FIELDTRIP to

On the field trip to Althofen on 5 June 2018, the Silicon Alps cooperating partners and other interested parties got an extremely exciting and unique look behind the scenes at flex, the world’s leading provider of electronic manufacturing services. This European centre of excellence in Carinthia/Althofen opened its doors and gave an insight into the world of the pulsating high-tech company.

Flex Austria supports the entire product life cycle through rapid and efficient implementation and offers its customers innovative solutions in design, engineering, manufacturing and logistics.

The numerous companies in attendance took advantage of the unique opportunity to network or intensify existing relationships with executives from all areas such as technology, production, the HR & training centre, business development, purchasing and of course, general management. The programme offered both diversity of content and high novelty value with awe-inspiring “aha!” moments. After some short opening words from Christian Philipp (Head of Communication, Silicon Alps) and a very interesting presentation by Erich Dörflinger (General Manager, flex) there were exclusive guided tours to selected departments:

Where People make the difference

The visitors received an introduction to the well-known Carinthian training centre, which not only trains apprentices for flex but also for other companies. It was obvious that flex places great emphasis on its employees and promotes vocational education and training. To illustrate the importance of the supply chain in flex, the participants were given access to the Pulse Room. Here, they were shown how the news in social media can also be used to the company’s advantage in relation to the supply chain.

In production, you could gain more impressions of the technology company. The transformation into a factory of the future has long since begun at flex, and is currently characterised by intelligent process control and optimisation of the value chain as well as the preparation and ongoing further training of employees in the latest technologies. Despite the change into a factory of the future, where a robot retrieves parts from the warehouse, the importance of the employee at flex became very clear here as well.

The Design & Development and Technology departments demonstrated the tasks and roles they have and how they function by means of some products from the household sector, medicine, smart home integration, smart card, and many more. These demonstrations, as well as the wide range of products flex offers its customers, provided stimuli and many starting points for further intensive discussions and cooperative possibilities during the subsequent get-together.

On behalf of all cooperating partners, the Silicon Alps Cluster thanks flexfor their openness and hospitality.