served a decade at ARBURG this April, joining from ARBURG customer Southco in 2015. His career began as a machine operator at Powell & Harber in May 1995. In the 1980s and 1990s, many plastic products were seen as low value and disposable. “Operating these first-hand, I was impressed by the technology involved in making plastic parts, which changed my view of plastic products.” He received training to change moulds and set processes at Spaceminster in Milton Keynes. During his time at Powell & Harber (now part of Goodfish Group) he learned more about all aspects of injection moulding.

This experience helped Derek secure a new job in 2000 at Southco in Worcester, a big ARBURG customer. A large global company, it provided various training courses. “Southco pushed me through the British Polymer training Association courses. I passed all the courses I participated in, all with end-examinations, through IMT3 to IMT4 including practical exams for optimizing job processes.” He worked there for 15-years to a position where he was responsible for commissioning new moulds, progressing to  Process Optimisation Engineer, building deep knowledge of new ARBURG applications. Southco invested in electric machines and ARBURG robots and Derek received electric machine training from ARBURG. In 2015, a position came up at ARBURG in Warwick as an application engineer to support customers. Derek applied and got the job. Just as Derek joined, the additive manufacturing freeformer machine had a big push, and he needed to gain expertise in this new technology quickly, and soon after, digital services started to gain momentum in the UK and Ireland.

Derek’s first training course at ARBURG headquarters in Lossburg was on the freeformer, launched in 2013. Later that year he returned to Germany for formal training in a suite of new applications. “I was exposed to technologies that I hadn't used before, such as turntable machines, vertical and two-shot machines, and automation with the Multilift and other functions. This is very formal training, like a school curriculum with specialist trainers, and is provided to specialist roles in global subsidiaries over several weeks.” In the UK and Ireland, Derek is responsible for many areas: applications, training, digital services including arburgXworld and the freeformer. In Lossburg there is a team of people for each of these. “It can be a challenge to absorb and master all the content as it quickly evolves,” he says. Digital services have taken off, as mould shops get more comfortable with all digital technology. Now ARBURG is integrating AI into ALS, its primary digital services platform. This is helping company employees see the workings of the mould shop to make their jobs, and the company, more efficient.

The introduction of AI into moulding production means that planning software has become self-aware, Derek says. ALS monitors how much energy is used per part on specific machines. As this information bank grows, it shows planners which machine to use to be most energy-efficient. “Say there is a choice of three machines for a batch of 1,000 parts, the AI-enabled system selects this one because it uses less energy to produce those specific parts. The planners are more aware of the optimum machine to produce these parts for less cost.” AI is also used by the new tool called “Ask Arburg”. Like ChatGPT, it is a learning system based on customer feedback and ARBURG’s 60+ years of technical training manuals and content. “Through the app, customers can ask questions such as “what does this alarm mean?” or how to calculate the correct clamp force,” Derek says. “They receive the information on their mobile device, and by accepting yes or no, the system will learn from the feedback whether that information was helpful, i.e. correct. This will just get more accurate over time.”

With such fast product and service development, the challenge is keeping up with it and sharing it. Derek visits Lossburg more than most UK colleagues and is often the first to experience new machine functions and technology. Communicating this efficiently to staff that need to know about it is an area for improvement, says Derek. “Service engineers can visit fast-to-adopt customers, and they can be asked about a digital service they have limited knowledge of – often it is very new or upgraded. The challenge moving forward is to disseminate the knowledge I receive first from headquarters, more efficiently so others know about these new technologies and their benefits sooner. Not everyone needs to be an expert, but to know enough to talk to a customer, engage with it and support the enquiry.”

Derek likes to travel, and with his girlfriend has travelled several times to the Caribbean, including Jamaica, Cuba, Dominica and Mexico. He has plans to explore Southeast Asia when time allows. He visits the gym regularly and enjoys watching sport, especially Formula One.