Trainee project “Smart Bratwurst” wins Industry 4.0 talents competition

Germany — With its trainee project “Smart Bratwurst”, Arburg was one of the five winners of the Industry 4.0 Talents competition 2022. The project is a grilling station based entirely on Arburg technology that automatically sears sausages in a continuous process.

The Industry 4.0 Talents Competition of the Alliance Industry 4.0 Baden-Württemberg, a network initiated and supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs Baden-Württemberg, was held for the third time this year. This competition was established because “for a successfully established digitally networked value chain, early and practical contact of the trainees with the topic of Industry 4.0 is essential today”. Among this year’s winners are trainees from injection moulding machine company Arburg.

The award was presented to the trainees Nico Schoch and Nils Frey by Dr Patrick Rapp, State Secretary in the Ministry of Economics, Labour and Tourism of the State of Baden-Württemberg, at a virtual awards ceremony. The two trainees travelled to Stuttgart on behalf of the Arburg team to receive the award and present the project in the Haus der Wirtschaft.

Nico Schoch and Nils Frey are trainee electronics technicians in automation technology. During the award ceremony, they presented their project to Dr. Patrick Rapp. The State Secretary was impressed by the unconventional idea and its execution and had the trainees explain the challenges involved in developing the smart grilling station. Partly as a result of these interesting insights, he subsequently announced his visit to Arburg in Lossburg.

The trainee project on the topic of Industry 4.0, with which the Arburg team entered the race, has already been in use time and again since 2016 at the Arburg Technology Days in Lossburg, the annual in-house event with thousands of visitors from all over the world. It is further expanded and technically refined by each new cohort of trainees. The interdisciplinary trainee team consists of trainee electronics technicians, mechatronics engineers, industrial mechanics, and IT specialists, as well as industrial clerks and DHBW students in mechanical engineering and mechatronics.

Basically, it is a grilling station based entirely on Arburg technology that automatically sears sausages in a continuous process. An interplay of components: a Thermolift dryer heats the pre-cooked sausages to the right temperature. After they are inserted into a special holder, the sausages are then grilled to perfection in an original Allrounder cylinder module. The subsequent handling — preparing the paper plate, putting on the sausage, portioning the mustard, and retracting the sausage holder — is carried out by two Multilift robotic systems. The control cabinet for the control system (PLC) of the grilling station, as well as the entire mechanics, and even the installation and wiring of the safety fence, were realised by the trainees themselves.

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