The 2022 Domel Awards Ceremony

Digitalisation was the main theme of this year's Domel Awards.

Today, digitalisation is no longer a choice. Digitalisation and the automation of business and manufacturing processes are the key strategic activities for our company's sustainable development. Digitalisation demands changes and the development of new modes of operation in all areas, and employees and corporate culture are the key factors in this.

The event's honorary guest was Vesna Nahtigal, General Manager of the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In her opening speech, she congratulated our company for being among the leading businesses in terms of the number of innovation awards conferred by the Chamber of Commerce, with an impressive twelve golden awards over the last twenty years. Nahtigal also touched on the issue of digitalisation and the goals related to improving the current situation in this field in Slovenia. Innovation is key to raising the added value of Slovenian companies. An alliance among science, business and politics will contribute to Slovenia's greater resilience to various crises.

The following awards were presented this year:

-        Ten bronze innovation awards to: Blaž Bernard, Borut Fejfar, Erik Omerzel, Kristjan Kostelec, Luka Romič, Tomaž Furlan, Tomaž Pečnik, Tomaž Pegam, Uroš Vrhunc and Tomaž Veber;

-        Five silver innovation awards to: Jernej Trojar, Jure Benedičič, Matej Bevk, Robert Rovtar and Robert Špacapan;

-        One golden innovation award to: Jernej Primožič; 

-        An award for the largest number of innovation proposals submitted to: Jernej Primožič;

-        An innovation mentor award to: Boštjan Demšar; 

-        A Domel values award to: assembly line 4, where dry and wet vacuum cleaner motors are assembled;

-        The best TPM development award to: BST, where thermoplastic insulation  is being sprayed;

-        Professional innovation project team award to: ZKG motor R&D team, ZKG motors are high voltage motors. 

Industrial software that is used in all manufacturing processes requires various modifications and optimisations and, when production needs to be adapted to new products, even entire programs written in various programming languages. This is precisely the area where Jernej Primožič excelled last year. By modifying the software, he improved the response times and significantly reduced the high costs of equipment maintenance. The next challenge Jernej focused on was writing new programs for the winding machines. He also came up with good ideas to improve machine vision and used 3D printing to produce work tools. The solution he introduced for mounting Husquarna motors is working, and the required software has been put in place. Moreover, Jernej earned the golden award both in terms of the ideas he presented and their implementation, as his innovation also saw the most registered and implemented improvements in the past year.

Martin Pintar, manager of the innovation activity, informed us about the number and quality of this year's innovative ideas. Compared to the previous year, there were fewer innovative initiatives, but they were of very high quality in 2022. They were submitted by employees from all departments in the company, which means that the culture of innovation is well established.

In his concluding speech the Chairman of the Board, Matjaž Čemažar, shared some interesting new facts about the practical application of artificial intelligence. He said that digitalisation was an opportunity that our generation can use to increase productivity, and a tool we can apply to achieve our main goal: to increase added value. However, digitalisation is much more than simply the automation of manufacturing processes. Artificial intelligence can write a speech, describe Domel's profile and propose a strategy for its digital transformation, which can include the following: introducing advanced data analytics, preventive equipment maintenance, advanced sensors that monitor energy consumption, placing digital orders and making digital payments, predicting trends and orders, reducing stock and so on. Domel is already using a lot of these applications, but we still have a great deal of work to do in this area. And we should never be afraid to embrace new challenges. Čemažar also highlighted the fact that young but experienced staff are key to our future. With regard to next year’s event, he said that he hopes women would also be among those recognised for their innovations, because they also have great ideas, as has already been proven many times in the past.

The event was accompanied by performances from students of the Škofja Loka Music School.