Successful research project with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

42 stu­dents from the Karl­sruhe Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy (KIT) and its Insti­tute for Prod­uct Devel­op­ment and Inno­va­tion (IPEK) have spent a semes­ter con­duct­ing research for Schu­bert on the top­ic of “Cus­tomer-ori­ent­ed, flex­i­ble pack­ag­ing process­es and pack­ag­ing machine sys­tems for the pack­ag­ing of the future”. They now pre­sent­ed their research results at the final event. The coop­er­a­tion was a com­plete success.

About half a year ago, the com­pa­ny broke new ground and par­tic­i­pat­ed in a coop­er­a­tion project of KIT and IPEK. For one semes­ter, 42 stu­dents of the renowned uni­ver­si­ty con­duct­ed research for the pack­ag­ing machine man­u­fac­tur­er from Crail­sheim. A few days ago, the final event took place. “With­in the scope of short pre­sen­ta­tions and a trade show, the stu­dents pre­sent­ed their research results to us — and I can say: they inspired us with their ideas,” Manuel Schus­ter, Head of New Devel­op­ment Assem­blies and KIT Project Man­ag­er at the same time, is pleased to say. “Our expec­ta­tions of the project were ful­ly met. The stu­dents inspired us to come up with new solu­tions.” But not only that: the com­pa­ny has man­aged to become bet­ter known through the coop­er­a­tion. “We hope that young peo­ple will con­tin­ue to be inter­est­ed in the pack­ag­ing indus­try in the future and not just in the auto­mo­tive sec­tor,” says Schuster.

Mentors supervised the students

Research was con­duct­ed on the three main top­ics of pack­ag­ing machines, process­es and pack­ag­ing of the future. Manuel Schus­ter, togeth­er with his col­league Achraf Ben Salem, head of cobot devel­op­ment, super­vised the project on Schu­bert’s side. Before the research could get under­way, the stu­dents were first giv­en an insight into the pack­ag­ing world and Schu­bert tech­nolo­gies at a two-day kick-off event. They were com­plete­ly free to imple­ment their ideas. Schus­ter recounts, “Nev­er­the­less, the stu­dents were nev­er left alone by us dur­ing the entire process.” Sev­en men­tors from var­i­ous Schu­bert depart­ments were on hand to sup­port the young researchers. In reg­u­lar feed­back meet­ings, those respon­si­ble dis­cussed the next steps with them.  “We were also in con­stant exchange with the uni­ver­si­ty,” the project man­ag­er con­tin­ues. “IPEK has been orga­niz­ing and host­ing the IP project for 25 years and has per­fect­ed the entire process. We are very hap­py that we were allowed to be part of such an opti­mal­ly orga­nized project.”

Several ideas are patented

The solu­tions were con­vinc­ing across the board. In the area of process­es, the stu­dents devel­oped ideas on how to auto­mate mechan­i­cal process­es in the machine and improve effi­cien­cy. Schu­bert was also enthu­si­as­tic about the solu­tion approach of posi­tion­ing pack­ag­ing machines as pro­duc­tion islands rather than in a line. “We also found a new type of pack­ag­ing that the stu­dents devel­oped as part of the col­lab­o­ra­tion very inter­est­ing,” says Schus­ter. “This pack­ag­ing can be closed with­out glue, so it offers great oppor­tu­ni­ties in the direc­tion of sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and of course — like sev­er­al oth­er ideas — a patent appli­ca­tion was filed.”

For the group, this was the first and last IP project: “Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there won’t be a sec­ond time. The insti­tute only allows one-time par­tic­i­pa­tion,” explains Schus­ter. How­ev­er, the Crail­sheim-based com­pa­ny is pleased that the project has cre­at­ed a close rela­tion­ship with the insti­tute and hopes to get more young peo­ple inter­est­ed in the Schu­bert world in the future.

“It was and is impor­tant to us to reach stu­dents at an ear­ly stage by plac­ing the pack­ag­ing machine indus­try in their teach­ing, and then to get them excit­ed about this excit­ing tech­nol­o­gy. This has all only been made pos­si­ble through con­tact and the pos­i­tive course of the project.”

- Manuel Schuster