When put under pressure, ideas start to pop

When put under pressure, ideas start to pop

- 2020 highlights in FRECON

What a year! Chaotic or not, it was an eventful year for FRECON. With the global scene turned upside down, the market looked a bit gloomy in 2020. But that’s not how we wanted it in FRECON! Where one door closes, another one opens. A new CCO and a house full of technical nerds meant new ideas popping in all directions – and this became the starting point to our very own coronavirus vaccine. In 2020, we certainly planted our flag on the Danish market and hopefully North America very soon. Among other things, we went from advertising in the Danish newspaper Børsen to becoming the lead story in their business section. The past year in FRECON is by no means over… It’s just the beginning of something new and exciting.

A tough situation in 2020 unfortunately forced many Danish companies to surrender. Fortunately, this was far from the outcome in FRECON. Our management immediately started discussing the possibilities of a more agile approach to navigating a corona-affected market. The starting point of our solution was very simple: Post-Its. If you ask FRECON’s CEO Claus Mølgaard Jensen, you should never underestimate the small colored patch, which has contributed to rethinking our business.

“There are a myriad of systematized approaches to dealing with a situation like this, where we are put under a lot of pressure. Post-Its turned out to be a way to go. We invited all of our employees to contribute to a number of innovation workshops, and all of our ideas for a corona solution started to pop,” says Claus.

Orange, yellow, green, purple and pink Post-Its

FRECON’s innovation workshops have certainly shown their worth. The past year has been marked by our neon colored Post-Its, which still decorate the walls and are regularly moved around according to process and status. The little colored patches have carried us in completely new directions, and they have opened up new and exciting collaborative doors. Not least, they have given us a lot of self-insight into the FRECON culture and the DNA that forms the basis of our services and competencies.

Ideas popping – it’s a challenge to stop

“Corona has sharpened our view on a significant cornerstone of our DNA. We are a mosaic team of technical nerds who always bring that something extra,” says CCO in FRECON, Michael Elefsen and continues:

“We must in no way compete with or stand on an equal footing with our customers or partners, because that will depreciate ourselves. And that’s not what we do. We are a form of external catalyst that, with fresh new eyes and sometimes whimsical ideas, make the small difference in the big picture. Trustworthy and loyal, but able to challenge existing and new solutions when needed. Our own challenge is to stop generating new ideas, when we are actually made of creative and curious minds with diverse experiences across the board,” says FRECON’s CCO, Michael Elefsen.

Team FRECON is a mosaic team of technical nerds popping with creative ideas for coping the corona crisis in 2020.

Team FRECON is a mosaic team of technical nerds popping with creative ideas for coping the corona crisis in 2020.

Together we kick start Denmark

2020 has been a year of thinking outside the box and this among others resulted in our participation as consulting engineers in the project called “genstartNU” (translates “restartNOW”) by the Danish Industry Foundation. This means we have been granted free consultancy hours for 100 different SMEs across the country. What an early Christmas present for all parties. It is a project that really keeps the steam going, as we must always be willing to adapt and be able to generate great value within the allocated 50 hours for each project.

“We’ve got a lot of creative engineers attached to the restart project, because we have to go across a wide range of industries. We face everything from sustainable food solutions to innovative machinery equipment, and it can be everything from solving quality problems, cost optimization, data analysis, advanced CFD calculations (Computational Fluid Dynamics), compilation of CO2 calculations, etc .. It’s right up our alley,” says CEO of FRECON, Claus Mølgaard Jensen.

The year offered a collaboration with well-known investment darling

Through the restart project with the Danish Industry Foundation, we have among others helped the investment darling of Jesper Buch and Jacob Risgaard, WeldingDroid, in gaining a better sales scope. With our load capacity calculations, we found that their welding machine can take 3-400 kilo heavier pipes than firstly assumed. Energy Cool got a cost optimization of their cooling solution, thus saving both steel and labor hours. And PP Techniq had their two concepts tested for an innovative weather protection system for their blade access platform.

The small player and market-leading industrial giants united

In the slipstream of an agile agenda, our participation in the Sustainable Industry Alliance (SIA) has also become a reality. When you open one door, a stream ​​of new doors often open. FRECON was invited by The Trade Council into the SIA project due to the visible success of participating in the restart project with the Danish Industry Foundation. In SIA, we are one of nine selected Danish companies, including Grundfos and Danfoss, which in collaboration will offer joint sustainable solutions to the North American food industry. This story caught the eye of the well-renowned Danish newspaper Børsen. Thus, we went from being an advertiser to becoming a top story in the business section.

Shhh… This is still in its initial phase

The most recent alliance is BIG SCIENCE. How this will turn out is still to be decided on an international level. It’s all hush hush… but very exciting!

Sustainable opportunity with energy storage project

This year we have completed the interesting and award-winning EUDP project on Thermal Storage, which was lead by Stiesdal Storage Technology and in which FRECON has also played a part. If you look closely in the video, you can see our consultant Arne in the background. He was responsible for some of the project’s complex CFD calculations.

Featured in video on dealing with corona crisis

With hiring a new CCO, Michael Elefsen in March 2020, extra focus was placed on FRECON’s commercial initiatives, which has proven to be a big part of our Corona vaccine. Michael has brought a great energy boost and a solid experience in connecting technical services with commercial output.

Thus, the past year in FRECON has offered a lot of visibility on digital platforms and in printed media. Among other things, we have participated in a video from “Fremstillingsindustrien” (ed. part of Confederation of Danish Industry), where we show and tell how we handled the pressure and challenges due to the coronavirus.

A year with lots of buzz

In sum, the past corona-affected year has been crazy for us, but in a cool way too… if you dare to say so in a situation, we all take very seriously. We believe that in just the right time, we found our very own FRECON vaccine, where Post-Its, creative minds and popping ideas, and not least commercial elements have positioned us for the future. We have certainly planted our FRECON flag around the whole country, and we are very much looking forward to 2021, where we hope to reap the rewards a 2020 filled with hard work and new initiatives.

 

Thank you to all customers, partners and our creative consultants for a 2020 on common ground.