Today was a really early start to where we had to depart from our hotel at 7:30 a.m.. Today marked the first day of our company visits and the first company we visited was Hoerbiger.
Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take photos inside of the building, so I will just have to describe the company to you. The companies was split into two different factories. The first factory makes these compressors, which control to utilize the flow of energy of a machine, this is also called a valve. The purpose of these is to control the flow of things in the machines they use. A really good example of this is an oxygen cylinder and laser machines. Oxygen cylinders are often used for babies when they are born pre-maturely and they require this oxygen machine to have the correct amount of pressure to keep them alive. Hoerbiger’s valves are extremely precise when regulating the oxygen and the laser cutters. These valves are so precise with the energy that it can cut down a cataract surgery from 20 minutes down to 2 minutes. Hoerbiger’s valves are extremally efficient in energy and precision. Since these regulators are very delicate, the factory was very clean and kept, where we had to put bags over are shoes to ensure the place stays clean. This factory was really amazing to check out because such a small device that is used for percision is often overlooked and so being able to see how much care is put into making sure that these valves don’t become faulty was really amazing to see.
The next factory was their car manufacturing. Specifically, Hoerbiger makes the gears that shift a car. This process of turning steal into these gears is mostly done by machinery, but there are small task done by humans. From beginning to end, the machines work like clock work 24/7 to produce these gears. The advantage of Hoerbiger’s gears are that they are very sustainable and last a really long time. This factory looked more like a factory because it was more rough and dirty. What mattered the most was that the machines didn’t break down, so things that doesn’t affect the machines don’t require that much attention. The best way to describe it is that the first facotry that was making the valves had to be clean at all times because of how delicate the different chips and computer parts, meanwhile the second factory only needed to make sure that they kept the machines up and working.
What’s really interesting is that Hoerbiger produces a really specific car part, but the issue is that the market is moving toward more electric vehicles. Since Hoerbiger creates one part for many different customers, they can easily switch to new customers who are in the electric car market and modify their existing machinery to make parts for electric cars. The reason why was stated by our tour guide who said that replacing the machinery would be more expensive then simply modifying the current machinery that they have.
After the factory tour, we all headed towards the Alps (which today I just found out that Alps isn’t short for anything, but is just called Alps). It was really rainy and cloudy so it was going to be awful since there would be no good view because of the clouds. However, the rain passed as we waited 30 minutes and suddenly it was sunny. The Alps blew me away because of how stunning the mountain range looked, especially with the snow on it. What made this even more magical was the small village that was surrounded by the Alps. Walking though that town made me feel like I was at Disney World. We also ate at that town, in which I ordered a Schnitzel (which is so delicious). Today was such an amazing day and I am really looking forward to tomorrow.
