On October 5, 2017, the Luxembourg Chamber of Commerce (CC) in collaboration with the Luxembourg Automobility Cluster (LAC) and the Luxembourg Materials & Manufacturing Cluster organised a sectoral mission to the headquarters of strategic research centre for the manufacturing industry, Flanders Make in Lommel, Belgium.
Operating from sites in Lommel or Leuven, and from 10 research facilities at Flemish universities, Flanders Make stimulates open innovation through excellent research. The research done by the centre strengthens product and process innovation so that industry is better armed and able to manage the challenges of tomorrow.
The October Luxembourg mission was driven by a strong focus on the automotive industry and related research due to the fact that Flanders Make conducts technological research in the field of mechatronics, product development methods and production technologies.
The programme for the mission included a presentation of the Luxembourg automotive sector as well as an overview of the Flanders Make organisation, its technology focus and its member companies. Following a networking lunch, the participants had the opportunity to participate in a test drive on the Ford Lommel Proving Ground (LPG) which for more than 40 years has been the most important vehicle proving ground of Ford Europe. The proving ground has a variety of 80km test tracks supporting durability testing and simulating public road usage in the most extreme conditions.
The afternoon was dedicated to lab visit comprising multi materials, flexible assembly and energy efficient / autonomous vehicles. The day was concluded by a suggestion of future collaboration with participating companies FANUC, Lecorp, LIST , LuxSpace , Nikon Metrology , PWC and the University of Luxembourg.
The LAC would like to thank the Chamber of Commerce and Flanders Make for the excellent organisation and positive exchanges which contributed to the success of this mission.
