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Automation Technologies 3/2015

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Automation Technologies 3/2015

COMPONENTS AND SOFTWARE

COMPONENTS AND SOFTWARE With plastic plain bearings on tour Dirk Schaar If you want to take your small car once around the world, you need time, patience and particularly good components in your vehicle. For the 50th anniversary, Cologne plastic specialist Igus now went on a tour around the world to demonstrate the performance of its products. I wanted to know how this is working out and learn more about the tour team: in Sweden and Denmark. It‘s a special day in Germany, with almost springlike temperatures – on Epiphany 2015. I took off from Mainz in the morning, first by train to the Düsseldorf airport. With luggage for six days and plenty of video and photo equipment; I check in – on my way to Stockholm. Oliver Cyrus, press manager at Igus in Cologne, comes with me on this exciting tour that I have been looking forward to for months. After all, I would like to learn more about plain bearings, what is going on behind the scenes of “iglidur on tour” and why three young men spend more than half a year travelling back and forth across Europe – in a converted small car that is particularly noticeable because of its brilliant colour: Igus-orange. Let me tell everything in order, though: Since January 2014, a small car equipped with polymer-plain bearings has been travelling across four continents and across three oceans, through deserts, snow and tropical heat. Author: Dirk Schaar, editor-in-chief, AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGIES AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGIES 3/2015

next page 01 Team leader Karl explains the technology to the Colly customers 02 A great team: the video idea only takes some brief consideration With this demonstration drive, Igus is presenting the potential and resilience of its tribo-polymers for moving applications in the scope of its 50 th company anniversary and the 30 th anniversary of Iglidur. The car with the license plate K–IG 1964 and the team around politologist and sociologist Sascha Laufenberg from Bonn have already passed more than 50,000 km from January to October 2014, travelling India, China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Brazil and the USA. On October 15 th , on time for the 50 th anniversary of the company, the tour returned to the factory premises in Cologne Porz-Lind, to start the last big leg – the European tour. With a new team, comprising of team leader Karl Weinmeister (24), driver Sandor Meierjohann (19) and photo and video expert Nils Schneider (19), they drove back and forth across the European continent – from Austria through the Netherlands and Belgium, England and Scotland, France and Switzerland to celebrate New Year‘s Eve in Berlin. 56 swaps “Welcome to Stockholm”, the airplane speakers say. After a flight of just under two hours, we have reached the Arlanda airport. A rented car takes us right to the hotel. It is colder than at home, and the Swedish capital city is welcoming us with slightly powdered streets. It has gotten late, and after a quick dinner, we go to bed to be rested when we finally meet the Iglidur car in the morning. I can‘t resist checking Facebook and the tour-blog (http://blog.igus.de/iglidurontour) again for current information on Karl & Co., though. Where are they at the moment? Will we be able to meet them on time? There‘s some good news and 03 That‘s where the music is – visiting the Abba museum in Stockholm some bad: The 70,000 km mark has just been passed, but fresh snow on the way from Norway across the border to Sweden delays the planned quick transfer. Is our plan in danger now? We will see … Strengthened by a Swedish breakfast, we drive north the next morning. Our destination is Kista, a suburb of Stockholm, where Colly Components AB is headquartered. Colly is one of two exclusive Igus dealers in the country of the elks. They specialise in the high-performance Iglidur polymer plain bearings and linear technology from the Drylin range. Therefore, it is not surprising that the first customer event will take place here today. Per Samuelsson, Igus product manager at Colly, welcomes us and uses the time to take us on a tour of the premises. I quickly see that this company is managed exemplarily and fits Igus perfectly. Employees and customers are the most important for them. Not only the many AUTOMATION TECHNOLOGIES 3/2015

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