03-02-2016 ASML is the market leader in lithography systems for semiconductor manufacturers. The company designs, develops, builds and maintains the machines that keep its customers at the forefront of the world. To ensure optimal customer service, effective customer support is essential.
ASML is strongly committed to service close to the customer
Jean Houbiers, manager of the Training & Knowledge Management department, explains why they continuously train their engineers; "Our goal is to raise the effectiveness of the people to a higher level so that we can continue to improve the service we provide to our customers.
Experience
Jean:'New engineers first follow four weeks of intensive training. They are then aware of the complexity of the installations and can help in resolving situations. After the training they learn the necessary skills under the guidance of experienced engineers in the field. "This way, the engineers' skills grow rapidly. When training in the field, the best people are deployed. For example, it may happen that engineers from Taiwan, temporarily in China, take care of the training of colleagues. And that principle is also used for experienced colleagues working on new installations.
Time to market
Because ASML customers want to respond quickly to new trends, the time when new machines grow from design to product, the time to market, is also short. Experiences of the engineers in the field are used for product improvements and training. This steep learning curve matches the speed at which ASML customers are deploying their new machine. Training machines are of each product line. For new products, these are in Veldhoven, for existing product lines that are close to most customers, In Taiwan.
Structure
In order to quickly learn from faults and to effectively communicate information, a unified way of trouble shooting is essential.
One of the men working on the rollout is John Jeuken. He initially noticed some scepticism among the experienced engineers. What the engineers had been doing for years in a certain way was often in people's heads and not in the system.
Scepticism has now made way for recognition and appreciation. John notices that the focus on a structured way of solving malfunctions has an effect anyway. Even other departments ask us if they can follow the training. That's also a signal that we're doing good. The practice-oriented approach to work with CoThink to make new and experienced colleagues proficient works. Higher management supports the approach and the number of ambassadors is growing.
John: 'We call this structured approach ASML Trouble Shooting. This is the CoThink method in an ASML tailor-made suit'.
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