How your supplier can train you on the latest product innovations in the infrared sector

Most companies are currently facing the major challenge of embracing collaborative innovation and successfully implementing supplier innovation in what can be a pathway to creating strategic value.

Supplier-sourced innovation requires regular dialog and interaction about the company's market insights, its innovative projects and the key components of its technology roadmap…

When it comes to encouraging innovation, an organization needs to collaborate with agile suppliers who are capable of keeping pace with changes in its business model (especially guided by the digital revolution).

Therefore, your supplier must be clued into your business to clearly identify your needs. But information transfers and customer training also need to be an integral part of its organizational structure if it wants to ensure that both parties' skills and expertise are used to best effect.

LYNRED possesses this innate ability to cooperate with its customers. This article takes a look at what you can expect from your supplier for driving your innovative projects.

Training center

Providing customers with a dedicated research and training portal is key to forging an innovation-oriented customer-supplier relationship. Suppliers with an onsite training center can host the customer and its teams within their very own facilities. As such, the customer has access to all the hardware resources required to lead its research activities, including specific manufacturing equipment, test environments and the products' technical documentation.

The customer can test how its products perform after incorporating the latest infrared sensors and thereby move its product innovation strategy forward.

This explains why a training center is an absolute must. Customers can approve the product or identify solutions for improving performance. In some cases, this test environment can be rolled out directly on the customer's premises.

E-learning

Training is clearly a critical part of the innovation process. The training market has undergone tremendous changes with a new array of teaching methods, including distance learning. E-learning allows customers to check out the content designed and produced exclusively by the supplier at their own pace and whenever required. Such training can either be informative or highly technical. Such flexibility means that the customer and its employees can consume the information at their own rhythm and according to their current knowledge. For example, LYNRED has developed a training module to familiarize customers with the core concepts of the infrared imaging technology in just a few hours. This module also provides an easier way of incorporating new employees into project teams.

This case study follows one LYNRED customer through the entire customer support process.

Customer support

Dedicated high-quality customer support teams are a prerequisite for fostering innovation. They are a mission-critical asset for any innovative project. They draw on the feedback and expertise developed during the organization's various projects and they harness that knowledge to offer a range of increasingly best-fit services. Customer support services rely on the skills and involvement of the company's R&D experts, the design office and the product teams. They acquire a clear and in-depth understanding of the areas of expertise available to the organization's customers.

Customers receive support and guidance with their innovation projects while enjoying access to up-to-date information on the latest IR developments, new technical requirements and integration procedures.

Documentation, FAQ and customer portal

As part of a long-term partnership and collaborative innovation strategy, feel free to check out the type of documentation available from your supplier. A library stocked with practical documents such as users guides, technical specifications and FAQs, and access to a personalized extranet portal are real assets that customers can leverage for all their innovation projects. Similarly, our application note guides customers in implementing our products and provides insights into the best practices for specific applications or use cases. These information sources are constantly updated and enable the customer's teams to continually learn and improve their knowledge.

Webinars

Webinars provide suppliers with another way of sharing information with their customers and staying in touch. Dozens and even hundreds of people can take part. Therefore, training can be delivered seamlessly without having to worry about the venue's location and size. The interactive aspect of a web-based course allows participants to go much further than a simple online conference.  It provides speakers and participants with a real forum for interaction. This type of platform builds trust and generates innovative ideas and solutions. Having the flexibility and opportunity to receive intel from a supplier on a given subject anytime and anywhere is a major advantage for several companies!

Innovation forms the backbone of LYNRED's activities. Innovation is mainly incremental, such as enhancing sensitivity, reducing pixel pitch and improving enclosures. These product enhancements build on the company's disruptive innovations and accelerate the time to market, while keeping the competition trailing in its wake.

A successful supplier innovation strategy is based on the organization of an entire structured ecosystem, but the framework needs to offer the necessary agility to spawn and develop new opportunities. These collaborative arrangements may be more complex and dynamic, but they are widely tearing up the rule book on the traditional relationship between companies and their suppliers.

This case study follows one LYNRED customer through the entire customer support process.