With an awareness for climate change and increasingly scarce raw materials and other resources, there is a growing importance to take measures towards resource efficiency, also in the automotive industry. Above all, companies involved in production and process engineering, such as production equipment suppliers, are required to devise new solutions in order to maintain their own competitive edge. The possibilities for and approaches to energy-efficient and material-efficient production will form the focus of the “Resource-Efficient Automotive Production” Symposium organised by the company Wolfsburg AG and the Fraunhofer Institute for Machine Tools and Forming Technology (IWU) from the German city of Chemnitz on 15th October 2014. For this purpose, the event organisers signed a cooperation agreement today. The symposium is one of the features of the extensive programme of events accompanying the International Suppliers Fair (IZB) which takes place between 14th and 16th October in Wolfsburg. If you want to find out more about this event, further information is available online at www.izb-ressourceneffizienz.com.
“Energy and resource efficiency in production today is a competitive factor of ever-increasing significance. It affects virtually all production processes. At this year’s symposium, working in cooperation with Fraunhofer IWU, one of the leading research institutes for resource-efficient production, we are providing insights into the latest research and practical solution”, says Thomas Krause, Member of the Board of Wolfsburg AG.
One of the aims of resource-efficient automotive production is to optimise the efficiency of production activities, for example by using a more efficient approach to product design and taking into account energy-saving measures. The avoidance of rejects and the reduction of reworking help shorten the process chain. In addition, there is increased focus on a new approach when it comes to the integration of the human factor in production and the manufacturing environment.
"The introduction of innovative energy and material-efficient solutions, taking into account the overall production process chain as well as the entire automotive product life cycle, is necessary in order to safeguard the competitiveness and technological lead position of German industry“, explains Dr Michael Kuhl, Managing Chief Engineer of Research & Development, Fraunhofer IWU.
The symposium, staged on the exhibition grounds of the IZB 2014 in Wolfsburg‘s Allerpark, will feature presentations not only by representatives of the event organisers but also by experts from Volkswagen AG and the companies BRAUN Car Tec GmbH, FORCAM GmbH, KUKA Roboter GmbH, as well as SITEC Industrietechnologie GmbH. Guido Reinking, Editor-in-Chief of the trade newspaper "Automobilwoche", will moderate the event.