Gentex and Dynajet Reflections

Today we went to Gentex and Dynajet. Gentex is the world’s leading supplier of automatically dimming rear view mirrors. It was a very interesting facility that we visited. It was mostly a distribution center for the European clients, but there was also a fair bit of engineering involved. Something interesting, which one may not think of, is that the European customers demand well integrated designs to the car. That means the implementation of cameras and other sensors in potentially a very small area. To overcome this, they made use of the engineers that they have in their European office, though all the manufacturing happens in Zeeland.

I thought it was smart of Gentex to be vertically integrated so that the quality of parts can be ensured. I thought their technologies were very interesting especially since I still have some interest in chemistry and electrical engineering.

What was also interesting about Gentex is that they seemed to believe their future was in cameras and sensors because of the future for autonomous vehicles. They need these so that if the car is a ride share, they can ensure that nothing “against the rules” were to happen in their vehicles. Otherwise the owner could charge a fee for a broken rule. They were optimistic in their business plan for autonomous vehicles.

Dynajet was a completely different feel from Gentex. Dynajet is a very small company that produces commercial grade power washers. This is an understatement because their machines can produce up to 40,000 psi of pressure. This is enough to cut through concrete without damaging the inside rebar. I thought this was very cool because less resources are needed to repair structures in the traditional way which is by jackhammer. Jackhammers damage the rebar. The company basically assembles their equipment from parts ordered from 200 suppliers. The manufacturing floor was small but was fairly well organized. I was impressed with their technology and how compact it was. That is a cross-industry idea. I thought it was cool that I was able to see this on a small scale instead of a scale the likes of VW or anything similar.

Professor Brouwer pointed out an interesting belt on one of the machines. This belt was segmented in to small 1 inch to 1.5 inch pieces. These individual pieces were held together with metal and formed a jagged belt. I had never seen anything like it. Carsten, a manager at the company, said that it didn’t need to be a regular belt because it takes only a low power of about 0.5 kW off the engine. He also said that they have never had a failure of that belt which I thought was amazing.

Overall, both companies were interesting to visit, and each gives a good example of a well run business.

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