Creative ideas, new concepts and future-based thinking. New products, forward thinking and the use of modern technology. There is one term for new and creative things: innovation. In general, people speak of innovation when referring to new ideas or concepts, whereby these new ideas or things could be new goods, new products or new methods of production. Does innovation clash or work well with the tradition-based Vienna Region? Research has shown it does work very well indeed.
To honour those innovative and creative minds, there are a number of innovation awards every year. Even last year with the corona pandemic in full swing and people staying at home most of the time, some minds were inspired nevertheless and, operating at full speed, came up with new ideas and solutions. Today we want to take a closer look at three of those innovations.
Eco Friendly lamination process
Isosport is an innovative player situated in Eisenstadt (Burgenland). The company is the world market leader in the production of plastic composite materials for the ski and snowboard industry. It is furthermore a reliable supplier of best quality high performance films, sandwich panels, fiber composites, and tennis strings. Isosport focuses on innovative and individual solutions for their customers.
In 2020 the company was awarded with an innovation award for the eco-friendly production of their products. Isosport came up with ISOFILM, which is a kind of foil that can be applied directly to the sheet steel. In this process no environmentally harmful processes are needed. The excellent adhesion is achieved by heating up the steel before laminating the foil.
Plastic with individual DNA
For almost 70 years the family business in Gumpoldskirchen (Lower Austria) Gabriel Chemie Masterbatch has been successfully operating in masterbatch plastic and is one of the leading masterbatch companies within Europe. The company specialises in “bringing life to plastic”. Their products can be found in food or cosmetic packaging, in medical devices or even in your own home, just to name a few areas.
In 2020 this research enterprise was awarded for the innovative product series TagTec (Taggant Technology). With this method they turn plastic into an intelligent material with its own DNA. This gives plastic an individual fingerprint, with which the documentation of the whole product cycle from production to the consumer product. The information of such fingerprints can be read with special sensors. TagTec products help to have better quality management as well as to protect from fraudulent usage. They can also be used for the separation of recycled material and general material inspection.
Inspect your structures
Wouldn’t it be great if you could not only inspect your structures, but also see them digitally in 3D on your computer? This process would make it a lot easier to keep infrastructure safe. Austria’s first corporate startup focuses on exactly this lack of structural inspection. StructInspect has the flexible and dynamic structure of a startup, but at the same time has the corporate experience of a global player in lifting solutions behind it: the company Palfinger.
In 2020, StructInspect won the Iceberg Innovation Leadership Award for their new digital inspection process. In three steps your structural inspection can be conducted. In the first step images of your construction are taken by camera, drone or the StructInspect Network data capturer. In step two these images are turned into a digital model through the startups automated processing system. In the third and last step, the conditions of your construction can be assessed. At the end of this process you have a document in your hands stating the condition of your construction, possible damages included, and you can easily decide how to proceed. Everyone involved in this process benefits from these efficient work steps, precise results and the sustainable usage of the database.
