This year we celebrated a quarter-century of APIS User Meetings. Although the concept is no longer new, this User Meeting was as innovative and modern as users have come to expect over the years. There were more than 200 attendees, made up of 22 different nationalities and coming from three continents. This year, the event was held at the Hotel Maritim in Magdeburg, a city applying to win the coveted prize of European Capital of Culture in 2025 (Germany’s year). The two-day event was littered with interesting conversations and shared experiences on the wonderful world of FMEA, as well as a variety of presentations, held by both recognized faces and newcomers.
Monday 24. September 2019
On the evening before the start of the two-day user meeting, the participants were welcomed with a Get Together in the form of a joint dinner. The atmosphere was obviously characterized by a curiosity about the upcoming events and the joy of meeting like-minded people again.
Tuesday 25. September 2019
After a formal welcome by Andreas Dietz and the customary “Past & future” rundown from Jürgen Eilers, guests gained a great insight into “method marketing”, presented by Martin Kohlmann and Hauke Lammers from Schaeffler Technologies. Following this, Torsten Clauß and Cornelia Rahm (APIS Informationstechnologien GmbH) presented the VDA/AIAG alignment with APIS IQ-Software.
Jürgen Kähler (ZF TRW Active & Passive Safety Technology) then shared his experiences with Inputs and outputs of a design FMEA, before Wolfgang Hinrichs of Daimler AG illustrated working with frequency and monitoring in FMEA-MSR with a real-world example.
The afternoon began with Dr. Alexander Schloske of the Fraunhofer IPA, who explained how to manage actions sustainably, drawing from his many years of experience. Things then got simply creative with Ute Schuler (FMEAplus Akademie GmbH), as she showed how FMEAs can be designed in a simple but inventive and innovative way.
Chad M. Johnson, Vice President of the APIS subsidiary in the USA, then shared (and subsequently infected) his enthusiasm for the P(arameter)-diagram from IQ-Software Version 7.0. Further features, only available in the latest version, were then presented by Jürgen Eilers and John Rainer (APIS Informationstechnologien GmbH). They then answered a number of questions from the audience.
At the end of the day, everyone was invited to a guided tour of the city in small groups. The 1.5-hour tour through the capital of Saxony-Anhalt followed in the footsteps of Otto the Great past the Gothic Magdeburg Cathedral, Roman excavations and the modern Hundertwasser House and provided an insight into the diverse history and art of the area. The day rounded off quite magically, whereby people dined (that’s not the magical part) while being beguiled by a table magician (that’s it).
Wednesday, 26. September 2019
The second day of the user meeting was initiated by Karl Förstle of ESG Mobility GmbH, who presented the development of a process FMEA for body in white production at BMW.
Peter Kreculj and Reinhard Hellweg (Ebm-Papst St. Georgen GmbH & Co.KG) then inspired the crowd with: “IQ-RM and the V-model incl. specifications”.
The penultimate guest speaker was Leonard Schimmel of Kostal GmbH & Co. KG, who encouraged users to also have confidence in structure-spanning function and failure nets and explained the advantages of this innovative approach.
Klaus Dieter Stöhr and Marcin Mazur (GKN) then imparted their experience in linking D- and P-FMEA, offering up some great advice to the audience.
As any non-newbie would know, an APIS User Meeting never concludes without a presentation from Alexander Weiß from support. The tips and tricks of the year are always a welcome sight for those looking to widen their IQ-Software skill set.
Finally, the two managing directors Peter Rosenbeck and Jürgen Eilers as well as John Rainer (APIS Informationstechnologien GmbH) accepted user requests, thanked everyone for their confidence in the company as well as the valuable contributions, presentations and the commitment of all participants for the success of the event.
Downloadable presentations
If you are interested in reading the presentations from this year’s speakers, please write to us at training@apis.de
The User Meeting in pictures
A selection of photos taken during the event can be seen here (note: page opens in German site)
Save the Date!
The XXVI. User Meeting will take place on 15-16 September 2020 in Dresden. We look forward to seeing you then!