In today's edition of our 'Liquid Family' series, I’m thrilled to introduce you to a pivotal member of our team - Diego Arias. With 6 years under his belt at Liquid, Diego has not just been a part of our journey but has played a significant role in shaping it. As our Metrology Manager, he blends his inspiring engagement with a unique mix of technical expertise and administrative acumen, making him an invaluable asset to both our team and our customers.
Diego's journey with Liquid is a testament to his commitment and skill. His role, which spans from providing critical calibration services to leading our Metrology team, underscores the diverse expertise and the dynamic approach that Liquid prides itself on. His contributions have been instrumental in helping us deliver on our promise: “We Make It Easier!”
In our conversation, Diego introduces us to his role, his journey to Liquid, and the values that drive him both professionally and personally. So, let's dive in and get to know the man who's been a cornerstone of our success at Liquid.
I am very happy to get to do this interview with you, Diego! Can you please tell us about your role at Liquid?
Diego: I am the lead of the Metrology and Instrumentation department of the company and, also, I work as a Field service resource which means that my role is a mix between administrative and technical responsibilities.
In general, I can say that I am in close contact with our customers of calibration services to provide them with information, quotes, and guidance about our services and, in the other hand, I am responsible to lead our team of specialists in Metrology. Review and get new standards, evaluate with them new services and opportunities, provide feedback regarding points of improvement in our day by day and to track and supervise the consecution of the goals for our department.
In addition, as mentioned before, I also join calibration or commissioning missions anywhere the company need me, so my role when on site is to be another Field service specialist focused on following the working plan that we develop before going to site, looking for points of improvement when possible and to help and provide the best service possible to our customers.
What got you to join Liquid?
Diego: I would say that Liquid came to my life in a very unexpected way, I first met the company back in 2015 when I was working as a Metrologist in the major Calibration Laboratory of Central America on these days.
Liquid came to us to figure a way to have a partnership to have resources available to solve a request of calibration specialists for the American market.
In September 2015 I joined the first calibration mission, and, after almost 2 years of continued support, the company offered me the chance to be a full-time employee to be involved in other services and departments. I must say that from the very beginning I was attracted for the way of working and the philosophy of the company.
So, in September 2017 I joined the company as a Field Service Technician to support the global operations and to continue delivering calibration services to our customers in USA, after more than 6 years I’m here looking forward for more years of exciting experiences 😊.
How would you explain what Liquid does and which values we try to deliver to our customers?
Diego: We are a kind of all-in-one Company, I hope people don’t misunderstand what I’m stating. To me, we are an entity that is comprised of many people with different backgrounds, all are, in their areas, such matter experts, which make us able to deliver high quality work/results to our customers around the world in areas like Processing of food and beverages, Quality Control, Automation, Process Design, Calibration of instruments, Maintenance and Food safety.
In simple words, we offer services in different critical areas to help our customers to improve their performance in a substantial way.
Regarding our values, we all are very bold and passionate about the things we do, every service that is delivered is coming from the deepest of our own. At Liquid, we are very “customer centric” so everyone here is always looking to deliver each service with ethics, empathy, honesty, quality, and professionalism.
Where do you see that Liquid does a difference for our customers?
Diego: From my perspective, one the most important things where we have a differentiator compared to our competitors is our People, as I mentioned before, we have a lineup of great human beings (first of all) that are highly skilled professionals with a support service mindset that makes our customers feel they are in the best hands possible.
Additionally, the company has been fostering along the years the importance of things like collaboration, teamwork, ethics, and team playing which set apart our services from the rest of the companies.
Can you tell us about a project that you are particularly satisfied with?
Diego: I can recall some projects along my career at Liquid, but I will mention one from my department and one related to process design.
Back in 2017, we been requested to support a company in Pennsylvania to provide calibration and to troubleshoot some issues they had with all the readouts in their Sterilizer, to put in perspective the situation, the measuring values from critical devices are displayed in different recorders and readouts and all of them where not showing the same or at least values closer to each other. So, I went there together with an Automation specialist to troubleshoot the problems, we expend 3 days, some of them working more than 14 hours tracking the behavior of the devices, reviewing electrical drawings to figure where the signals come from and where them go and based on it, begin to apply adjustments in the output / input of different signals to tune all the values to make them fit. After these 3 days of hard work the module was set in the best way possible and it was the beginning of a long-term relationship with the customer, nowadays, they have 3 processing lines with a total of more than 230 instruments that are calibrated by liquid every year.
An additional one is related to an upgrade done to a customer in Vermont, Liquid made the design to upgrade an old milk standardization unit. This was back in 2021, I was involved in the commissioning of this project together with Tabish Shaik one of our automation specialists. We replaced the old panel with a new one with updated components, the old density/mass flow meter and, additionally, a feature was added to make flushes with hot water to extend the operational times and to avoid buttering of the system. After this service, the customer reported an improvement in the production higher than 20 % compared to the past system which shown that our services and products are highly reliable.
What are the best parts about working at Liquid?
Diego: Well, there are many things that I can list about this topic but there are 3 that can be at the top of.
The first one is the cultural diversity; we are a company that has people from 17+ countries which makes the work more enjoyable when it comes to the human relations and due the size of the company you can get in contact easily with many of them.
The second is the opportunity to be involved in different areas of the company, as an example I am the lead of Metrology but, also used to work supporting the electrical design department when upgrades in panels are done, support the commissioning of new modules like Milk Fat Standardizers. So, when you join the company is like getting to a world where you can move in different areas of knowledge with total freedom if you wish, meaning that you can learn and grow up as professional and human being.
The third one I can mention the flexibility, this another important thing, we are encouraged to make decisions by our own, to use our common sense in order to choose the best way possible to reach our goals, we are not like a super squared organization.
And, as a bonus 😊, I can mention that we are like a huge family, and I felt this from the very first time I met the company, people at liquid is warm, kind and always there to help each other no matter if you have 1 day or many years with us, everybody is standing out to help whenever needed and besides of being awesome is something that we can feel proud about it as a Company.
Thank you, Diego! Can you finally tell us one thing outside of work that you are passionate about?
Diego:That’s a bit complicated question to answer jajaja, I like many things outside the work, but I can say that staying with my family, especially due the time availability that we as regular travelers suffers sometimes, is one of these things.
Additionally, I like to help people and my way to help is teaching, when have time and someone needs (my son is my #1 student 😊), I really enjoy to sit down to explain any topic related to mathematics, physics, or chemistry.
There are some other things like listen to music, reading, work out, hiking and scuba diving that are part of the things I enjoy doing out of my regular daily routines.
Thank you, Diego for your time and for being a part of the Liquid Family.
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If you have any questions or are interested in joining Diego and the Liquid team in our journey to making it easier for our customers - please check out our career page or feel free to reach out to me directly.
// Sincerely, Daniel Ekström Founder, Liquid Consulting