The Sika Experience

It is until several weeks ago when I received a email from dear Daniela – our coordinator of Sika experience “Automotive” 2010, that I suddenly realized it has been already one year since we had this exciting experience in two weeks of May in 2010 ! How time flies, and every time when I tried to remind those pleasure moments, I could see them there, vividly. During that period, with another winner all the way from Thailand – dear Sompol, I got to know lots of kind colleagues, traveled to different beautiful places and of course learned the fascinating technology of advanced foaming materials and universal adhesives. I still remember the unforgettable dinner we had together in the most famous restaurant in Munich – Hofbräuhaus, it is the most delicious and also the biggest pork knuckle that I have ever had; during the first several days in widen, we were very lucky to had the chance to make our own sandwich prototype all by ourselves, and it got even more interesting when the material was heated up in the oven while you could see the expansion process clearly; we were so surprised in the BMW factory in Munich by the splendid view of hundreds of highly automatically robots working under one roof; we climbed up on the Titlis mountain though heavy fog was surrounding us making everyone feel lost in a white world; we had been Paris for a weekend, we had been Zurich for the city night tour… There are countless precious memories which I could not tell about one by one. Such a wonderful experience is truly a big treasure that I would cherish in my whole life.

Starting from this activity, I have been knowing more and more about Sika and we have been keeping touch with each other since then. Just half of year ago, I was again very lucky to obtain an internship in Sika research department in Zurich on the topic of foaming materials. The job was interesting and I had so much fun working with those very nice colleagues. I learned a lot from them, not only on the technical knowledge but also on the cultural aspect, plus a little bit Swiss German as well :-b. The internship was about 4 months and then I was back to school for the studies. Now I am already doing the diploma project of my Master program, and the choice of the topic was also inspired by the research work done in Sika during the internship.

I am sincerely happy to learn that Sika experience 2011 is currently going on, and that there will be even more new breathtaking programs ready for young talents from everywhere in the world. I truly hope that such a mutual beneficial opportunities could be created every year and that those brilliant youths who were luckily invited will greatly enjoy such a valuable experience !



Working in the chemistry laboratory in Sika Technology in Zurich

After a fantastic weekends in Paris, in Monday afternoon we paid a visit to the famous automotive museum in Mulhouse – a city in the very east of France. There we had opportunities to see all kinds of automotives which the history ranging from the beginning of 20th century to nowadays. The brands include Citroen，renault, bugatti,Mercedes-Benz，fiat，etc.In Tuesday morning we arrived at the PSA((Peugeot/Citroen)) production plant in Mulhouse, where we went through the Stamp-Shop, Thrim-Shop and Body Shop manufacturing lines and we could see the Sika baffle and adhisive products being used for reinforcement and windscreen bonding. In the stamping shop, up to 2 tons tool is employed to creat different shapes of car body components. The production capacity of this manufacturing line turns out to be about 300,000 cars per year. Then in the afternoon, we had a visit in Sika Capaflex plant in Düdingen where the general manufacturing process of adhesives and an entirely new and “only one in the world” production line (without request for semiproduct) were shown. The last day in Sika experience is fantastic. We (Mrs. Daniela and us two) had a great time on the Titlis mountain, though the weather was a little bit too foggy to really see something :-)

This 10 days trip was an unforgettable experience ever in my life, I learned a lot from all these technical presentations, visits to production plants and very patient explanations from Sika colleagues, I met interesting people and had pleasant conversations with them, I got chances to be in different countries and experience diverse cultures. Big big thank to Daniela who organized everything very well, to Simon and his wife who gave us a great company in Munich, to Pascal and Patrick who conducted a very nice guide for us in PSA plant in Mulhouse, to Nicolae who showed us the extruder operation and plus delicious Italian pizzas, to Dominik who arranged the selection process, and to all other Sika colleagues involved in this activity ! And also a big thank you to Sompol from whom I learned a lot and with whom I had lots of fun !



The weekend we spent in Paris turned out brilliant. On Saturday, we had a biking tour in the afternoon and the guide led us going all around the streets and lanes in Paris. We started from Place Vendôme where gorgeous mansions have been built aiming to celebrate the great victory of war in which Napoleon beated Russian army in 16th century. Then we went to  Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris, Place de la Concorde, and many other interesting places. On Sunday, we went to La Tour Eiffel (the Eiffel Tower) and spent nearly 4 hours on the top of the tower and there we had a really nice overview of the whole Paris city, you could see Triumphal Arch, the Seine river, Notre Dame church, the new commercial areas with dense high modern buildings, everything. Paris is a wonderful city, where history and modern style meet, and this trip will be one of unforgettable experiences in my life.

