
A view on Quick Response Manufacturing & Industry 4.0
Thor Park@Genk, a rising hot spot for smart manufacturing

Wednesday, april 27th, 2022 - Comate’s philosophy goes hand in hand with quick responsive manufacturing
At Comate, we are growing! Not only did our team of engineers recently reach the cape of 60 employees, we also opened a new office in Ghent. But that's not all. Since several months, we even have a flex-location at the progressive industry field Thor Park, located in Genk.
Thor Park Central clusters a number of organisations within Research & Development and soon also Manufacturing (literally) under the same roof. Therefore, the match with Comate was easily made.
In this podcast, Ronald Scheers had a discussion with our CEO Sander Van den Dries about ‘quick responsive manufacturing’ and ‘industry 4.0’. The inspiration behind this podcast was retrieved from Rajan Suri’s book about lead time reduction, which we truly recommend.
Keep on reading to get to know some more about this opinion piece concerning smart manufacturing!
We need a campus in Flemish Brabant where everything regarding smart manufacturing comes together with room for flexibility and innovative thinking.
From supplier to sustainable partner
Sander confirms this theory mainly by saying that every supplier is not only there to deliver your product, part or raw material, because by setting up a close collaboration with your supplier, you can even benefit from shared knowhow which eventually will lead to ‘smart manufacturing’ and ‘lead time reduction’. This is also a strong point of view at Comate, where we believe "two minds are better than one".
Work smarter, not harder
In advance, shared knowledge leads to a win-win. Furthermore it strengthens your supplier-buyer relationship, what will definitely give you an edge in moments of crisis. This way, you can much faster define and even avoid mistakes in your production process, delivery system, data management and so on. ‘Work smarter not harder’ truly is the essence of smart manufacturing.
Curious how the discussion between Sander Van den Dries and Ronald Scheers went? Click on the button below to listen to the complete podcast!
More news & insights

Lightning-Fast Gut Microbiome Analysis Opens New Doors for Health and Industry
Breakthrough with MetaMAP

MicrobeSpotter revolutionizes UTI treatment with faster diagnosis and reduced antibiotic use
AI-driven test in development: diagnosis possible within two hours

Comate wins two IF DESIGN AWARDS for groundbreaking hardware innovations
the HB capsule and the Zeal Runner take home an IF Design Award 2025