After years of constant improvements in efficiency, which led to increased profitability, Aarbakke was recognized as “Norway’s smartest industrial company” in 2021. That same year, the idea to offer the Aarbakke mindset and methodology to other machining companies, was born.
“We are in the business of working smarter. We have a fundamental belief that everyone can always improve to be more efficient, more safe, more profitable. Having succeeded in doing so internally at Aarbakke, we decided to form a company to help others benefit from our learning,” says Rolf Thu, founder and CTO at Ignos.
Last week, Ignos management team visited GCE NODE in Kristiansand to present their idea to other cluster participants.
“We have introduced the term ‘The Learning Factory’. At Aarbakke we continuously learnt and increased machine utilization from 35 to 45 per cent, while reducing quality incidents by 10 per cent. On a NOK 50 million investment, Aarbakke has achived a return of NOK 80 million per year,” explained Thu.
He listed a few key success criteria: Make data speak human, build trust and transparence, build a culture for change, try new ideas (fail fast), and work smarter not harder.
