cevoGlimpse of 2023: Embracing moments, milestones & memories

It’s that time of the year again. As the winter winds bring a crisp chill and the streets light up with a festive glow, marking the commencement of the Christmas season, let’s revisit the cherished moments and accomplishments that have shaped the year 2023.

The year kick-started with new partnerships around the world in two continents. Establishing the collaboration with two new international sales partners in China, we take next steps to establish our FPP technology in the Chinese market. Hesse, André & Co. GmbH & Co. KG focus on aerospace customers and are based in the Beijing area. ChunHua Automotive Technology Co., Ltd, based in Shanghai, promote FPP technology to their customer base in the smart & e-transport industry. Furthermore, we expanded our presence in the French market and partner with Multistation SAS. With their long-term expertise in composite and digital manufacturing solutions for the aerospace industry, Multistation is the ideal partner for Cevotec to locally support French manufacturers with FPP technology solutions. All of our sales partners were present at this year’s JEC World in Paris – we leveraged that opportunity and invited them for our first International Sales Day at the Cevotec headquarters, which proved to be a valuable day full with learnings, exchange and networking.

Our technical teams were busy as always and made important progress in key projets. In our large joint R&D project ACoSaLUS (Automated Composite Sandwich Lay-Up System), the overarching objective is to accelerate the lay-up process by factor 7x – 10x by full automation. This year, we focused on the improvement of the laminate design and patch placement process with advanced robotic movements. In addition, our teams achieved a fully automated handling of honeycomb cores with a newly developed honeycomb gripper on our robot. Last but not least, also the optical post-placement control of patches using AI has been further advanced in the course of this project. We’ve just finished the fully automated production of demonstrator parts, which marked the scheduled completion of this very successful development project.

Over the course of this year, our cevoLab became more crowded with the build-up of a new SAMBA system dedicated to reinforcing the domes of composite tanks. SAMBA Pro PV is configured to enable fast, precise and efficient placement of reinforcement patches on vessel liners. It features our next-generation feeding & cutting unit, equipped with an ultrasonic knife from our partner GFM and thereby able to process a broad variety of fiber materials. At JEC 2023, we gave a high-resolution preview of the new SAMBA family member.

In June we successfully completed the joint R&D project “Patch2Patient”. The six project partners investigated the necessary base technologies for a digital, flexible, and automated value chain in the production of composite medical products. These include modules of our Fiber Patch Placement technology as well as a planning and design workflow with adjusted digital tools to integrate patient-specific data into FPP laminate design. For this purpose, Cevotec, together with project partner Mecuris, developed a new cloud-hosted API as an interface between the 3D scanning solution of Mecuris and the ARTIST STUDIO software of Cevotec.

Also our customers were quite active advancing their applications with FPP. While for most updates, we need to keep strict confidentiality, we are proud to share that the SAMBA Pro system of the Fraunhofer IGCV institute found a new home in “Hall 43”, a brand-new AI research hall of Augsburg University inaugurated this summer. In this new environment, the Fraunhofer researchers use the FPP system to investigate innovative machine learning approaches. As part of their industrial development offerings, the SAMBA Pro system is also available for interested companies to explore and evaluate the feasibility of parts in Fiber Patch Placement (FPP) design together with Fraunhofer IGCV, including the production of demonstrator parts.

Commercially, the last quarters of the year are typically quite busy. We started the fall with exhibiting at international composite trade shows in the UK (ICS) and US (CAMX), attended the Composite Meetings in Nantes (France) and rounded the year off with our presence at the Aviation Forum in Hamburg and concurrently at the COPV World Conference in Hasselt, Belgium. Once and again, we are surprised and delighted about the new applications that innovative composite manufacturers approach us with and evaluate their feasibility for FPP. It’s our core mission to support those applications by continuously advancing the lay-up features of our production systems and software.

Reflecting on the past year, we feel proud, honored, and humble about the achievements, but even more about our cevoTeam that made them happen despite all kinds of challenges. The team has not only grown in size, but also along with the challenges they faced. We also bid farewell to colleagues that moved on in their professional journeys, creating new exciting opportunities to join our team. Check out our career page for current openings!

But first and foremost, we would like to express our gratitude to all our customers, associates and project partners for their support and trust in our work here at Cevotec! We extend our heartfelt wishes for a serene Advent season and joyous holidays!

Wishing a Christmas filled with warmth, from the entire cevoTeam!