Industrial robot May 30, 2018

The Fugger family, planes and production robots – and now your company too!

So many ideas have already been born in the Augsburg region: from the Fugger family of prominent bankers, to the flying pioneer Willy Messerschmitt to the world’s first 6-axis industrial robot by the company KUKA, a successful cluster of expertise has developed to date, which start-ups and SMEs benefit from. The TransferEinrichtungen Augsburg (TEA) is an important hub in this process. It networks economic players with universities and research institutes. Its goal: a sustainable economy.

TEA networks expertise

If your drain is blocked at home, you don’t go out and buy loads of plumbing equipment straight away. If your car needs new tyres, nobody starts by experimenting with rubber. Specialists can solve these problems far more effectively as they have the necessary expertise and access to new technologies.

Transfereinrichtungen Augsburg – for short: TEA – has been committed to networking experts and companies in the Augsburg region since 2009. The A3 economic region is the expert region for the following sectors: 
-    Environmental technology
-    Mechatronics
-    Lightweight construction and carbon
-    Information and communication technology
-    Aerospace engineering

Transfereinrichtungen Augsburg’s goal is to give companies access to the knowledge at local universities and research institutes. The Augsburg University of Applied Sciences and the University of Augsburg, Fraunhofer institutes and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) are based in the A3 region, among others.

The advantages for networked companies: they always have the most up-to-date knowledge because they can use the latest studies, expertise and analyses. They also find tailor-made solutions to their technological challenges, e.g. by being able to use laboratories or test benches at the existing institutions, which it would not be worth procuring themselves. The Augsburg region’s technology cluster helps create more innovations and therefore more competitiveness through this transfer.

The TEA website also provides an online catalogue with specific offers from their partner institutions. This informs companies in which sectors a collaboration is currently possible. For example, the university’s Application Center for Materials and Environmental Research is available for the analysis of defects and surfaces in the nanometre range. Or the Institute for Software & Systems Engineering assists companies in developing embedded or cyber-physical systems.

Innovation starts with the employees

What applies to the technical side of a company, is just as important for its staff. Radical technological changes present them with new tasks and difficulties. TEA’s TEAM 4.0 project offers further training and qualification options. The programme is initially state funded until mid-2020 so a company’s staff and disseminators can take part at a lower cost and sometimes even free of charge. Cross-industry networking results from personal contact, for example in workshops.

Regular innovation events ensure professional dialogue within the region. 

Besides specialist conferences like the:  

  • Specialist Trade Fair for Tool and Moulding Making
    (12-13 June 2018)
  • Symposium Composites 2018
    (19-20 September 2018)
  • Kapitalforum 2018
    (20 September 2018)

local congresses and training courses also promote skills:

  • Knowledge Café 4.0 – digital fitness for innovation and business promoters
    (26 June 2018)  
  • Augsburg Centre of Excellence: What can digital do?
    (24 July 2018)
  • 8th Augsburg Technology Transfer Congress
    (2 April 2019)