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Toch nog even de link van de vlog!

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Presentation day!

We had a blast! We prepared our stand before the market properly, and the result was great! See the pics below! During some presentations for fellow students, we got into nice discussions and talks about combining this technology in future situations like flex-driving and self-driving cars, but also about the more ethical part of the concept. We even had some ethical discussions on how the future need of humans towards technologies like these will look like! Inspiring day! Below our research question is stated. Further questions can be asked to us or via our blog!

How can automatic parking systems solve parking capacity problems in capital cities like Amsterdam, Copenhagen and New York City?

We are really proud of the end concept and we hope that you liked our research as much as we did! Big many thanks and see you later, Powerpuffgirls VS Technology!

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Extra technical insight in parking systems

The information below shows extra technical information on the automatic parking systems. (source: Lödige Industries)

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Market preparation!

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We’re on the board!

1 minute of fame!

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Something about us!

Apart from the fact that we do cool stuff about technology, we are persons as well! Here is a little explanation about our group-name!

Since we were assigned to the letter P as a group, we had to come up with a cool group-name for the first weeks challenge: The Fresh Connection. Since we are three girls and one boy, you would think that the female voice is the loudest. Well, not in our case! Our only man, Ashwin, came up with the name ‘the powerpuffgirls’, because they are with three girls! So now we are the powerpuffgirls-a, because we couldn’t leave Ashwin apart! Down here a cute group-picture!

Left: Janoux van Riet

Up in the middle: Renee Chermin

Down in the middle: Kelly van Dijk

Right: Ashwin van Gennip

Building: Lödige Industries!

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Advantages of automatic parking!

Below here are the specifications of different ways of parking compared to each other. Here you can see what the advantages of automatic parking are!

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VLOG time!

In the past few days we learned so much about parking systems! But hey! We have a new parking at Fontys Rachelsmolen! Time to talk about this new object on our school site! The content might be a little bit dreamy, and we know that costs might be the reason why the basic normal parking was chosen instead of cool innovations. But hey, dreaming is okay!  Do you think we agree with this choice in functional considerations, or do we maybe have some other ideas? Check out the vlog! (sidenote: the video is in dutch, but we subtitled it for the English peeps under us!) #GOKELLY #GOJANOUX #vloggelicious 

ENG subs:

Janoux: Hi, my name is Janoux!

Kelly: And mine is Kelly!

Janoux: We’re currently at Fontys Rachelsmolen, and we are heading towards the new parking building right now. Look, there it is! We are going to take a look at the building, with all the new information we gained about parking systems, talking about whether we think this is a good solutions for the parking problems! Since this new acedemic year, Fontys has built a new parking.

Kelly: We really needed that because you can hardly come by car anymore to Fontys.

Janoux: Look! Fontys.nl/buildingonyourfuture. Well, how can we build on the future? By building new parking spaces. As you can see, it is fully loaded with cars over here. Let’s go inside. It is fully packed inside as well. For now this new parking is an okay solution, but if we look towards the future, it might have been a wrong choice. More and more students want to come to school by car.

Kelly: And with the new building on the way, more parking spaces will get lost.

Janoux: Our question now is, why didn’t fontys built a new innovative automatic parking system.

Kelly: It is way more efficient and you need less space for more cars on a small location like this.

Janoux: It would be a great step towards innovation, since we as students are thought to be more and more innovative and to be more efficient. How can we do that better than to implement such a cool innovation?!

Kelly: Especially with al the technical studies here! It would be a good example for students!

Janoux: So this parking would be a lot more efficient if it would be automatic, if they would implement the elevator for cars, so that all the space that gets lost for the cars to drive, can be used for parking more cars! Well, that was it! Bye!

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Information gaining!

Since we already had the interview with Lödige Industries, we are looking for other ways to gain information about automatic parking systems! We want to compare the old-school way of parking with the innovative parking technologies. Since we already have lots of information about the new technology, we have decided to contact parties like Q-parking and P1-parking. In this way we want to learn more about the lay out and involved people in the current parking systems. Here a picture of Kelly calling with the parties! #GOKELLY

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Monday morning works! #mondays #earlybirds #tjilptjilp #strategy #KAweeks #Fontyslife #technology #innovation #elevators #parkingsystems #lodige

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Plottwist: from one technology switched to another

On Wednesday, we already had the appointment with the Managing Director of Lödige, Arthur van Brink. The full conversation is described below. At first we entered the conversation room with the idea that we would learn more about the ‘palletizer’ in the KLM Cargo System. We left with a whole new technology that triggered us more! Self-parking systems. A whole new technologies that is urgently needed in huge cities like Amsterdam, New York, Copenhagen etc.. 

