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And the winner is…

Readers vote for the best article in TRANSFER magazine in 2015

The state of Baden-Württemberg has scooped prizes on two fronts. Katharina Eide, a Steinbeis University Berlin student from Amstetten, was the grab bag winner after voting for the best article in TRANSFER magazine in 2015. It was her lucky day so she can now read issues of TRANSFER on her very own iPad Air2. The author of the article that was voted best feature is also from the state of big thinkers and busybody inventors: Prof. Dr. Peter Neugebauer is director of Automotive Testing, the Steinbeis Enterprise at Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences.

The deluge of emails that came into the TRANSFER office nearly set our inbox on fire. More than 700 readers voted for the best article and there was a clear winner with 133 readers voting for the article on “The Future of Transportation - Will Tomorrow’s Cars be Determined only by Technology?” The article was written by Peter Neugebauer and was part of the 1/2015 feature topic on the automotive industry. In his article, the author made a critical assessment of the technical and societal challenges posed by the shift to e-travel.

Business 4.0: real vs. digital challenges

Steinbeis Consulting Day 2016

Digital transformation across entire sectors of industry, the intensified convergence of key enabling technologies, and the increasing amount of networking going on within markets and commerce – trends that are a central challenge to the effectiveness of modern businesses. This year’s Steinbeis Consulting Day will take a detailed look at Business 4.0. The event will take place on June 29, 2016 at the Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart.

During the day, Business 4.0 will be looked at from three angles. In the first session, the topic will be introduced from the viewpoint of human resources. A speaker from the world of science and academia will give insights into the latest research findings and an experienced business consultant will critically review these from a more practice-based standpoint. Following this, a company will discuss the changes it is making to adapt to “working world 4.0” in a simulated consulting session as part of a “live case” exercise.

The second session then takes a closer look at process management. This will also involve a speech followed by a live case exercise. The third and final session will present the main keynote speech of the Consulting Day 2016: Business 4.0 – a Revolution in the Working World? This will be followed by an interactive panel discussion with a select group of experts. All speakers and the audience will have a chance to get involved at this stage.

Contact

Attendance at the Consulting Day is free. To find out more and register online, go to www.steinbeis-consulting-tag.de.

Marina Tyurmina
Steinbeis Headquarters (Stuttgart)
marina.tyurmina@stw.de

Collaboration on the Internet of Things

Industry 4.0 platform and the Industrial Internet Consortium to join forces

At a recent meet-up in Zurich between representatives of the German platform Industry 4.0 and the American Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), both parties agreed they should work together more closely in the future. Much of the conversation revolved around the overlaps between two architecture models called the reference architecture model for Industry 4.0 (RAMI) and the industrial internet reference architecture (IIRA). The aim should be to safeguard the future interoperability of the two systems. The German team working on behalf of the IIC will operate under the auspices of the Steinbeis Transfer Center Innovationsforum Industrie (STCII).

The delegates at the meeting in Zurich also decided that both initiative groups will collaborate more closely on standardization and agreed they should share common testing environments. They drafted a joint roadmap for this. The delegates at the meeting consisted of an open and informal group of representatives from Bosch, Cisco, IIC, Pepperl + Fuchs, SAP, Siemens, the Ferdinand Steinbeis Institute (Steinbeis Foundation) and ThingsWise.

Prof. Dr. Heiner Lasi, director of the Ferdinand Steinbeis Institute and the German team representative for the IIC, confirmed that, “The meeting was a total success and collaboration between the two organizations is a necessary and important development for companies involved in global competition that face the challenges posed by digitalization.”

The meeting was the result of an initiative started by Bosch and SAP, which are both members of the steering committee of the two organizations. The informal group that gathered at this first meeting will continue its work in bringing the IIC and the Industry 4.0 platform together. The output of work carried out by a collaborative task force will also flow into activities being carried out by the German members of the IIC.

