At the start of the week, we travelled down to the Lake of Constance, where you are able to see the Swiss and Austrian alps from an amazing viewpoint. Here, we were guided through the Zeppelin Airship museum, where we saw the history and design of airships/blimps including the famous Hindenberg. It was interesting to see what precautions were taken with the use of extremely volatile hydogen and that the risks and consequences were well known.
We visited Hugo Boss logistics centre, in Metzingen. We were guided through the use of SAP stock management tools, automated system for managing placement of fabrics and other SKUs, automatic picking machines, and cargo methods.
We also visited Wafios, who design machines for hot and cold forging of rod and tube bending machine, for springs, nails, exhausts and all other purposes.
We travelled to Erbe medical technology, which have developed an all-in-one machine for argon-plazma, hwaterjet cutting, and electrosurgery cut & coagulation machinery. We all had a turn of showing our surgical skills (apart from Katy who felt a little bit queezy from the thought of cutting through liver - it was a wise decision, the smell was pretty bad).
We visited Bosch manufacturing plant, where we witnessed the production of 4", 6" and new 8" silicon semiconductor wafers, the doping processes of the semiconductors, casing, and assembly of (by chance) automotive ASP sensors.
Lastly, we visited the Mercedes Benz production factories in Singelfingen. Here, we had a guided tour of the robotics used to forge panels, assemble the car bodies, welding, painting process and full fit out of all internal trim and electrical componentary. We saw a car processed from sheets of metal to a full production, retail ready car. It was incredible. Roughly 36,000 people are employed here, and 1/4 of the staff are employed for R&D. The facility is larger than the state of Monaco. It is described as a small city and it has it's own music band, 7 different restaurants, cafes, a kindergarten.
It has been an amazing week. We have now arrived with our new host families in Heidenheim.
A big thank you to Hartwig Hirtz, President Herr Shultes, host families and all others involved.
PHOTOS:
The team at the bosh wafer plant
Ryan trying his hand with the electrosurgery tool