5/9/2018 - 14:00-15:00 - Lödige Industries, Den Bosch

First Kelly explained the purpose of the KA Technology & Engineering sessions.

Arthur: Okay. Yes. We have all sorts of new technologies. I will tell you first something about Lödige itself. Loödige as a company is a family business. The Lodge family has started ages ago. We have two sides of the family. One side produces industrial mixing machines. And the other sides, that’s us. Rudolph Lodge is still chairman of the board. The KLM Cargo was one of the first accounts. Recently, we renewed the machine for KLM. That is the account that Kellys father, Arie van Dijk, is managing. Our side of the business, we make Elevator Solutions for example. We’re doing all kinds of elevators, but not the cool ones that work with magnetic fields (yet). On the other side we also make Ramp Solutions, for example for theaters, but also for aviation-technique.

The real technology and innovation is in Car Park Solutions. The last years the step towards elevator entrances has been made. But now we’re looking for new ways of parking. Now we, with our innovative mind, are making a parking puzzle. You know, from the children’s puzzle. Funfact, Beyonce parks on our parking places in Downtown Manhattan 

Kelly: What do you think what will happen in the future?

Arthur: In the housing market, you’ll see that there is an urgent demand for new parking solutions, especially in the big cities like Amsterdam, but also New York, Dubai and other metropolitans.

Kelly: Is that fully autonomic?

Arthur: Let me show you, i have a new concept for you! We went with RTL7 to Copenhagen to shoot some tapes for the new elevator systems.

- The video is similar to the parking system in Copenhagen -

Janoux: Isnt’ this system way more expensive and has a longer back paying system?

Arthur: No, normal parking garages use 12 m depth for 3 levels. Because we use space more efficiently, we can go to max. 6 m deep. In that we save building costs.

Aswhin: How is it with queues?

Arthur: Our garages have multiple gates. If all these were used, the first crossroad around the corner may not handle the capacity of the parking, it is not the parking itself. A time ago there were festivities. They were finished, and everyone wanted to leave. So there were 800 people wanting their car. The biggest challenge is the psychological part, since a ‘normal’ parking lot can’t handle over capacity as well, because you will create traffic jam as well. The only thing that is different that people who are waiting for their car in the automatic parking system, can’t directly reach their car. That new technology is scary for them. 

Renee: How do you see failures of the system?

Arthur: In Germany we have a remote control centre. Big parkings will be monitored. With a signal they get when there is a breakdown. That is a central hub. They can reset and do distance system fixes. But this is the biggest innovation we have. We’re building in Copenhagen, in Sydney, in Germany.

Kelly: Do you have big competitors?

Arthur: Not in The Netherlands, but in Germany. There we have one.

Kelly: What distinguishes you from those competitors?

Arthur: We’re innovative. When the customer comes to us, we often don’t have the plan or the technology yet. We have a reputation that we have a strong R&D and we always find a solution. With the sidenote that the project has to be big enough. There was a customer that wanted a transport deck with a pallet that needs to be turned around and it will get on a wrong way on it. But we want it to get fully mathematic proof. The engineering costs will be so high. For Tata Steel in IJmuiden, we built an elevator to transport a zinc oven. They want to replace different ovens in the process. It weighs 350ton. It has to move. Well THAT is a big one. We want that. Business case, is easy, they already had these ovens, but they moved it by hand. It took 2 days. Now, with the machine, it takes 2 hours.

Arthur: But you didnt ask for the electric charging. How do you think we do that? There are several charging lids on several models. It has different positions as well. I’ll tell you. In the big ones we don’t have them yet. Because we have no people yet. In the pallet systems, it is easier. Because you take the charger and connect it to the pallet. In that way we can charge it, because we can connect the pallet to energy. 

Renee: Oh wow, you have a lot of smart engineers here.

Arthur: We have a graduation intern from Gent university right now here started. Next week he flies to New York.

Janoux: Are those self learning systems or are they programmed ahead.

Arthur: No, they are pre-programmed with algorithms. A fun thing is that we can do the distant calls for the car already. That the car is already placed next to the elevator. 

Kelly: Were is the production?

