Markus., Robot Technology & Water Component Engineer. ANDRITZ Hydro Ravensburg, Germany.

My name is Markus and I am responsible for the implementation and development of robot technology to produce hydro power components located in Ravensburg, Germany.

Waterpower plants are unique and therefore quite often we have to build create customized in-job shop productions with small batch sizes down to one-off single parts. For me it is a fascinating challenge to program varying geometries with technologies such as additive welding and high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) coating. During the setup of new components, I am free to advance the manufacturing process to make the manufacturing improved, faster and therefore more economic.

As a recent master’s degree graduate in 2019, I had just started at the design department when the robot production department and manufacturing shifted from Kriens, Switzerland to Ravensburg, Germany took place. People remembered me from my days as a student in the company and asked me if I wanted to do the project coordination. This request was certainly a challenging forward step in my career, but also gave me a lot of responsibility and the chance to prove myself. It gave me the opportunity to collaborate with other hydro locations and work my way into the technology of additive manufacturing, HVOF coating and robot technologies.

We inherited the additive manufacturing technology from Kriens, Switzerland where almost 500 Pelton turbine runners had been manufactured this way. During the relocation phase we redesigned the facilities to be able to handle the largest Pelton runners in the world. One of our first orders was from a customer in Norway, their runner was one of the largest outer diameters (more than 5m) and the highest runner weight that we’d produced. We managed to produce for them two runners successfully by welding about 12 tonnes of material in addition to each runner.