Meet OMRON Application Engineer Joshua Hem

When did you join OMRON?

I started at OMRON as an intern in August 2018. I finished my internship in January the following year, when I was offered a temporary contract to stay on with the team while I continued my studies. Once completed, I was offered a fulltime position in November 2019.

What does your current role as an Application Engineer involve?

My main focus is to provide technical support for our clients. This covers areas such as proof of concepts, demonstrations, support on vision systems and mobile robots.

When did you first develop an interest in robotics and automation?

In my second year at uni we had a class where we had to program Siemens PLCs and Festo Didactic Modular Production System (MPS) stations. At that stage I had never really had much experience in programming, but I loved being able to create a sequence for a machine and was very excited at the end to see it all working. This experience allowed me to compete in a Mechatronics competition for RMIT which lead me to my internship within OMRON.

What’s the best thing about working for OMRON?

The team I work with makes this job so enjoyable and this makes it exciting to come to work every day. I also love the challenge of coming up against problems, having to dive into the detail of the product and then to find a solution that isn’t just out of a manual.

How does OMRON stand apart from its competitors?

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed with my time at OMRON and speaking to customers is that OMRON stands out because of the way we treat our customers. We offer great and friendly support and it’s so impressive to see the extensive knowledge of our team. They are the main reasons I love working for OMRON.

What’s been the key to the company’s success?

With my short time with OMRON, (much of it operating during the COVID pandemic), I have not only seen the company survive through this period but flourish. This is a testament to all the hard-working staff at OMRON and to be able to continue to grow our business in challenging times. Our extensive and constantly growing range of products allows us to provide complex solutions to meet our customers’ needs.

What’s been your greatest achievement with the company?

One of my biggest achievements is that I was able to successfully install an LD250 Mobile Robot demo on-site within two days in the week before our Christmas shutdown. The system ran without any major faults during this period and was a big achievement for me as it was my first unsupervised LD install.

How has your expertise assisted clients in achieving their goals?

Working with vision gives me many opportunities to hear how customers want to improve business efficiency with traceability and fully automated solutions. By using my experience in vision, I am able to provide potential solutions by performing testing and provide a report to customers with sample images allowing them to see how their goals can be brought to reality.