Interview: Frederik De Wilde

 End of June, Hella Saturnus Slovenia celebrated the 90. anniversary of Saturnus, an anniversary only a few Slovenian companies can take pride in. The beginnings of the company go back to 1921, more accurately to a craft workshop where a couple of employees manufactured sheet metal products. Today Hella Saturnus Slovenia is a part of the international concern Hella Group and one of the largest Slovenian exporters. With approximately 1.900 employees, the company successfully offers its more than 60 years of experience in the development and manufacturing of automotive lighting equipment in Slovenia to many renowned automotive trademarks. Emil Lajovic, the father of Saturnus, began manufacturing sheet-metal boxes in his modest craft workshop in 1921 on the Komenskega street in Ljubljana. Soon the manufacturing outgrew the workshop, and in less than three years he moved to a new factory with more than 10 employees. 

 Indeed, it happened again: the Forum on Operative Excellence. As promised, once again on the day of the youth – 25 May 2011 - and for the second time organised by the Professional association for operative excellence, which grew slowly but consistently from the Association for the exchange of best practices six sigma. The association was founded (somewhat symbolically and with positive orientation) on 25 May 2007 based on the decision of 13 enthusiasts and proponents of six sigma methodology. We are going to bring to an end more than 20 years of silence about six sigma and establish an association for promotion, development and exchange of best practices and experience on this subject. 

 Four biennial four-day trade fairs Forma Tool, Plagkem, Graf&pack and Foundry have brought nearly 11.000 visitors to Celje. The organiser Celjski sejem, d.d., claims the number of visitors has surpassed the results from the last edition of fairs in 2009. The fair results confirm positive feedback on the fair activity from both the exhibitors and visitors. Among the visitors, many came from the countries of South Balkans (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia) and the European Union (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Italy, Germany). Celjski sejem is satisfied with the results of a survey conducted among the fair exhibitors and visitors, as nearly all the exhibitors have assessed their performance at the fair to be successful or even very successful. The efforts invested by the exhibitors into their presentations have not been overlooked by the fairground visitors, either. 

 Slovenian engineers, researchers in the industry and technical university students from Slovenia and neighbouring Croatia gathered at the beginning of June in Portorož at the 3. IRT 2011 Industrial Forum. The focus of this year's forum was on innovation, and on how to transform ideas into value added. The lecturers have prepared more than 40 professional articles and presented the status-quo of innovation in the industry, as well as the challenges they are facing. One of the event’s peaks was a round table on innovation, and innovation was also one of the key elements in the Intelligent System of Laboratories in Health Care – ILAB project, the winner of the TARAS award. 

 
The purpose of [the next idea] voestalpine Art & Technology Grant, presented annually by Voest Alpine and Ars Electronica, is to discover and honour people who face the global facts and circumstances through their authentic, innovative approach, at the same time developing penetrating concepts. The latest award was given last year to 36-year old Belgian Frederik De Wilde for his blackest nanotechnological creation. The new material is the darkest man-made material, absorbing more than 99.9 percent of light and achieving a reflectance of 0.045 percent. The material is obviously darker than a piece of glassy carbon and the 1.4 percent NIST reflectance standard.
  

 The Public Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Entrepreneurship and Foreign Investments (JAPTI) and the Chamber of Craft of Slovenia have organised a group exhibition of Slovenian companies at the 55. International Fair of Technique and Technical Achievements at the Beograd fairground. The fair took place between 9 and 13 May 2011. The most successful exhibitors who displayed excellent technical and technological achievements were presented with the »Step into the future« awards by the fair management. 

 The company Johnson Controls – NTU, d.o.o., from Slovenj Gradec has decided to invest into a "poka-yoke" device for 100-percent control in the assembly of Renault J95 headrests in order to achieve better productivity, fulfil the customer's requirements for an accurately and properly assembled automotive headrest, and to avoid incorrect supplies. Andrej Rotovnik, Ambrož Podkoritnik, Aziz Khalaf 

 Each toilet cistern incorporates a filler valve, having a brass fitting for connection to the water pipe. In current market conditions, brass products are constantly subjected to price changes, mainly price increases. This was one of the main reasons to test a new thermoplastic material. Andrej Kobal, Marko Raspor, Aleš Primožič, Mojca Šajina 

 The Earth is full of precious raw materials that have been trapped in the rocks, hidden under deserts or covered with oceans for millions of years. They are often very difficult to extract, and the reserves of some materials are dangerously depleting due to excessive exploitation. The roots of our progress are mostly in the bosom of our planet, often thousands of meters under the surface. Raw materials, »the life force of our civilisation«, have been trapped in stone walls, hidden under deserts or covered with oceans for millions of years: oil, drinking water, precious metals, and rare earth elements. The world population increases by approximately 80 million each year. Esad Jakupović