Maschinenbau Cluster Event North Atlanta - Feb 1st 2022

Thanks to our host companies Maier America LLC and Dieffenbacher Customer Support LLC and ALL our participants for attending the Maschinenbau Cluster North Atlanta event on Feb 1st, 2022.

Maier America LLC Norcross

We had the pleasure to have German General Consul Melanie Moltmann and GACC South CEO Matthias Hoffmann as distinguished guests with us with their interest in learning more about how and what German SMEs are doing in Northern Atlanta, Georgia.

The morning was kicked off by Rob Kuehl, CEO of Maier America LLC, and Florian Maier, the CEO of Christian Maier GmbH&Co KG who just flew in the day before from Germany.

They gave a great overview, of what industries and processes rotary joints are used to manufacture the things we use in our daily life from water bottles to paper and cardboard to all kinds of nonwovens like disinfection wipes and diapers.

Did you know, that 2/3 of all plastic bottles worldwide are made through a MAIER rotary joint, which is the core element of each blow molding machine?

Then Tom Burns gave a detailed overview of the different types and sizes of rotary joints and how they actually work.

A great lunch was provided by the GATHERING INDUSTRIES. This is an organization, which equips homeless individuals with the tools and skills they need to find self-sufficiency with a stable culinary job.

After lunch. the participants got the opportunity to see the Repair Center, where used rotary joints from the field get cleaned and retrofitted. In this process, rotary joints get disassembled, cleaned, and newly coated. Supervisor Al was able to explain this complex technical process in a way, that everybody understood. All fittings and seals get then replaced and the joints get reassembled again. Thanks to a new innovative packaging process, damaged joints during shipping to the customer do not happen anymore.

Matthias Hoffmann and Melanie Moltmann were able to do an drop test with a fresh packaged rotary joint.

Nothing happened to the packed rotary joints!

DigitalituM - Ulixes session.

DigitalituM's Markus Rimmele gave afterwards a live demonstration about the capabilities of its Ulixes " Der Assistent", a Projected Augmented Reality - Worker Assitance System.

With this system, the process of manual assembly finally gets some upgrades after decades of status quo. What it does is, that it puts the augmented work instruction onto the worktable in a step-by-step approach. Which this guide, the workers know exactly what to do.

A Multicamera system then also " watches" in parallel and does visual quality control on the go. Thanks to Iman Staab for volunteering on an assembly task for a valve assembly. With no prior experience, she was able to assemble a good OK part in her first trial.

This concluded the visit at Maier America, home of the rotary joints, and the participants were sent off to the next location.

Dieffenbacher Customer Service LLC Alpharetta

At our second location , Bernd Deffland and Rolf-Dieter Krey welcomed us to Dieffenbacher Customer Support LLC. This subsidiary of the German machine builder Dieffenbacher supports the North American customer with spare parts and services to run wood panel manufacturing plants. Dieffenbacher produces wood panel presses, which manufacture all types of wood panels from OSB to MDF panels which are used in building construction and the furniture industry.

Later on, Markus Rimmele had the opportunity to highlight its industry partners with DigitalituM from Ulixes with Projected AR, to IOSS Ai enabled code Readers, Exsolut's QR code enabled data management system, Oculavis AR troubleshooting tool, Markt-Pilot's spare part pricing engine, and Aquant's AI service hero platform.

German General Konsul Melanie Moltmann gave us then an excurse through her last roles and positions in different countries of Asia , the challenges in Foreign Service, and an status of the Transatlantic relations between Europe and the USA.

Cherry Street Brewery - Halcyon

This concluded the official part from where we headed to the Cherry Street Brewery over at the Halcyon for beers and dinner.

Thanks to the companies Dieffenbacher and Maier for hosting, the great food, and last but not least the unique presents for each participant.