Arthur: In the neighbourhood of Winterberg.

Kelly: How does this work? The customer approaches you?

Arthur: I first do the intake, where we check the wishes. The commercial process. What are you looking for, capacity vs speed. After I get these wishes on paper, I go to R&D. We check what is possible. We give that as feedback to the customer. In that way we specify it more. In Amsterdam we have the Vijzel Gracht parking. In the place where the metro North-Soutline is located. It is located around 45 m below the surface. But the metro line is not 45 m high. So there is a lot of space for parking below the concrete case on the metro space.  They have already done research to the parties that can help them to build the parking. I think that we make a great chance on getting the job.

Renee: Is it hard to promise what the delivery time will be?

Arthur: For the Gemeente Amsterdam, they do a long ‘get to know each other’ project. In this case, we have some more dialog before the due date is set. The benefit is that the whole design of the parking is already discussed.

Kelly: I know you can’t give a time, but do you have an example of how much time it costs.

Arthur: For the KLM project there was a clear due date. We made kind of a parking system. The palletized didn’t exist when we started. The whole engineering was done in 3 months. But in the end, it all depends on the size of the project.

Kelly: I’m going to do an assumption, but correct me if i’m wrong. But in the core, all the technique is quite similar right?

Arthur: Yep, you’re right. We know how to move the car in the parking technique. What we didn’t know, was the part of the ‘shifters’. There are 8 cm high, they drive on batteries and they communicate with each other. The charging time of the batteries must be really quick. Now we have a charging time of 6 seconds. They can do the movement 4 times, so 4 cars.

Ashwin: But the batteries go broke in time right? Isn’t that expensive?

Arthur: No, we promise that we do these changes in time, we have a service contract for that.

Arthur: No one drives in and parks their car in the same way. The place on which the car parks has weight sensors. The floor can set the car in the right spot for parking. That is all put in the parking floor. If you watch at 5BY2, the company we bought a few months ago, they use het pallet system to put the car on the spot.

Renee: Isn’t the scary thing a big thing?

Arthur: I was in Copenhagen. I met a dutch family. We observed them for a while. They were very confused. They followed the instructions on the screen. The children were really shocked that the door closed and their car was gone.

Janoux: So, in 15 years, all the parkings will look like this?

Arthur: I don’t think so. Only where the ground is expensive. communication between the car and the parking will be a thing. You’ll get a kroket-automaat with cars in the future. A whole new era of demand for cars and parking will come. On the airport the same thing. There you have vallet parking. I had a talk with Vandelande. We would do the parking, they the automatic impact. That would be amazing if you ask me.

Group: Thank you.

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The company: Lödige Industries

Since we started the assignment the other way around than they expected us to do, we had some troubles in agreeing with the teacher on the subject. We first made contact with a company, since we thought 5 days was pretty short to find a party that would cooperate with us even though there is nothing in it for them. We managed to plan a meeting on wednesday already, so we would have information real quick. 

The company’s name is Lödige Industries. We got the contact by Kelly, one of our group-members. Her dad is Contract- and Projectmanager at Lödige, and manages the contract with KLM. For KLM they developed the so called ‘palletizers’. In the video below you see the Material Handeling System of KLM Cargo. This is the system where the palletizer is implemented. In the meeting on wedsnesday we hope to gain more knowledge about the palletizer as a technology, where it is implemented in the process, and what the business impact for KLM is. 

#learning #KLMCargo #LödigeIndustries #Technology #systems #comeflywithme

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We are changing the world with technology

Bill Gates

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Monday fun-day!

4 students, 1 mission...

That sounds quite exciting and promising, well, that’s what it is! On monday we started with the kickoff of the knowledge weeks. Technology & Engineering is the first subject where we will dive in the upcoming week. For us, ‘Industrial-Engineers-in-diapers’, it is of great importance to know what technical aspects can influence business processes. In this way we can learn how these aspects can influence long term, strategic, decisions. For some of us the ‘technology impact’ may sound a little boring, but the more we will learn, the more it will make sense that it is so important to understand the ‘hands-on’ language to make proper tactical and strategic decisions! 

Well, that was the first post of our blog! Prepare for some interesting visuals, some inspiring interviews, maybe some vlogs, some insights on the teamwork, some fun (GIF’s :o) and lots of technology! 

#geeks #technologyrocks #girlsandtechnology #andofcourseboysandtech #techonheels #andAshwinofcourse #yay #welovegifs