A master of many trades: Kristian Back knows Mapromec’s processes inside out

Process Developer Kristian Back’s career at Mapromec started in the sawing department driving a forklift more than 20 years ago. During the following decade, Kristian gathered experience on almost all the work phases of Mapromec’s production, such as honing, grinding, turning and packaging. In 2006, Mapromec’s production was completed with robot cells that included CNC grinding machines, marking the beginning of Kristian’s, a trained CNC machinist, specialization in robotics and automation.

“Automation and robotics are something I am truly enthusiastic about. Over the years, I have taken several training classes to maintain my expertise and have been responsible for acquiring robot cells to our production. It is very rewarding to see a work phase that has been done manually for the past 20 years to start functioning in a robot cell.”

Multi-faceted expertise on automation and the entire production chain

A few years ago, Kristian’s multi-faceted expertise on Mapromec’s production and its automation led to him transitioning into the role of Process Developer. As Process Developer, he cooperates with Mapromec’s development team in evaluating Mapromec’s processes, assessing and developing their efficiency, safety and productivity. The processes are often related to automation and robotics – Kristian and the team develop the tooling and programming of robots and assess ways for the company to utilize them to their full potential. Kristian also optimizes Mapromec’s internal logistics as well as work tasks by minimizing, for example, heavy lifting and unnecessary manual work phases.

Another topic that continues to be a larger part of Kristian’s work is sustainability. Mapromec actively takes measures to reduce their carbon footprint and to obtain important environment certificates. These measures include increasing the company’s level of recycling, cutting down on packaging materials and increasing the use of renewable energy.

“Sustainability measures are one of the most important developmental steps I am participating in”, Kristian says.

In addition to developmental work, Kristian’s daily tasks also include indirect purchases, property management, substituting for supervisors in different departments and overseeing the fluency of the company’s production.

“A large portion of my daily work has to do with making sure that our production is moving along unhinged. Are all machines functioning properly? Do we need to order tools? And finally, are we producing the expected level of quality? Quality control and monitoring play a significant role in our company and are therefore crucial from everyone’s perspective.”

Versatile tasks, great colleagues and investments on employee satisfaction

Kristian’s versatile, evolving and interesting work tasks are one of the reasons for him having stayed with Mapromec for more than two decades.

“I like variety and new challenges. My work days are almost never alike. I also have to say that we have a great group of employees who I genuinely enjoy working with. Another positive factor is the fact that Mapromec has really invested in employees’ job satisfaction over the past years. We have more comprehensive occupational health care, Smartum benefits and newly renovated spaces. It is great to see the company evolving and moving forward in this regard as well. We have a relatively low employee turnover rate, which implies that these investments are well received among us employees.”

According to Kristian, Mapromec steadily progressing does not only apply to employer practices, but to all of the company’s operations. In five years’ time, he sees Mapromec with a higher level of automation and sustainability, the same staff, further upgraded facilities and producing even better quality.

“It is motivating to be a part of the changes and the development steps that take place. I also feel like I personally have a lot more to learn. It is interesting to keep witnessing the development of the company and my own expertise.”

Get to know Mapromec's story

Read more about what it is like to work at Mapromec! (in Finnish)