On 16 September the Nowy Styl company signed a co-financing agreement for the construction of its own Research and Development Centre project with the Ministry of Development. The new research infrastructure, a dedicated staff of scientists and the research agenda will speed up the company’s technological development and facilitate the process of implementing new furniture solutions into the market. The project value amounts to over PLN 13 mln.
The Nowy Styl Group’s offer comprises many technologically advanced solutions. The patented chair mechanisms, such Glide-Tec, DUO BACK and S-MOVE that ensure ergonomics, and the project innovations within the Play&Work furniture system, are examples of the solutions that customers appreciate highly. However, product inventions are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of a company’s innovative character; they have to be supported by process innovations and a modern manufacturing infrastructure. These will all be developed in the Research and Development Centre (R+D) in the Sub-Carpathian region that is now under construction.
The R+D Centre will be located near Nowy Styl Group’s production plants in Jasło. Its main core will consist of the employees of the current Constructional and Technological Centre, the New Technologies Development Centre and the Tools Centre. The company is also planning to employ several dozen new engineers, including constructors, technologists and acoustics specialists. In total, the number of staff in the R+D Centre will amount to approximately 200.
Within the undertaking, the company will modernise the current technical centre building and fit it out with new research equipment, such as a laboratory for testing furniture ergonomics, a chamber for carrying out acoustics tests and a workstation for testing the UV resistance of materials.
The new equipment will be used to realise the extensive development work in the fields of ergonomics, new integrating and assembly systems, innovative production technologies and acoustics covered by the research agenda.
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Great need for acoustic research
Acoustics is one of the most important aspects when it comes to arranging a modern office. In order to work effectively, employees need a space that provides them with concentration possibilities. That’s why this year we are implementing new products that improve the acoustic properties of an office, created in cooperation with the laboratories at the AGH Academy. Nevertheless, our research needs are much greater. In the R+D Centre we would like to work on the use of new materials that will allow us to improve acoustic parameters of the whole product series “, says dr inż. Paweł Smaś, Director at the R+D Centre.
Production 4.0
The new R+D Centre will also be used to develop production and implementation processes. Their key element is PLM software – a modern 3DExperience platform created by DassaultSystemes. It is designed for comprehensive product lifecycle management. The platform is a place where teams developing products can cooperate. It includes computer-aided design (CAD) and production supporting tools. In connection with 3D printing technology and reverse engineering, the system will allow for changing designing methodologies of new products, which, in particular, will facilitate the prototyping stage by making it faster and more flexible.
” Nowy Styl Group is a leading furniture enterprise in terms of the innovative character of its production. In recent years, our investments in the area of R+D amounted to 25% of the company’s turnover. We are gradually implementing Industry 4.0 technologies: smart devices that aid in automating production and optimising processes using data gathered in the real time “ says Tomasz Bardzik, Technical Director at Nowy Styl Group, responsible for preparing the R+D Centre project “By using these technologies, we will be able to shorten the time needed to implement products into the market, the so-called “time to market,” and increase the manufacturing efficiency of short series at an industrial scale. This will allow us to adapt existing products to our customers’ individual needs, which is necessary in order to respond to those needs quickly and precisely.”
Eco-friendly production
In addition to research on products and processes, the R+D Centre will realise comprehensive development work on production technologies. Its scope will cover practically all manufacturing areas, including searching and testing the possibilities of using new materials, developing polyurethane foam technologies, processing plastics, metal sheets and profiles. One important aim will be to improve environmental parameters, in particular, to reduce the amount of energy and materials consumed during production, but also to limit the amount of the technological resources, such as water, and other materials, such as leather and wood used in the manufacturing processes.
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Business and education
Nowy Styl Group constantly cooperates with higher education facilities and research units. Within the R+D Centre, the company will continue the research and development cooperation with the Warsaw University of Life Sciences, the AGH Academy of Science and Technology and the Stanisław Pigoń State Higher Vocational School in Krosno. The students of those universities will be able to serve an internship or take part in training courses in the R+D Centre. This year the State Higher Vocational School in Krosno held recruitment for a faculty which partners with the Group and within which there is a dedicated speciality – Designing and Manufacturing in a Virtual Environment. The Group also intends to involve companies from the Sub-Carpathian SME sector in the activities undertaken by the Centre by entrusting them with tasks selected from those covered by the research agenda. This will have a great influence on knowledge transfer in both directions.
“By integrating the R+D activities from all our company’s sectors into one unit and by investing in the necessary infrastructure, we will be able to introduce a quality change to our company’s development activity. The furniture market needs product innovations, and we know that our constructors and technologists have all the necessary competences to create solutions that would surpass those created by our European competitors. Fast implementation of our ideas into the market will give our company a huge competitive advantage and provide our customers with access to even healthier, more eco-friendly and more effective products “ concludes Tomasz Bardzik.
The implementation process of the “Construction of a Research and Development Centre by Nowy Styl Sp. z o.o.” started in November last year and it will continue until the end of October 2018. The undertaking is realised within the Operations 2.1 Intelligent Development Operational Programme 2014–2020. (PDF with more information) The whole project value amounts to PLN 13 mln (€ 3 million), PLN 3.6 mln (aprox. € 850.000) of which is a subsidy from public funds.
