Page 30: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2016)

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Volvo Penta’s CTO

Johan Carlsson extolling the virtues of “Over-investing in customer dialogue”

BY GREG TRAUTHWEIN

Maritime Reporter was recently af- & forded the oppor- tunity to test drive

Volvo Penta pow- ered boats off the coast of Sweden & interview Johan

Carlsson, CTO,

Volvo Penta.

IN YOUR ROLE AS CTO YOU HAVE TO

MELD AND RATIONALIZE REGULATION,

CUSTOMER DEMANDS AND MANUFAC-

TURING ISSUES: WHICH DO YOU FIND

THE MOST CHALLENGING?

You get a lot of opportunities coming from technology and a lot of pressure coming from legislation, and a variety of customer demands (realizing that each customer and their situation is unique). In understanding our own manu- facturing capabilities (and challenges), in un- derstanding the speci? cs of regulation, and in understanding what are the actual customer requirements, it is the third one that is always the trickiest. So I tend to over-invest on the cus- tomer dialogue side to understand what they 30 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • AUGUST 2016

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