Left: Cutting the cake is (left to right) Martin Knoetgen, president of Doosan Infracore Bobcat Holdings (DIBH) in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA); His Excellency Ambassador Hayong Moon, Korean Ambassador for the Czech Republic; Scott Park, president and CEO of DIBH; and Jose Cuadrado, vice president for compact equipment in EMEA
Doosan Infracore Bobcat Holding (DIBH) has opened a new Innovation Centre at the company’s facility in Dobris in the Czech Republic. It forms part of the Doosan Campus at Dobris, which integrates R&D with manufacturing, sourcing and training on the same site in a unique combination that the company believes will help it become world number one in the compact equipment market.
The new Innovation Centre focuses on creating new innovative solutions, product development, research and testing activities. With more than 8000m2 of floor space for prototyping and testing and 1400m2 of office area, the new facility is a location where new advanced and in some cases unique technologies are installed.
The Innovation Centre houses integrated cross-functional product development teams consisting of product management, product engineering, test laboratory, advanced analysis, reliability growth, prototype shop, and compact NPD functions, as well as supplier development and sourcing. New complex test laboratories have been built for product validation ensuring a high level of performance, reliability and durability for Doosan and Bobcat products.
State-of-the-art technology includes modern prototype shop machinery including rapid prototyping, climate-controlled laboratories for extreme conditions tests, static and dynamic test facilities and a new noise test chamber with unique parameters which will ensure that Doosan continues to develop top-class compact construction machines under the Doosan and Bobcat brands.
Jose Cuadrado, vice president for compact equipment in EMEA, said, “There are many advantages from the integration of activities at Dobris including much faster product development cycles which will mean that we can shorten the duration of projects in some cases by half. Our Innovation Centre in Dobris is connected to another two centers in Bismarck (USA) and Incheon (Korea). While each center is focused on developing solutions for the local markets, the three share a technology roadmap that allows us to coordinate our most advance projects when it comes to research and innovation. We believe innovation is what will get us to number one in compact equipment worldwide.”
Martin Knoetgen, president of DIBH’s business in EMEA, added, “Our mission in Dobris is to introduce a new culture and principle for product development processes, bringing efficiency improvement and the new Innovation Centre, with its environment and advanced technologies, is key to affecting this change. All new products and results of research activities at the Innovation Centre are immediately applied in production at the Dobris manufacturing facility, as a result of the cross-functional collaborative space across engineering, sourcing, production and other support teams.
“We plan to grow Dobris production by 75%, so we have also started a manufacturing facility expansion project to enhance our manufacturing capability for compact machines.
“We are developing the Dobris Innovation Centre as a European Engineering Centre of Excellence, which will serve as an expert R&D center for all Doosan engineering teams across Europe and take responsibility for small loaders and compact excavators from 1-3 metric ton.
“Dobroslav Rak, vice president engineering, EMEA, who headed up and was the driving force behind this project, convinced senior management and I about the direct benefits and strategic importance, as well as the competitive advantage and unique proposition it offers.” Read our exclusive interview with Dobroslav Rak from 2013 here.
September 11, 2015
