making knowledge work
Stuttgart Region invited for their fact finding highlighting Competence Centres in the field of Virtual Engineering and Packaging. Another thematic focus was e-mobility solutions.The Virtual Dimension Centre (VDC) that is one of the many successful Competence and Innovation Centres in the region. As presented by Christoph Runde, Managing Director, VDC stresses innovation, through offering design solutions for supporting technological innovation. Services to its members are the technology scouting, its communication services and an knowledge database for relevant actors in the region. Bernd Kussmaul, Managing Director of Kussmaul GmbH was championing how his SME has been able to grow its business thanks to the marketing and paperwork support by VDC. He also stressed the VDC website and the informal networks gathered through participation in the competence centre.
The 13 Competence & Innovation Centres aim at bringing research results quicker to the market by actively involving both academia and industry in moderated working groups focusing on technological collaboration and partner searches. The success factors of this good practice are the networking managers, an informal communication platform and the subscription-based organization supported by all members. Last but not least the neutrality of the Competence Centres.
With a visit at the PEC, the Packaging Excellence Centre, the participants had the opportunity to get an in-depth knowledge of another example of the regional good practice. Thomas Hoffmann, Vice-Head of Unit, Bosch Packaging Services presented Bosch’s commitment to the PEC, along with an interesting guided tour through the assembly hall and showcasing of latest product developments.
A presentation of state-of-the-art technology exhibits referring to the e-mobility model region Stuttgart was an illustrative wrap-up to the first day.
The National High Performance Computing Centre (HLRS) was presented on day two by Prof. Michael Resch, as another good practice underlining university-business collaboration. Financed partly through public funding, the Centre has acquired significant industry orders for virtual engineering services and simulation. Thanks to its upscale data processing capacities, regional businesses, automotive ones in particular, can outsource part of their engineering to HLRS.
Dr. Andreas Wierse, CEO of Visenso, gave an insight into a spin-off company, developing immersive engineering solutions, such as immersive teaching, selling and communicating, by providing visualization tools for end-users.
In the conclusive remarks, participants put forward that the individual people and network managers are critical for enhancing regional collaboration. Besides, a critical mass of competitors is instrumental for success.