Thirty-five Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering students from the SETU Engineering Society recently set off on a four-day educational trip to the city of Leipzig in Germany.
The main purpose of the visit was the Automotive Industry which is well represented in Leipzig with both Porsche and BMW car brands locating new flagship production plants there in the past twenty years.
The students first toured the nearby Leipzig BMW Plant, which was kindly sponsored by Kent Stainless Ltd, Wexford. The BMW plant is one of the world’s most modern and sustainable vehicle plants, producing the BMW 1 & 2 compact series cars while also being the first automotive factory in Germany to be largely powered by four of its own wind turbines.
The students gained a valuable insight into ‘Smart Factory’ technologies being applied in the plant including Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and high-end robots working side by side with human workers as well as a behind the scenes look on the workings of a large-scale ‘Just-in-Time’ and ‘Just-in-Sequence’ production facility.
The students also visited the Leipzig Porsche Sports Car Plant, which was kindly sponsored by Engineers Ireland South East. The tour provided an opportunity to see largely hybrid powered cars being manufactured throughout their journey through this very high-tech ‘Industry 4.0’ connected process, to be finally driven from the end of the production line on completion. The group were brought through the entire final assembly line and were alongside hundreds of cars which were being built step by step as they made their way through the production process.
Following the tour, the group had the opportunity to explore the Porsche Car Museum in the top-floor gallery of the Porsche Experience Centre building. This museum houses rare and priceless original cars with the entire car collection in the museum currently valued at an excess of €60M.
Ned Cullinan said “To be able to see these historic cars in the flesh and to be able to then sit into many of the current production cars fulfilled every engineering students dream.”
These international trips are an integral part of the Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering student experience at SETU and this year’s trip was another truly memorable experience.
“We would like to thank the sponsors Kent Stainless, Engineers Ireland SE, CALMAST, Dept of Engineering Technology and Clubs & Societies SETU who collectively contributed towards the funding of the trip, making it very affordable and accessible for all students concerned.”
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