The challenges faced by start-ups also include technical hurdles - such as the preparations required to take a good product idea through to volume production without stumbling. The engineering and consulting company Prüfrex supported a start-up that was facing precisely this difficulty. The product idea was based on a sensor that uses built-in artificial intelligence to detect forest fires in their early stages by detecting hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide as well as other gases in the ppm range.
The sensor recognizes and identifies these gases and distinguishes, for example, between the exhaust fumes from a chainsaw ('harmless') and smoke from a forest fire ('dangerous'). In this way, it detects a fire before it turns into a large forest or wildfire and communicates this wirelessly via LoRaWAN to the fire department. This gives the firefighters valuable time to control and extinguish the fire. The sensor can be operated for 10-15 years maintenance-free and without batteries, avoiding the use of lithium and other raw materials.
With the support of Prüfrex, the idea was further developed for series production. This showed that 'design for manufacturing' can be a major challenge if production optimization is not taken into account from the layout phase onwards. The expert in control and regulation intelligence for small engines, electric motors, burners and other electronically controlled applications helped to finalize the product idea for production in Germany with a high level of quality and an attractive price. With the right manufacturing partner, not only are materials selected and work steps optimized in the product design from the layout phase onwards, but test strategies and a production-optimized design are also taken into account. Prüfrex has been around for almost 90 years. The company, based near Nuremberg, was the first to succeed in making the ignition spark of the combustion engine digitally controllable in 1988. "Since then, we have been driven by the question of how we can improve our customers' products by controlling and regulating sensory and actuator signal processes," says the company.
