We've made it onto the TU Darmstadt blog—with our new software company, mechanical engineering, and the journey that led us here.
From Plastic Waste to a Machine
About eight years ago, Milan , and his school friend Paul Nehme started out with a simple idea: to recycle plastic waste, turn it into filament, and print recycled cell phone cases. Soon, customers no longer wanted the cases—they wanted the machines themselves. So they switched gears: Extruder, a somewhat less professional cooling system, and our first Winder.
Today, this has evolved into the line of machines from Darmstadt, which is now in operation in 14 countries.
In addition to QiTech Industries (Mechanical Engineering), our new software company (QiTech Automation) is now part of the company. Our team consists of 28 people, with an average age of 22—and just less than two years ago, there were only 8 of us.
Software vulnerability, rebuild, spin-off
What no one had said out loud for a long time: Our machines were running on undocumented in-house software. The knowledge was essentially held by one person. When that developer left, the control system broke down—and we were left without bug fixes or software maintenance for nearly six months. Meanwhile, sales and down payments continued as usual.
Under that pressure, the company was restructured. The crisis gave rise to QiTech Automation: a well-documented system based on the bus principle rather than a single point of knowledge—and bearing the spin-off label of TU Darmstadt. And Paul Nehme, who has been with the company from the very beginning, is now the chief engineer.
Open Control Instead of a Closed Box
The message is clear:“We want to become the Linux of mechanical engineering.”Open control systems instead of dependence on a few established systems. A video on this topic went viral; it sparked discussions—and, among other things, a pilot project with WAGO.
You can learn more on our software page, QiTech Control and Automation, or get the unvarnished truth in our vlogs on YouTube.
Unfortunately, we had to scale back our recycling efforts
We haven't been able to make mass recycling economically viable. In the TU blog post, Milan says, "I haven't been able to make recycling economically viable." Today, it accounts for only a small portion of our revenue. Nevertheless, we may try again in the future with better automation.
You can also read the entire post on the TU Darmstadt blog. Many thanks to Heike Jüngst for the article.
