Recap of Launchpad IV – Learn From The Champions!

Last week, on September 30th, the 4th edition of our Launchpad series concluded with yet another record number of attendees! The theme of the event was, “Learn From The Champions!”  This was a nod to the racing tradition of motor vehicle companies, but also to the very real race to innovate that is taking place across the industry. Innovations that are fuelling the next generation of vehicles, and radically changing the auto industry forever. 

“Now is the time for leading car companies to reimagine their business & production processes in order to get their products to market faster, and remain competitive,” said Linus Grabher, KREATIZE Country Manager for Austria in his introductory note during Launchpad IV. 

Delving  deep into the topic of innovation in the automotive industry, our speakers provided valuable insights on the many changes affecting the sector.

The event was broken up into the following sessions, and speakers: 

• Session 1:  “The Automotive Industry in Transition – Insights from OEMs” with Christian Will, VP of Production Development at Porsche AG
• Session 2:  “The Future of Manufacturing – Cloud Manufacturing” with Simon Tuechelmann, Co-founder & CEO of KREATIZE GmbH
• Session 3: “The Automotive Industry in Transition – Insights from a Supplier” with Jens Meiser, Managing Director of Nopma – Technical Textiles 
• Session 4: “Beers with Peers” – Networking 

Here are the key takeaways from our speakers, who were all interviewed by Thomas Hoffmeister, Chief Commercial Officer at KREATIZE:

Porsche – A Rich History With Automotive Innovation

Christian Will, VP of Production Development at Porsche AG kicked off the first session with an overview of the many challenges that Porsche has successfully tackled throughout their storied history. 

“Porsche has a history with a lot of changes. In fact, that is the reason why Porsche remains Porsche. What I mean is that we always try to create the automobile from a new point of view,” said Will. 

Further highlighting how Porsche has continuously developed models that challenge prior automotive conventions. Models such as the Porsche 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid, and most recently the Taycan. 

“The Taycan is our first answer to the question: “What will the future sports car look like?” affirmed Will. 

Porsche is also re-equipping its employees to deal with the big shifts that are taking place, such as electric engines, digitisation and connectivity. The legendary German car-maker is taking the future head on by embracing new technologies, and incorporating them into their unique game plan. 

“We might not be the first manufacturer to use new technologies, but in most cases we do it in a strategic, and consequent way,” said Will. 

Watch the full interview with Christian Will here:

KREATIZE – A Smart Solution To Manufacturing

Simon Tuechelmann, Co-founder and CEO of KREATIZE, led the second session with his take on manufacturing, and  how it must change to better meet current demands.  Changes that are also playing a role in the manufacturing, and supply side of things for motor vehicle related companies. 

“The problem was…and still is…how one can match the demand and supply side of this market in order to make better, faster and cheaper products,” said Tuechelmann. “We need a better and smarter solution that gets rid of all the inefficiencies of the market.” 

Cloud Manufacturing is one the solutions proposed fo the above dilemma. A technology that KREATIZE offers access to, and that is radically changing the way hardware companies are procuring the custom parts needed for their products to be built. 

“It really enables hardware companies of all sizes to produce the best, most cost competitive products in the world, without any knowledge of procurement or manufacturing,” said Tuechelmann. “Hardware companies will be engineering, sales and software companies, and the rest will be outsourced,” affirmed Tuechelmann.

Further adding that data, and new shared knowledge as a result of the cloud will help engineers make better products. 

“Cloud manufacturing will bring all the data and knowledge, from across the whole supply chain, to the engineer,” said Tuechelmann. “So it will enable every engineer to learn from their mistakes, and from the know-how of everybody else in the world.” 

Watch the full interview with Simon Tuechelmann here: 

Nopma – Embracing Automotive Innovation With Sustainability

Jens Meiser, Managing Director of Nopma – Technical Textiles was the last speaker, and spoke about embracing innovation with sustainability when having to provide textile solutions for car manufacturers.  

“One important point, this production industry  we are in is not very sustainable, globally it is very dirty,” said Meiser. “On the other hand, this is a huge chance because when we optimise processes and become more sustainable, this has a huge impact.” 

Products and processes are becoming more sustainable, and Nopma is making great progress in ensuring this change. This means sourcing and making use of sustainable materials, while keeping an eye out for alternative ones being developed with nascent technologies (such as banana fiber) which could help when deciphering future solutions.  This also means making use of more environmentally conscious machines to produce new products. 

“After development, and creating a solution for our customer, our task is to produce a real product. We have to adapt, or invent a machine for it and here we can start thinking of the impact from the beginning, and can save resources,” said Meiser. 

Watch the full interview with Jens Meiser here: 

Andrew Porter, Head of Production Operations at McLaren Automtotive Ltd.  was expected to be a guest at Launchpad IV. However, due to technical difficulties, he was not able to join us for an interview. 

During this event, we also re-played our interview with Armin Müller, CEO of emm! solutions and former Vice President of Future Projects at Porsche AG, who was a speaker at our first Launchpad earlier this year.

We’re not done yet! There are more Launchpads to come.

The success of this event and positive feedback that we have received, proved to us yet again that there is a real demand for such events from the hardware community. KREATIZE will continue to host more Launchpads in the future with leaders and innovators from the hardware and manufacturing sector! Stay tuned.

Finally, on November 4, 2021, we will be supporting Austria Wirtschaftsservice’s “Connect X Hardware” event in Vienna. We encourage all hardware startups to apply for this event for an opportunity to meet with potential investors, and partners.

Want to be kept up to date with content on cloud manufacturing and hardware innovation? Then sign up for our newsletter: Cloud Manufactured.