We have started a new volume of IRT3000, hoping the new year will be as successful and fruitful as the last two.

The first two months in 2008 have been marked by quite a few interesting events, such as the second Slovenian innovation forum, IFAM 2008 fair and the first strategic conference of technical industries. We were able to listen to valuable speakers at openings and professional meetings, telling us how the ties between science and economy will have to be intensified even more and raised to a higher level. These issues are hot because our country will relatively soon have to decide for a vision of performing on the global market.

It has been clear for a long time that we are unable to compete with our wages, yet we may position ourselves in the global market very well with a strategic decision for development and rapid introduction of new technologies to manufacturing processes. Large corporations are opening their own developmental institutes, but they are faced with the problems of shortage of highly educated staff, whom it is almost impossible to acquire.

This was also the topic of the strategic conference at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Slovenia, where the views of academic community, employment office and economy were confronted. It was clearly emphasised that there is a pressing lack of engineers and that the government must popularise even more this branch of education, introducing special measures to stimulate those educating the human resources in the field, as it is impossible to find them at the employment office.

The economy is thereby left without developmental engineers who could keep the Slovenian economy up to par with Europe and the world. This might be the only possible strategic plan for our country, as we will be unable to compete with the increasingly qualified Asian countries in the field of manufacturing. The smallness of our companies is no obstacle – it is an advantage that has to be correctly directed, as the large companies need more time and effort to adapt to change than the smaller companies.

Darko Švetak
IRT3000 Editor-In-Chief

From the content

Zoran Jereb, Sonja Sara Lunder, photo: Blaž Košak

We spoke to dr. Žiga Turk, Slovenian minister for development, about the developmental achievements of our country and about the projects still waiting in this field, about the possibilities for improvement of knowledge transfer between R&D institutions and the economy, about creating an environment more favourable for innovation, and about the role of Competitiveness council and sectoral developmental councils. The minister argues that the reforms taken by the current government are bringing results, proven by data on economic growth, unemployment rate and growth of net salaries.

Automation and informatisation:

This year, the fair has displayed some important novelties, so it was certainly not to our advantage that us two have arrived half a day late. After two days, we have barely been able to make up for it. What has been seen, can be summarised by the thought that rapid manufacturing has started to gain importance commercially. The revolution will not happen this year, but it is close.

Thematic unit:

During the last years, Slovenian foundries have found their way out of the troubles they had faced more than a decade ago, like most of the other industries. All Slovenian foundries are operating successfully, value-added and volume of orders are increasing. They are also expanding by purchasing foundries in the countries of former Yugoslavia.

Sonja Sara Lunder, photo: Blaž Košak, and archive of Metal Ravne, d. o. o.

The last business year was the most successful for company Metal Ravne so far, and also full of events and circumstances, which had an important impact on the company. According to the words of general manager Andrej Gradišnik, who took over the leading position in last August, the company was, in addition to other smaller, but just as important events, marked by the privatization of Slovenian Steel Industry (SIJ), the execution of strategic investment plan and growth in the market of metallurgical products. “The privatisation of SIJ and related changes in planning, reporting and organisation of company have brought numerous changes in the operative activities of management and accompanying services. Supported by the representatives of new owners, we have set more ambitious goals and achieved them with the knowledge and engagement of every employee. The execution of strategic investment cycle has put a big load on the large part of our staff and also required cooperation with external professionals. The growth in the field of metallurgical products has brought many orders and a large volume of sales and production. In November, we have achieved the absolute record in sales, that is 7.443 tonnes, and a production volume of 7.300 tonnes”, Gradišnik describes the activities of last year in Metal Ravne.

Technical industries are an important driver of economical development in Slovenia. The common denominator of any good technological solution and advanced product with high value-added is a combination of different materials and advanced processing technologies. The key short-term problem of technical industries is the unexpectedly high inflation, and the key long-term problem is lack of human resources, especially with the fourth and fifth degree of education, the situation being a little better in the sixth and seventh degree.

Doc. dr. Iztok Palčič

Competitive advantages of European countries are not only resulting from product innovation based on R&D work, but also from technical and non-technical (organisational) innovation, used to improve the manufacturing processes. We present the expansion of use of computer software for enterprise resource planning (ERP), industrial robots, team work and the processes of perpetual improvement from 2004 until today.

Dr. Tomaž Perme

Ever shorter product life, smaller series and shorter delivery terms are only some of the challenges, posed by the world market to designers and planners in manufacturing companies. Assurance of product quality and increasingly more expensive labour bring additional variables to the equation. This is the reason for using modern methods in the analyses and evaluation of results of planning.


Non-metals: