Page 5 - Festo Smartbird

004/ 005

a fundamental technical principle is first of all derived from nature. Following its bionic adaptation, it is strategi-cally implemented in an energy-efficient application.

Learning to fly

Day after day, Jonathan Livingston Seagull works on per-fecting his flying skills. Despite many adversities he sets off time and again with passion and resolve. On each new flight, Jonathan acquires fresh knowledge; he hones his flying skills and experiments to vary the nuances. His willingness to learn is the impetus of his personal desire for freedom.

For the learning enterprise Festo, this means not only constantly perfecting its own behavioural patterns, but also maintaining an open mind for learning opportuni-ties. By learning, the company’s employees not only ex-pand their knowledge, but can also more fully exploit their creative potential.

Jonathan is able to grasp the mechanisms on which lear-ning process are founded, despite great hardship. He can discard former behavioural patterns in order to be free for new impulses. His endeavours as an individual ultimately make way for a concerted movement among his colony of seagulls.

Festo likewise subscribes to the principle of learning from one another and for one another. As with the her-ring gulls in the fable, a spiral of learning evolves – the