innofactory

The innofactory comprises innovation management, serving as an incubator for ideas. Expertise from diverse areas of the division convene to meet customer needs in designing products and processes.

The innofactory is you!

Based on our common purpose, “Becoming better every day – since 1802”, we strive to change the future. As a central and global element of GF Casting Solutions, the "innofactory" involves employees from all departments and production sites.

We have set ourselves the goal to become a sustainability and innovation leader providing superior customer value and operational excellence. Key to achieving these goals is an innovation management that connects know-how and coordinates innovation activities worldwide. The innofactory sets a clear focus on customer-centric innovation, sustainable mobility and a strong innovation culture.

GF Casting Solutions is an open-minded company, always in search of fresh ideas. We centrally coordinate global ideas and innovation projects while enabling each of our colleagues to contribute to our innovative strengths. All our colleagues are encouraged to pull together to ensure that ideas are developed into innovations and implemented quickly.

The new innovation approach “innofactory” involves all employees worldwide – from the development, production, sales as well as other departments. This graphic from Sasan Saidi shows our innovation processes and departments that are integrated.

Open Innovation & Collaboration

We open our innovation activities to external partners, including start-ups, and thus benefit from external knowledge and cooperation. At the same time, we present the division as a strong and sustainable driver of innovation.

Innovation Process & IP Coordination

We actively promote the best ideas in close collaboration with the customer and also stop those that are not promising at the earliest possible time. We are continuously examining the possibilities of applying for patents for our ideas. To this end, we pursue our central innovation process, which is valid throughout the division.

Ideation

Ideas develop when we are allowed to think freely. Whether during our daily work, in workshops or in brainstorming sessions; the Design Thinking approach is applied.

Innovation Interaction System

The Innovation Interaction System aims to link the innovation activities of the global locations via the central innovation process, to create synergies, and to launch joint innovation projects.

Technology Scouting

Technology scouting is a sub-area of trend research that deals with the regular and systematic observation of technological developments and the early detection of newly emerging technologies. Technology scouting is thus a starting point for a long-term comparison between innovative external technologies and internal requirements of an existing organization for strategic purposes. This matching can be supported by technology roadmaps.

Innovation Strategy

The core of our innovation strategy is the derivation of innovation goals based on a comprehensive analysis of current trends, customer needs, competition and our strengths. This strategy forms the basis for targeted and successful cooperation in our division.

Frank Gensty
Hans Zott
Michael Just
Simon Kalyciok

Latest innovation projects and news

GF Casting Solutions partners up with open innovation platform STARTUP AUTOBAHN powered by Plug and Play

The strategic partnership between Plug and Play Tech Center and GF Casting Solutions empowers GF’s vision to become the innovation and sustainability leader for industry partners worldwide.

STARTUP AUTOBAHN

Reducing costs and environmental impact through innovation

Highly automated high-pressure die-casting process in GF Casting Solutions production site in Altenmarkt (Austria)

Artificial intelligence in high-pressure die-casting

One of our latest innovation project handles the use of artificial intelligence in order to accelerate the optimization of our production processes. GF Casting Solutions has partnered up with AI pioneer Microsoft to establish a solid, data driven understanding of our casting processes.