Water is one of the supplies that we can do without in any case. More important is that we have water in a clean condition available. Fraunhofer scientists have developed a method, which allows you to disinfect water in industrial processes using diamond electrodes. In this technology, no additional chemicals are used, and the operation requires little energy and can be carried out in an independent system in place.

How does it work?

For the electrochemical process, the electrodes are provided with a conductive diamond layer.



The material used for this purpose, however, differs greatly from the diamonds that we know as jewelry: It is an artificial, only a few microns thick. A view through the scanning electron microscope at 5000 times magnification shows that the gray layer is composed of many small diamond crystals.

The water comes into contact with the diamond layer, formed under the influence of electric current ozone, an unstable gas, and hydroxyl radicals, which are among the strongest oxidizing agents. For people and animals increased ozone concentration in the air is unhealthy, because ozone irritates the respiratory tract.

In water treatment, the oxidizing effect is used to destroy micro-organisms in an environmentally friendly way, and pollutants. The use of diamond electrodes, solvents, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, bacteria and other microbes are rendered harmless. The method is also suitable for pollutants associated with conventional methods is difficult or impossible to be eliminated. After the complete oxidation of the pollutants remain carbon dioxide and carbonic acid.

Used for operating and industrial water treatment in the beverage industry

Partners and users, for example, brewery and beverage manufacturer of technologies such as the company Esau & Hueber in Schrobenhausen. An example is the chemical-free treatment of industrial water and process water for brewing. The cleaning and rinsing of your brewing equipment used by the ozone water treatment completely free of germs. The internal operation of water supply affects the process as a firewall, which ensures that no microorganisms pass the water input. The residual effect of the ozone keeps the water distribution network is free from contamination.
read more at http://www.fraunhofer.de

Electrical car charger

Global automakers from the United States and Germany will demonstrate fast-charging technology that will enable the recharging of most electrified vehicles with compatible systems in as little as 15-20 minutes.

Audi, BMW, Chrysler, Daimler, Ford, General Motors, Porsche and Volkswagen have agreed to support a harmonized single-port fast charging approach – called DC Fast Charging with a Combined Charging System – for use on electric vehicles in Europe and the United States.

Live charging demonstrations will be conducted during the Electric Vehicle Symposium 26 (EVS26) May 6-9.

The combined charging system integrates one-phase AC-charging, fast three-phase AC-charging, DC-charging at home and ultra-fast DC-charging at public stations into one vehicle inlet.

This will allow customers to charge at most existing charging stations regardless of power source and may speed more affordable adoption of a standardized infrastructure.

The International Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) has chosen the Combined Charging System as the fast-charging methodology for a standard that incrementally extends the existing Type 1-based AC charging. The standard is to be officially published this summer. ACEA, the European association of vehicle manufacturers has also selected the Combined Charging System as its AC/DC charging interface for all new vehicle types in Europe beginning in 2017.

The charging system design was based on collaborative reviews and analysis of existing charging strategies, the ergonomics of the connector and preferences of U.S. and European customers. The system was developed for all international vehicle markets and creates a uniform standard with identical electrical systems, charge controllers, package dimensions and safety mechanisms.

read full article on http://media.gm.com/

We wish all of you a merry christmas and a happy new year and hope that we can welcome some of you in June 2012 in Frankfurt!

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The Business Complexity Accelerator at Toyota

There was an interesting article in the Knowledge@Wharton newsletter today. Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie interviewed Toyota expert, author and Tokyo University Professor Takahiro Fujimoto. The piece is called Under the Hood of Toyota’s Recall: ‘A Tremendous Expansion of Complexity’ and raises the by now familiar questions of complexity of modern automobile systems design, attitudes at Toyota towards its recent quality problems, and what this means for both Toyota and its competitors. To sum up the article with an automotive metaphor, Toyota needs to take its foot off of the business complexity accelerator.

Fujimoto said, “I was surprised to see that Toyota was the first to be caught in this trap of what we may call

complexity problems.” What has puzzled Toyota watchers is how Toyota, proven to be so great at solving problems for so many years, seems to have stumbled in a big way during this recent acceleration-related recall. Why?

Toyota failed to see this problem in the right way, at least in the beginning.

Failing to grasp a problem clearly, quantitatively and without prejudice is the first step in problem solving. Was this a case that the problem solving approach was flawed, or was it that the problem solving process is still sound but that Toyota did not follow their own process?

The danger is that people tend to connect the two problems. “This happened and that happened, so there must be causal relations between the two.” But this is not the case. There appears to be no connections between the design problems and the Toyota production system or Toyota Way.

He clearly says that the recent quality issue at Toyota is not connected to their way of working within the production operations, i.e. the Toyota Production System or even more broadly their philosophy, the Toyota Way. He suggests that that the complexity of new systems within the design simply got out of hand, and when they did, Toyota was unable to respond properly. While the processes within TPS are sound, the mindsets and behaviors of people may have shifted in an unhealthy way towards overconfidence, even arrogance. Fujimoto said:

Read more text http://www.gembapantarei.com

Road vehicles – Pedestrian protection ISO 11096:2011

The number of pedestrian leg injuries caused by dangerous car design should be reduced thanks to an ISO International Standard defining a new crash test method.

