We are looking back at the Symposium ‘Powerhouse of Innovation’ day with due pride. The day was a great success for the Semester 6 projects overall.

Some projects were related to Smart Production Center (SPC) of HAN Engineering and Automotive:

• Thermoplastic composite production scale up
• From Waste to Products (pdf)
• From Waste to Parts

The SPC has functioned as a connector, Senior engineer and Expert. Confirmed by all companies involved, CATO Composites, Polytec Composites and EBUSCO, one can say with pride that all 3 groups of students, some 25 students, have performed an outstanding job in working closely with the companies and the HAN University.

During the projects the connection between Students, Senior Engineers and Experts has grown a lot, leading to students sticking around a little longer at involved companies. Enthusiastic ideas for next S6-projects are already bubbling especially with the SPARC initiative as a technology platform on which many ideas can be projected.

All groups gained a great deal of experience and knowledge on social, professional and technical skills while:

• Increasing expected production speeds to nearly 8 times
• Finding a way to reduce the amount of virgin material usage during production, by recycling waste
• Proving the concept of using fibre waste cuttings to produce a part, halving the weight of the original part

Automotive Engineering with Mechanical Engineering

During this project, and especially during the events S6-theme-day on composites and this symposium, there was a good interaction between both the groups and the different disciplines involved. For the first time in S6 the students Automotive Engineering where teamed up with Mechanical Engineering.

• Cato was represented by Joost van Lindert, Ferry Bruns and the students: Dinu Busegeanu, Boris Sierink, Jip Smelik, Felix Wille, Caio Helene d’Avila and Bram van Breda.
• Ebusco was represented by Edwin van Herpt and the students: Remco Engels, Elisa Gerritsen, Ali Gõktas, Sjoerd Meeuwsen, Goivanni Pels, Remco Schut, Martijn
  Jansen, Mitchel Kraai, Louis van BastenBatenburg, David Bes and Peter van Buiten.
• Polytec was represented by Rogier Mandes and the students: Coen Arends, Ernest Dagenhart, Emiel Dekens, Ties Marsman, Nick Vet, Daan Willemsen, Naichel Geerman, Mees Groen and Jop Rossel.
• Directly involved from the HAN where Peter Verschut, Hein Koelman, Peter Coppens and Didier Polling.

Source and photography: HAN Smart Production Center