Diverse Workforce Takes on the Diverse Demands of Application Engineering

As the nexus between a range of departments, services and stakeholders, application engineers have the unique expertise and experience to bring everything together in a project.

When people think of engineers, they may picture a person or team involved in a singular mechanical or technical task. While the particular requirements of various industries see engineers specialising, there’s a branch of engineering where specialising actually means being good at a variety of things.

Application engineers are involved in many different aspects of a project, as the bridge between customers, sales, product development, manufacturing, marketing, strategy, and product management, while also providing customer-centric solutions, technical troubleshooting and on-site support. The diverse challenges of the job are best met by a diverse workforce.

“The job is very varied, with no working day like the other,” said Ulrike Wuestner, Head of TC LivTec EMEA for Continental, and 21 years with the company. “It’s a huge challenge to master the variety of products and the high complexity of associated application processes. But once there, then it’s the partnerships you build with customers and companies that really matter. With this you create a lot of trust, and working together means it is almost always possible to find a solution that works for all parties.”

Continental’s global application engineering team is spread across conveyer products, dynamics and suspension solutions, fluids, power transmission, service engineering, and surface solutions. The main objectives are to fulfil customer demands, support customer projects on-site and support the project lead, including in the pre-order phase, the order execution and the post-order phase. The job tasks extend to conducting product and technical trainings, participating in internal development projects, providing market and customer feedback about product performance, and putting forward ideas for innovation.

“Most rewarding is being able to help our customers in every situation and to support our sales teams with closing a deal,” said Alexandra Ng, Application Engineering Manager for Fluid Solution at Continental. “This is backed up by our high-quality products and a wide product selection, meaning we can support our customers when their needs go beyond the requirements of any given project.”

The all-round experts

Continental’s application engineers are as at home in offices and meeting rooms as they are in challenging on-site environments. Because an application engineer is essentially a problem-solver, they facilitate the exchanges between all the connected parties, wherever and whenever, to resolve issues and find solutions. They also have extensive knowledge of the company’s products and use this knowledge to solve problems that customers may otherwise struggle with.

Customers with limited engineering experience can rely on Continental to implement systems and solutions that are right for the application. As a team focused on customer-centric solutions, the application engineers share best practices, know all about the latest solutions and products, and provide training for customers to keep them up-to-date on their systems.

When a customer requires a replacement part, the Continental application engineering team steps in. Then, the service engineers, who are part of the application engineering team, plan and manage the part installation, and do so under completely safe conditions and in the shortest possible time.

As an example, at the Curragh North coal mine in Queensland, Australia, the application engineering team introduced Eco Extreme on the mine’s overland conveyor. The conveyor length is 20 kilometres and Continental’s Eco Extreme pulley covers enabled the team to use a lower belt strength ST1500 instead of ST2500. The measured friction value of 0.0083 for the ST1500 results in power savings of up to 30%.