According to the World Health Organization, road traffic accidents kill more than one million people a year, injuring another thirty-eight million (five million of them seriously). The death toll on the world’s roadways makes driving the number one cause of death and injury for people aged 15 to 44.

ISO 11096:2011, Road vehicles – Pedestrian protection – Impact test method for pedestrian thigh, leg and knee, sets out a test method to assess the protection of an adult pedestrian by simulating the leg-impact conditions sustained during the car-to-pedestrian crash.

The goal is two-fold – to:

- Provide information on pedestrian safety to consumers
– Induce manufacturers to develop vehicles with excellent pedestrian protection.

Sukhbir Bilkhu, Chair of the ISO subcommittee that developed the standard, commented: “The pedestrian impact test simulates accidents in which a pedestrian is hit by an oncoming vehicle. These accidents represent about 15 % of fatal crashes. Thanks to ISO 11096, we will make substantial progress in improving vehicle structure, and in so doing, reducing pedestrian lower-limb injuries.”

Read more text http://www.iso.org

Christopher J. Scolese

After 30 years of missions, NASA is ending its Space Shuttle programme. Why was this decision taken, and what’s next for NASA ?

Christopher J. Scolese : The Space Shuttle has been around for 30 years and it has proven itself to be a remarkable machine that has accomplished some absolutely fantastic missions and tasks. The Hubble Space Telescope and astronomy would not be where they are today without the Space Shuttle and all the work NASA carried out with our international partners. Without the Shuttle, today’s International Space Station (ISS) could not have been built to serve all
15 partner countries. Our work on the ISS truly serves the whole world as more and more countries have come to

use it. Now NASA is ready to embark on the
next phase of space exploration. This will be the utilization of the ISS now that it has been built, and we have all started to understand how to exploit it. NASA is in a position to carry out necessary research in order to fully utilize the ISS and prepare, once again, to send humans beyond low-Earth orbit with the technologies of today. This was

the reason for moving on from the Space Shuttle to build upon the great legacy of that machine. Of course, like anything else, the space industry has changed over the past 30 to 40 years.

In 1970, roughly, when the Space Shuttle was conceived, there were really only two countries in the world that were sending people into space : the USA and the Soviet Union. Both  countries are very different today ; the world is very different. I like to joke with young engineers and say, “ Think about it : the power of your handheld cellular phone today is probably
greater than that of the computers that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon in the 1970s ”. So, clearly technology, the environment and globalization have changed the way we all look at the world. This is all factored into our plans for the future.

Space exploration and discovery are associated with innovation. Can standards act as a vehicle for disseminating innovation ? Are there particular areas in which ISO standards can help the industry move forward ?

Christopher J. Scolese :

Of course people think that standards and innovation do not go together and that they inhibit what you can do. And that is wrong. In my mind, there are two types of standards. First, there are systems specifications– standards that tell the user the right way to do things, regardless of the technology used. To give you some examples from my background as an electrical engineer :

Read more text http://www.iso.org

The Illustrated Toyota Production System, Vol. 2

We are pleased to bring to you The Illustrated Toyota Production System, Volume 2. This is a book that sheds light on lean manufacturing practices and in particular the Industrial Engineering underpinnings of TPS. Building on the overview of philosophy, principles and systems provided in Volume 1, the second half gives 60 practical lessons on kaizen and industrial engineering approaches and their use.

To celebrate the publishing of this book in English, we are offering a 2-for-1 sale through the month of June. Click on the banner above or visit www.gemba-shop.com and enter the coupon code TPSGEMBA upon checkout.

Each book is about 130 pages, half of which are illustrations of various principles and tools.

Volume 2 contains 60 lessons made up of one page of text and one supporting illustration, such as the one below from “Lesson 38: Education and Training Help People See Waste“.

The book is organized into four sections as shown below:

Section 1. What Is Kaizen?

1. Kaizen Is Built on Respect for People
2. A Key to Toyota’s Outstanding Success
3. Sharing Information through Visualization
4. Creating a Common Understanding of Work through Visual Management
5. Examples of Visual Management
6. Knowledge Is Not Sufficient–Creativity Is Needed
7. We Know Defects Are Waste–Why Can’t We Kaizen Them Away?
8. Understand Time-Tested and Proven Problem Solving Techniques
9. Kaizen Must Be Workplace-Centered
10. Understand the True Nature of Defects
11. How to Find the Root Causes of Defects in the Workplace
12. Getting Rid of the Waste of Inspection
13. Causes of Careless Mistakes & the Pokayoke Concept
14. Three Approaches to Pokayoke
15. How to Cope with Unplanned Minor Stops of Equipment
16. How Can We Learn to See Waste?
17. What to Do When You Cannot Find Topics for Kaizen

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Future of Quality

Change is persistant, what an old but never outdated wisdom. But what does that mean to our organizational environment? What does that mean concerning the job outline of a Quality Systems Manager? We will give you to both questions some answers. Mr. Paul Borawski, Chief Executive Officer, American Society for Quality, will provide you with useful information about the future of quality. He will invite you to lead. To take action. To prepare yourself and your organizations to benefit by anticipating and preparing for the future.

Mr. Benedikt Sommerhoff, Senior Consultant, German Society for Quality, is going to outline the change of the

occupational image of a Quality Systems Manager and will invite you to look into the future.

Closing Ceremony and Announcement of the 56th EOQ Congress