Interview: Samuel Wilkinson

 For the ninth time, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia presented its awards to innovative companies and innovators in the companies and public research institutions. Two silver awards were presented to the innovators from Hidria. The award for the best innovations at the national level is the highest acknowledgment of innovative achievements by Slovenian companies. At the ceremony held at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia, the silver award for the innovation of 2010 was presented to dr. Simon Strgar, Igor Kutleša, Matej Milavec and dr. Erik Pavlovič from Hidria Institute Klima for the development of »Strabag HDLS« - an element for high-pressure ventilation of buildings. The innovators have developed a solution for high-pressure ventilation of buildings, a break-through in the field of building ventilation. 

 44. MOS was visited by 137.158 visitors in eight days, yielding a 8 % drop in the number of visitors compared to 2010. A day after the fair closed its doors, Breda Obrez Preskar, CEO at Celjski sejem d.d., ascertained: »Even if the bad economic situation has not influenced the number of exhibitors, the crisis has reflected in the number of visitors.«
However, the organisers have evaluated the fair as successful based on the feedback from the exhibitors, who expressed their content with the number of visitors. This is also confirmed by the fact that a smaller number of visitors does not necessarily mean a worse result for the exhibitors. 44. MOS has thereby confirmed the trend of transformation into a business fair, attended both by the domestic and foreign business visitors. The first results of the survey, conducted traditionally by the fair organiser, show more than a half of the exhibitors (54 %) have decided to exhibit at MOS in order to promote their company as a whole. 

 Janez Poje, the president of ISTMA Europe association in the period from 2011 to 2013, presented the main goals for his mandate at the ISTMA Europe's meeting in Bologna. He put the intensification of contacts, promotion and visibility of the tool and die industry in Europe and with its policy makers to the top of his agenda. Poje also intends to reinforce the relationship with the ManuFuture initiative and the development of cooperation and networking activities with original equipment manufacturers, technological and educational organisations and suppliers. Janez Poje also highlighted the enlargement of ISTMA Europe's membership, the organisation of the 3. and 4. European Tooling Forum and the integration of more companies into the reporting process. 

 The Podjetnik magazine and the Chamber of Craft and Small Business Of Slovenia have announced the entrepreneur of 2011: the 21. title was presented to Boštjan Šifrar, the director and owner of company SIBO G. from Škofja Loka. The jury was convinced by the successful realisation of a well-thought strategy, which transformed a craft workshop into a global company. He had the courage and the vision to develop a company for injection moulding of plastic caps, tubs and containers, today exporting to 41 countries worldwide and also supplying plastic products to the pharmaceutical industry, one of the most demanding customers. Šifrar is convinced that every entrepreneur has a big responsibility to offer the environment where he or she operates the vision, security and quality of workplaces. 

 
This year, the prestigious international design award Brit Insurance Design of the Year was presented in London for the fourth time. The jury has selected the absolute winner among more than 90 candidates: Plumen 001, the first energy-efficient designer light bulb in the world, a result of cooperation between the English designer Samuel Wilkinson and Hulger business system.
Both the light bulb and its predecessor, the incandescent bulb, are functionally important for the human existence, yet their visual functions are somewhat paradoxically negligible. The stylish product Plumen 001 counters this stereotype and offers the users a product with perfected design and better quality of light. In addition to improving the living environment, the light bulb also conforms to the high standards of energy efficiency in the EU, as it uses up to 80 % less energy and offers an eight times longer life than an ordinary incandescent light bulb. 

 The booking of exhibition space at the 22. International Sheet Metal Working Technology Exhibition EuroBLECH 2012 has already begun. The fair activities from October 23 to 27 will occupy eight halls at the Hannover fairgrounds. The exhibitor brochure, published in five languages, is now available and includes important information for companies interested in participating at the leading international trade show for the sheet metal working industry. 

 The development of technology and increasing customer requirements dictate the manufacturing companies to quickly grasp the opportunities presented by the information technology in their competitive struggle. Their goal is to meet the customer expectations, constantly improve the quality of products and services and cut the operation costs. The company success is highly dependent on the manufacturing planning, while the actual realisation in the production has to be closely monitored in order to meet the plans. 

 The destruction of raw materials and materials is inherent to our way of manufacturing products. In order to make paper, one must first plant a tree, grow it, cut it down and send it through a system of mills. To make a simplest spoon or a fork, one must dig iron ore from the Earth's innards, melt it in a blast furnace to obtain steel, and then shape it into a spoon through the forming processes (in this case by hot forging). What would happen if all this was done from the bottom up, by building paper from atoms, the smallest building blocks of the living and non-living world? What if a spoon was manufactured by taking individual atoms of iron and piecing them together with carbon atoms, one by one? 

 In order to alleviate the consequences of increasing mobility of nearly seven billion people, the scientists are devising the technologies to improve the efficiency of public and private transport by land, air and sea. The population of Earth has risen to seven billion people, with 80 million more coming each year. The people are becoming increasingly mobile, they network and want to be close to one another. This is especially true for the rail traffic, where new program concepts are being developed for the control, schedule optimisation, new vehicles and also rail modernisation. In order to alleviate the consequences of increasing mobility, the scientists are devising products and solutions to improve the efficiency of public and private traffic.