Right now while I am writing this blog is our first sunny morning in Paris, what a good day ! I even start to imagine the biking tour we’ll have in the afternoon…

The last two days were great, we visited the laboratory in Zurich which is dealing with body in white technology in car manufacturing process, we had a introduction in Sika power adhesive product and got to make a performance test on them. Then we traveled to Romanshorn having a tour in one of Sika’s partner company which produces 2-K injected Baffle reinforcing parts, and each of us even got a “home made” present – a pen box made in the plant :-)  Before arriving in Munich in Germany we had a long drive about 3 hours, there we spent a wonderful night with the company of Simon and his wife. For the dinner in Hofbrauhaus (HB – one of the “must going” restaurant in Munich) I ordered a traditional Bavarian food – “Crisp roast knuckle of pork” served with grated potato dumpling, that one was fantastic, not only in terms of taste but also in terms of quantity, both of us couldn’t finish our dishes in the end ! And of course at least one glass (1 L !) of bear is the prerequisite for allowing you to have a meal in HB, those who don’t usually drink bear be careful ! :-) Life is cool …

On Friday we paid a visit to the BMW plant and BMW museum in Munich. The BMW ( Bavarian Motor Works ) manufacturing line in Munich is the most highly automatical one among all car manufactures in the world, and it’s just incredible to face in front of you hundreds of robotics working together under one roof and the level of precise of them – where to move, what to do, when to start, everything is so well controlled by the preseting program. Thanks to this, the production capacity is 200,000 cars per year, which means more than 500 per day, 1 in 2 minutes ! That is so cool ~~ Then we immersed ourselves in the historical development of BMW in the museum where people could have a look at very old styles of cars and engines.

Now comes Paris, more exciting things will follow !

Today is the third day of our Sika experience.  In the morning we was still staying in Sika Widen and had a presentation on car crash simulation showing us how to simulate the stress distribution when a car is under serious deformation in order to load proper reinforce pieces in certain area, like in the sidedoor frame and rare part, and so on.  It is interesting to know how the car is reinforced simply by replace the steel part with high strength foam and at the same time reduce the weight, which is very important in a sense of energy consumption aspect. And then we had a trainning session in system engineering sector where we learned about how to pump out the adhesive material onto target area using either robotics or simply by hands. 

After that we drove to Zurich to have our lunch in a very nice Italian restaurant where I had a dish of  “meat from young cow”, which is soft and with lots of special source. I like it a lot :-)  Then after a little break we started our tour in the materials testing lab in the R&D department in Zurich where we made our own “Sika product” of adhesive in one of the laboratory, and testing the viscosity, comparing the performance etc. It was also amazing to see various kinds of eqiupments that Sika has been using for testing the adhesive porduct in different conditions, like under water, “Sahara” weather condition, artificial sun environment etc.

In the evening we had this fancy meal in a fabulous restaurant in the center of the city where I ordered fried fish as the main menu. This restaurant has been running since 1926 and before that time actually it was used as a storage place for the military weapon, and now inside you could still see a cannon being exhibited ! Tomorrow we will be in Germany – Munich, to visit the BMW car plant there, I am so looking forward to it !

After a full meal of very nice swiss cheese fondue as dinner in a small local restaurant in the town of Bremgarten, we just came back to the hotel sonne again. At the beginning I wasn’t so much use to eat cheese, but with time I found myself started to like the flavour!:0 Actually Today is the second day of our Sika experience in Widen. On last Sunday, when Sompol (another winner of Sika experience from Thailand) and me just arrived Zurich, we had a very impressive city tour by bus and by ship organized also by the kind Sika automotive team, we got to visit the old church, seeing around the lake and we even had a nice lunch on the boat using the pocket money we received from the team. I have to say Zurich is such a Beau~~tiful city which I never expected to be, even though the raining and cloudy weather doesn’t help a lot :-) Then we spent a comfortable night in the hotel du theatre close to the train station. Monday is the first day that we began to visit the company and their labs etc. We mainly stay in the Sika in Widen and we had people from different departments introducing to us about the businesses they are doing and about how is like to work and “live” in Sika as a big family ~~ And then in the afternoon we had two presentations from Mr.Finkenyeller and Mr.Zweifel on major products that Sika automotive team has been devoting time and money to, such as reinforce materials, damping materials, acoustic system and bonding adhesive etc. Since they all directly from industry area and have really practical work experience, they explained things more from industrial point of view, or one could say, in a sense of business aspect, how to reduce costs by materials selection processes or by new designing ideas, what is the market situation, how to satisfay customer’s requirements, which is the part of the knowledge that I don’t get so many chances to learn from university educations. And it’s really a enjoyable experience to discuss with the engineers, designers and market managers about all these issues and get truely state of art ideas from them. Then it comes to today. In the morning we had a session on CAD designing, Mr.Koller showed us how to use the CAD software to initiate the prototype of the reinforce part and the baffle part, and afterwards we got opportunities to make our own prototype by hands. We use all kinds of machines to cut, to saw, to polish, and then nailed them together like sandwich layers with the foam material in the middle. Later on when we put the pieces into oven to be heated up, the foam layer started to expand just like what they will be looked like when being used as reinforce material or baffle material in the car frame. Then for the lunch we decided to eat pizza because there is a very nice Italian restaurant here and I ordered a “cisilina” pizza which is originated from the cisilia island in the south of Italy, it tastes delicious with little mushrooms and ham in it ! In the afternoon we also got some practical experience in the injection moulding and compounding processes showned by Mr.Bordeanu. In the evening we went back to Bremgarten and had dinner together, we cooked fondue, drinking red wine and white wine, talking about Swiss traditions, having Sompol given us some pictures on how is like for the life in Thailand, and so on and so on. It’s really fun :-) Tomorrow we will be in Zurich again to visit the materials testing lab, let’s see what would happen there :0