Contact

More information about the German team representing the IIC:

Sandra Haltmayer
Ferdinand Steinbeis Institute (Stuttgart)
sandra.haltmayer@stw.de

Steinbeis Networking Platform for SMEs

Steinbeis Entrepreneur Forum combines theory with practices

The central theme for the fourth Steinbeis Entrepreneur Forum will be digitalization and innovation. The event will take place in the Haus der Wirtschaft in Stuttgart on June 17, 2016. The day is being organized by the Steinbeis Center of Management and Technology GmbH (SCMT) and the Steinbeis Foundation to provide a forum to exchange notes and experiences with other experts. The event involves talks given in pairs and roundtable sessions to stimulate discussion.

The event in Stuttgart is open to people working at SMEs, Steinbeis clients and business partners, and students and graduates of Steinbeis University Berlin. The aim is to draw inspiration from emerging developments, and the event is intended to provide a communication platform for people to talk about their own experiences in one location.

Presentations will be made in tandem. First a Steinbeis expert will examine the principles underlying a particular topic from a scientific angle, then this will be followed by feedback on the practical aspects of the same issue from a Steinbeis project partner. To give the audience a chance to discuss the topics in more detail with the speakers, each tandem talk will be followed by roundtable sessions. The moderator for the event will be Dr.-Ing. Walter Beck, director of SCMT.

Contact

Attendance at the forum is free. To find out more and register online, go to www.steinbeis-unternehmerforum.de.

Sabine Ziebart
Steinbeis Center of Management and Technology GmbH (Filderstadt)
su1274@stw.de

Closer Collaboration: Steinbeis innomas GmbH

Steinbeis raises share in mechatronics company

The engineering services provider innomas, which is headquartered in the Steinbeis House in Ilmenau, was founded in 2001 by former employees of the Ilmenau University of Technology. The company now belongs to the Steinbeis Network following a move by Steinbeis to raise its share in the company and thus extend its knowhow in the field of magnetic engineering.

The company’s increasing involvement in the Steinbeis Network is also reflected in the name change. The enterprise will now operate under the name Steinbeis innomas GmbH, a limited company offering the services of its experts with a focus on the development of electromagnetic drive systems. Development activities will run in parallel to scientific concept studies and feasibility studies. The experts will be able to draw on a wealth of experience from projects in industry, ranging from designing processes to dimensioning new actuators, producing samples, making prototypes, and producing linear or rotary micro actuators and macro actuators.

The core competence of the team of experts lies in the development and simulation of electromagnetic actuators, intelligent drive systems, and mechatronic systems. The experts use FEM models to simulate ultradynamic systems as well as static flux density distribution systems. An increasing amount of energy has to be invested in redeveloping simulation models, primarily due to the increasing demands placed on the design of magnetic drive systems.

The development projects worked on at the company stem from a variety of industries and can involve the advanced development or redevelopment of products. The innomas experts have already completed a number of successful projects in the automotive sector, including fuel injector optimization, the design and dimensioning of an electric engine used in hybrid vehicles, and the design of actuators to improve the feel of operating systems. Projects in the field of manufacturing have ranged from self-sufficient energy recovery on rolling bearings to recloser switchgear on high voltage grids and the optimization of welding guns.

A university city without almost 7,000 students, Ilmenau offers a highly developed infrastructure. A large number of innovative firms have been set up around the university, one of which is innomas. Collaborating with the university makes it possible to access a variety of measurement and testing instruments whenever necessary and there is tremendous potential to involve students in projects. “We see stronger integration into the Steinbeis Network as an excellent opportunity to improve links with partners in industry,” says Bernd Malsch, managing director of Steinbeis innomas GmbH, “and based on our experience over the last 15 years, the trust this engenders among customers and the recommendations this leads to also help acquire new development projects. Working with the Steinbeis Network means we now have a partner with an extremely good reputation and strong awareness levels.” So coming under the Steinbeis umbrella means there will be no stopping more successful developments from the specialists!

Contact

Bernd Malsch
Steinbeis innomas GmbH (Ilmenau)

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