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A maintenance company that also manufactures its own spare parts: An interesting concept and one which has catapulted French company MCD SAS to the forefront of its market. The firm is a specialist in the maintenance of plate heat exchangers, and also produces an extensive range of gaskets in many shapes, sizes and materials, ensuring it has the perfect sealing solution for its clients’ equipment, irrespective of which brand of plate heat exchanger is installed.

Since the first tentative missions in the 1960s, scientists have been continuously pushing the boundaries of space exploration to maximize the opportunities and possibilities it offers. These advances have only been possible because of suppliers to the space and scientific world, who have kept pace with the developments and supply the essential, innovative components required to implement the latest projects – companies such as THALES SESO SAS. The French firm, based in Aix-en-Provence, has over 50 years’ experience in the high-end optics used in the space sector as well as a number of other high-tech industries.

Locked away behind the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe was not only cut off from the rest of the world culturally but also technologically. In so many key progress parameters, such as production efficiency, quality standards and technical advances, the countries of the old Eastern Europe lagged far behind their Western European counterparts. However, companies like VIVBER Kft. in Hungary have worked hard to close the technology gap. Today, they are able to operate according to EU standards and compete successfully in a reunited Europe thanks to their lower cost structures.

The German Vaillant Group is a global market and technology leader in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning solutions. One of its subsidiaries, HKR GmbH & Co. KG, supplies the Group with high-quality components, particularly precision-machined brass parts. Since it started targeting third-party customers four years ago, the medium-sized company has developed very successfully – not least to a corporate culture which involves everyone from the shop floor to the management.

Fans are used in many industrial applications, from delivering dry, hot air to optimize the processing of paper webs to dedusting, exhausting and filtering applications in steel plants or pharmaceutical companies. Ferrari Industrieventilatoren GmbH covers the entire spectrum of fan technologies and customizes each solution to individual needs. Performing vital functions, the company’s products are indispensable parts of many larger plants and systems.

Almost half a century ago, it started as a manufacturer of packaging for Viennese sweets. Today, it is a global leader in high-tech, anti-counterfeiting coating solutions for banknotes, identity documents, security labels and many other products. Working together with central banks around the world, the successful family business aims to be always one step ahead of the money counterfeiters. The technology leader is growing particularly fast outside the German-speaking countries.

Industry 4.0 is the buzzword currently dominating the discussion over the future of manufacturing. It is a trend that every player in the sector must grapple with if they, too, are to have a future. For HSD SpA in Italy, Industry 4.0 is seen as an opportunity rather than a challenge, and it has seized that opportunity in the best way possible as a pioneer of mechatronics. HSD specializes in the design and manufacture of electrospindles. Its ground-breaking e-core technology was launched in 2012 while 2-axis heads featuring its innovative direct drive technology were introduced in 2014, ensuring its position as a pioneer and leader in this field.

Purification of the water we drink and the air we breathe keeps us healthy and gives us an improved quality of life. Making the process biological rather than totally mechanical, also takes stress off the environment. Ekofinn-Pol Sp. z o.o., headquartered in Poland, is paving the way with better air and water treatment options.

The economy is changing faster than ever before in human history. Digitization is a major driving force behind this process, and affects all industries. Cascade Europe, based in Italy and a subsidiary of the Cascade Corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, is dealing with the challenges in the materials handling market by focusing on both new technology and energy efficiency, as Managing Director Charlie Michelson reveals in an interview with European Business.

Engineers have come up with ingenious solutions to weighty lifting problems throughout history. While it was mainly manpower and simple pulleys that were harnessed to move heavy objects in ancient times, today’s innovative crane systems allow a single operator to lift and transport objects weighting several tonnes at the touch of a button. Cerrato Srl in Italy has been active in the field of lifting and handling equipment for over 50 years and now specializes in the design and manufacture of high quality equipment for customers in the steel, automotive, aeronautical, mechanical, food, glass processing and waste treatment industries.

The classic overhead projector was certainly the product par excellence that required special optical lenses as produced by ORAFOL Fresnel Optics GmbH in Apolda, Germany. Despite the era of the OHP being on the decline, the need for special lenses is as strong as ever. Microstructured polymer optical components are required in various industries such as lighting, solar power, automotive, display and image processing, according to Managing Director Jürgen Zosel when speaking about ORAFOL Fresnel Optics’s possibilities in today’s optics market.