We spoke with Gorazd Vrbica, the person in charge of purchasing strategy and cost management in the VW group. He grounded the most ambitious cost reduction program in the automotive industry – ForMotion – which enabled VW to save three billion Euros in a period of two years.

The company BOSIO d.o.o. grew 16 years ago from a trade shop, where they were producing the first smaller industrial furnaces for heat treatment in 1988. The decision to specialise for manufacturing of industrial furnaces proved to be correct – today the company employs more than 50 people and has gained a good reputation on the domestic and foreign markets. It is hard to find a toolshop in the domestic market that doesn’t have at least one heat treatment furnace from BOSIO’s program. In the last years, they have begun to develop a successful program of gas heating furnaces, thereby increasing their activities in automotive, ceramic and glass industry.

prof. dr. Ladislav Kosec
Powder metallurgy includes procedures that enable manufacturing of some materials and/or products from metal and non-metal materials.

Iztok Tomažič, dr. Boštjan Taljat
Case hardening is a chemothermal heat treatment process, which hardens the surface of steel products.

Iztok Tomažič, dr. Boštjan Taljat
In addition to basic nitriding procedures, the article presents the fields of use and the influence of alloying elements and other influential parameters on the results of nitriding.

Stuart Keeler
Looking at the forming rate and the direct speed of press during the forming process, we may ask ourselves whether greater speeds of presses allow for larger or smaller deformations.

The first universal metal-working fair this year showed new products and solutions for industrial production.

Ever since the first beginnings in 1998, AFAG as the organiser of biennial grinding technology fair Grindtec in German Augsburg can boast with growth. They are happy with the numbers this year, too. The exhibitors displayed numerous innovations on the international stage.

dr. Borut Likar
In the last few years and especially during the last months, the politicians and the entrepreneurs are sending the message through mass media: Slovenia is not investing enough in research and development and our companies are not innovative enough. The leading company strategy means the company strives to be better than its competitors at least in one narrow segment.

Spodnja Idrija hosted the first Hidria Corporation innovation forum in March, among other things announcing the innovators of 2005. The forum was dedicated to discussing the strategic concept for development of an innovation environment in the corporation and to presentation of best practices in innovation management.

dr. Tomaž Perme
PODIM, the conference on entrepreneurship and innovation in Maribor, has a year-long tradition. This year it was organised for the 26. time from March 30 – 31 in Maribor’s Habakuk under the title: Cooperation between the economic, academic and governmental spheres: mechanisms and levers. One of the goals is to establish efficient communication between the economic sphere and the universities. The government was added as a partner this year, being the most competent to establish efficient mechanisms and levers for development of a modern entrepreneurial and innovative society.

Marko Mirnik
Based on data collected in February 2006 in scope of analyses of current economic trends and prospects in Slovenia, performed by the Economic Outlook and Policy Services (SKEP) at the Chamber of commerce and industry of Slovenia, we can conclude that Slovenian industry is entering year 2006 with mixed emotions: the current trends may be comparatively favourable, but the prospects are not so good.

Robert Vidergar, LIV Plasatika, d.o.o., Postojna
The final goal in processing thermoplastic materials is to get a suitable, high-quality product with the lowest possible quantity of rejects. This goal is influenced by a number of factors. One of them is certainly preparation of material, so one must devote due attention to this factor. The article presents preparation of material by stages.

Esad Jakupović, Denis Šenkinc
This year CeBIT hosted 6,262 exhibitors, approximately the same number as last year, and 450.000 visitors, 5% less than a year before. The jubilee CeBIT, world’s largest trade fair and ICT event, hosted 11 Slovenian companies. The 20. fair in a row displayed thousands of new products from all fields; however all of them were more of an “evolution” than a “revolution”.