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It was a pleasure for me to organize and host the first company visit of POMunity. Since I work in the engineering department at KYBURZ Switzerland AG, I had the opportunity to host the visit from the company side. At the same time, as a co-founder and board member of POMunity ESTIEM Zürich, I also participated as a guest.

At 13:30, I welcomed our visitors. It was great to see that so many interested students took the time to visit the company. Many of them were already exploring our model vehicles in the showroom before the event officially started.

After a short round of introductions, the presentations began. My part was to present the production management practices at KYBURZ. After completing the course “Production and Operations Management” by Professor Torbjørn Netland last semester, it became clear to me that KYBURZ is an excellent example of how many of the concepts taught in the course are applied in practice.

For example, several different production layouts can be observed on the shop floor, including functional layouts, cellular layouts, and line layouts. It was especially interesting to explain lean manufacturing concepts such as one-piece flow and 5S directly on the shop floor in a hands-on way.

Since most of the participants were mechanical engineering students, a strong focus was also placed on engineering topics. A big thanks to Dr. Philipp Stoll for presenting this part. Thanks as well to Franz Daxinger, who explained the work of the KYBURZ research team and showed us one of their current projects: an autonomous forklift. Thanks also to Fabien Caroselli for presenting the eRod.

After the factory tour, we continued with coffee, Gipfeli, and test driving, where the students had a lot of fun trying out different vehicles.

Already after the first company visit, POMunity has shown the impact of its mission to connect academia with industry. Following the visit, one student applied for a position in the research team and is now employed there. Congratulations!

– Levin Tran, Board Member and Co-Founder of POMunity