M.A.i wins Cranach - Entrepreneur Award 2016

M.A.i wins Cranach - Entrepreneur Award 2016 in the category "Innovation"

Bavaria's Minister of Finance Markus Söder presents the Cranach Entrepreneur Award in four categories.
He praises the region of Upper Franconia as the motor of the founder and developer scene.

He said that the prize was for him "a piece of the future compass". The region of Upper Franconia, which has experienced a severe had to cope with structural change, "in the meantime we have moved forward". catapulted", said the minister. This would have significantly contributed to innovative companies that use the term "service" not only as a term for state support, but rather as a mandate for the development understand: "Upper Franconia is no longer about providing alimony to but to inspire with your own ideas." One has "Good ideas find sponsors." The award winners, but also all other candidates for the Cranach Entrepreneurial Award, are outstanding examples of a self-confident founder- and developer scene. In Upper Franconia, twice as many patents registered than the national average.

To Numerous representatives from the following countries attended the award ceremony on Thursday business, politics and media in the Sparkasse pavilion, including District Vice-President Thomas Engel, IHK General Manager Christi Epee and district master craftsman Heinrich Schneider. The Laudationes were held by IHK Vice President Hans Rebhan, Parag Shah, Managing Director of Dr. Schneider, Kronach Creative Director Rainer Kober and the Editorial Director of the Neue Presse, Wolfgang Braunschmidt.

The Cranach Entrepreneurial Prize was first awarded in 2012. Now followed the second edition, which was produced by Sparkasse Kulmbach-Kronach, the Dr.-Schneider group of companies, Bayernwerk AG and the association of the Bavarian business community (vbw) was supported.

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The prize in the category „Innovation“ goes to the Neuseser company M.A.i. GmbH on Thursday evening "The with its newly developed tape laying system, the company has created the basis created for lightweight construction in the automotive industry to have a quantum leap. Because for the first time it is possible with systems of this design possible, accurately fitting components with carbon fibre reinforced plastics or glass fibre reinforced plastics automated in series with short cycle times," praises laudator Parag Shah, Managing Director of the Dr. Schneider group of companies. "We feel very honored," explains M.A.i. Managing Director Arthur Schwab - and adds: "The region need not be afraid." The award is due in first and foremost to the employees of the company, who have an innovation in the first place.

In the automotive industry has undergone a paradigm shift. For years, cars became increasingly heavy. The first Volkswagen Golf from In 1974 it weighed 750 kilos. Today his successor brings 1.2 tons to the Scales. But that's over. Vehicles must reduce their fuel consumption and drastically reduce their CO2 emissions: almost everywhere in the world otherwise the manufacturers are threatened with severe penalties. In Europe, car manufacturers must by 2020 the average CO2 emissions of their vehicles will be below 95 grams per kilometre. This corresponds to a consumption of around four Litres of petrol per 100 kilometres. If they don't make it, they're threatened Fines of up to 4,000 euros per vehicle. The solution to the problem lies in smaller motors, alternative drives - and above all in the significant reduction of weight. And this also applies to aircraft construction Mantra: Lose weight! Here we have been talking about the use of carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFK) and glass fibre reinforced plastic (GRP) plastic (GFK) is set.

At comparison to conventional construction materials, such as steel or aluminium, allows the use of endless fibre reinforced plastics a weight reduction of up to 70 percent for improved mechanical properties at the same time. The future belongs to lightweight construction.

To the processing of CFRP and GFRP e.g. for the automotive industry suitable for large series production, the Neuss-based company M.A.i has developed Commissioned by the Fraunhofer Institute, Bayreuth, to develop the Prototype of a completely new tape laying system for organic sheets (fibre composites) and UD tapes (unidirectional fibre-reinforced tapes). The plant enables automated and repeatable cutting and depositing of tapes on base carriers (organic sheets) with fast and flexible changeover times. "In the ideal case only the wallpaper sample to be laid is transferred to a system and you receives within shortest time a finished fabric from the desired materials, where the number, position and orientation of the tapes is perfectly adapted to the load case of the finished component", explains M.A.i managing director Hermann Fischer.

For Non-technicians: The new technology from M.A.i. is a kind of "Custom tailoring" for lightweight parts. It not only finds an exact but also a layering of the material and thus a reduction of the a modelling of the wall thicknesses according to an individual designer: where the load is greater than the geometry specified by the is reinforced; where it is not necessary, the wall remains thinner. 

Up to 20 layers can be stacked on top of each other. And that in a raging Speed. The cycle time per strip is, at two Tape feeds, a full two seconds. The tapes are ultrasonically welded together. In the plant two different Tape widths and different materials can be processed. The development time for this innovation was three quarters of a year; the Investment sum at about 700,000 Euro. The plant will be built in Fraunhofer Institute for research and demonstration purposes. M.A.i GmbH has established itself with this groundbreaking technology in the Category Innovation successful for the Cranach Entrepreneur Award advertised.