HANNOVER, GERMANY - At the EuroBLECH trade fair in Hannover, Dr.-Ing. Norbert Stein, president and sole shareholder of Vitronic GmbH, presented the Vintec Award 2008 to Guenter Kasper, head of axle production at Daimler AG. The award was presented after the joint development and installation of a ground-breaking welding concept at the Daimler plant in Mettingen. Welded seams are automatically inspected and optimized using a weld seam inspection system from Vitronic.

Since its installation in February 2007 more than 8 million welded seams have been inspected and, if necessary, optimized. After successfully implementing the system on the production line of the C-Class, Daimler have also decided to use the unique solution for the new E-Class.

On the opening day of the the EuroBLECH fair in Hannover, Stein presented the award to Günter Kasper, Dr. Michael Zürn, Hans-Guenther Ziegler, Bernd Landmann, Rainer Class and Thomas Diehl, accepting on behalf of the entire process engineering, welding production and production planning department at Daimler AG.

The Vintec Award is presented annually to customers or suppliers who, in cooperation with Vitronic, develop innovative solutions which augment joint know-how.