A situation I will never forget

An engineer as a salesman

In 2008, we put together the first storage automation robot, which we had already sold to the Pielavesi pharmacy, in our section at the Apteekkaripäivät fair. For the remainder of the fair, I stayed as “technical support” with the salesmen and demonstrated how the storage robot supplied boxes of sweets. The boxes were a replacement for medicine packages.

I guess my sales skills were not up to par, because after the fair had ended, our CEO Ossi admitted that he did not think I would be much of a salesman. As someone with technical education and training, I did not have the confidence to tap fair attendees on the shoulder and talk to them like a salesman. I would focus more on talking about the technological aspects, rather than how the device could help with the everyday operations of pharmacies.

Mika Rissanen
Automation Engineer
NewIcon’s first employee
Worked at NewIcon for 9 years

Alone on the job for the first time

I was commissioning an Iso-Fixu system by myself for the first time in Huittinen in January 2015. I was somewhat nervous, as I was not so sure about connecting our machine into a pharmacy system. I was also nervous about the software side, as I am not an expert in that field. During the commissioning process, you are bound to face situations where you simply do not know enough about everything: robots, logic, machine sight, software etc.

Luckily, I can always call our skilled on-call group, who will help me with anything I need. If they do not know something themselves, they will look into the matter. The group has proved valuable on many jobs. Additionally, I was not sure how I could clearly explain the operation of Iso-Fixu to the people of the pharmacy, who did not necessarily have a technical background and who were seeing the machine for the first time. However, we received good feedback from Huittinen and the customer was satisfied, once again.

Simo Hintsala
Commissioning Technician
Worked at NewIcon for about 2 years

Installer vs. cleaner

The job in Moscow was a memorable one. It was my first summer working for the company, and I immediately got to go to Moscow, where we also had time to become acquainted with the city with the help of a local tour guide. We installed an Iso-Fixu system and a 12-metre cash register conveyor at a pharmacy.

The conveyor has a funny memory related to it, even though it was not funny at the time. What happened was that the cleaner working at the pharmacy tore my floor tapes off, twice, right under my nose. I had spent a couple of hours measuring the attachment points for the conveyor and marked them on the floor with tape, so that I could use a laser to project them onto the ceiling. After the cleaner’s shenanigans, I decided to attach the tapes directly onto the ceiling. He did not bother to remove them from there.

Toni Ruotsalainen
Installer
Worked at NewIcon for about 3 years

Touch screen like a pizza

In the beginning of my career at NewIcon, I got to be involved in the product development project for a new smart medicine cabinet. The natural operating environment for a smart medicine cabinet is a hospital, which is why the development was carried out right from the start in collaboration with its first customer, the Kuopio University Hospital.

During the project, the device was tested, looked at in wonderment and admired extensively, both at NewIcon’s development facilities and the test cabinet at the ICU of the hospital. One of the most important aspects of good usability for a smart medicine cabinet is the location of the touch screen. One time, after a meeting with the ICU personnel had ended at the hospital, the personnel members asked us NewIcon employees to come to the test cabinet. The ICU people were full of excitement as they told us how they had been thinking about different locations for the touch screen.

That was when Petteri Kisonen took the screen in his hands. Petteri, the big man that he is, rotated the screen in his hands like a pizza and demonstrated the options they had thought about. It was a pleasure to watch as the personnel, experts in their own field, presented different options one after another and explained some practical basics. Everything about the situation told us that they wanted to create the best possible tool that would free up some time for treating patients and improve medicine safety. The results of that moment spent in the corridor can be seen in all current and future eMED ICON units.

Juha Laaksonen
Industrial Designer
Worked at NewIcon for 3 years

With a glint in an eye

Here at NewIcon, we laugh a lot together and play small pranks on our co-workers with a glint in an eye. It is a sort of funny and witty type of situational humour without offending anyone. It is refreshing to be pranked on and then laugh with the others. One time, I left my coffee cup unguarded and found out that it had received a generous helping of salt. I thought the coffee tasted funny, and then I realised what had transpired. “So that’s what they thought up this time,” I thought to myself. Another time, my computer was struck by a “virus”, whereupon the mouse cursor darted around the screen every time I tried to do something. Luckily, it was only a prank.

Anneli Meklin
Sales Secretary
Worked at NewIcon for 3 years