During this year’s Production Technology Day at ASSAR Industrial Innovation Arena, the prize for this year's best degree project in production technology was awarded. The winners are Louis de Koster and Miguel Ángel Álvarez, who in their degree project present a simulation method that can improve industrial energy efficiency.
The students Louis and Miguel are from Spain and are studying the Production Technology – Automation programme, an exchange programme at the University of Skövde. The title of their degree project is “Energy Consumption Modelling and Validation for a Powertrain Foundry using Flow Simulation”, and the simulation model they present in their project has been validated in real-world production.
“It feels great to receive this award. It is the first time we have won anything, and we really did not expect to win, but we are so happy that our supervisor nominated us,” say Louis and Miguel.
The purpose of the award is to strengthen education in production technology and to increase collaboration between students, the University of Skövde and companies in the Skaraborg region.
“The degree projects are assessed based on their practical applicability, method application, novelty and originality,” says Magnus Holm, Senior Lecturer at the University of Skövde.
Simulation can reduce energy consumption
The award is established by the Production Technology Network and was presented by the University’s Pro Vice-Chancellor Anna Runnemalm. In addition to a diploma and flowers, the winning students will share a prize of SEK 10,000.
The motivation for the award was:
“The winning thesis has innovatively integrated energy consumption as a key performance indicator (KPI) in a DES simulation model, where traditional simulations have focused solely on production-related KPIs such as flow and lead time. The model’s accuracy has been validated in real production, confirming the reliability of the work. The results provide a strong foundation for increased energy awareness in production technology and demonstrate how simulation tools can be used to make more energy-efficient and sustainable decisions.”
Spain next!
Louis and Miguel will return to Spain shortly after completing their studies.
“But we’re open to work if anyone has an exciting job for us – then we’d love to come back, because we love Skövde and Sweden (though perhaps not the winter). But if we get a job, we’ll come back!”