DSPE and Mikrocentrum intensify their collaboration
Precision community for the high-tech and manufacturing industries.
DSPE, the Dutch trade association for precision engineering, and Mikrocentrum, an independent knowledge and network organisation for the high-tech and manufacturing industries, have decided to collaborate more closely. Their relationship goes back more than fifty years and they have always maintained close contact, with Mikrocentrum’s Precision Fair as their annual highlight. Now they have decided to intensify their collaboration. As partners, they will organise more joint events and strengthen the exchange of knowledge among their members and participants.
DSPE and Mikrocentrum share a long history, dating from the founding of Mikrocentrum in 1968 in which DSPE, then still the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Precisie Technologie (NVPT), was involved. Over the years, the two organisations have often worked together. For example, in 1998 Mikrocentrum and DSPE were involved in the start of the Innovation-oriented Precision Technology Research Programme (IOP). Partly due to this programme and the numerous initiatives around precision engineering at the time, including those by NVPT, the idea for a Precision Fair was born in 2000. Mikrocentrum organised the first edition, in which DSPE was also closely involved, at the end of 2001. Over the years, this event has grown into the largest trade fair in the Benelux region for the entire precision engineering value chain.
Clubhouse
Now both parties want to give their collaboration a new impulse by intensifying and broadening it, each from its own angle. As a trade association for precision engineers, DSPE is focused mainly on the exchange of professional knowledge. Thanks to its modern location and years of experience in sharing knowledge and organising events, Mikrocentrum can support DSPE and its members even more in realising their ambitions, given that their target audiences in the precision community for high-tech and manufacturing overlap. The two parties especially can complement and strengthen each other, according to DSPE president Hans Krikhaar and Mikrocentrum director Bert-Jan Woertman. DSPE can advise Mikrocentrum even more substantively, for example on the content of events. “We are happy to facilitate DSPE, with Mikrocentrum offering a kind of ‘clubhouse’ for DSPE,” Woertman says. “We are prepared to invest in this and don’t see it as a commercial relationship, but want to work together as partners.” Krikhaar adds that DSPE organises knowledge days, among other things. “The field-specific knowledge that our members present there can be disseminated more widely by Mikrocentrum. A good example is our knowledge days on vacuum and contamination. We can link the subject of contamination to Mikrocentrum’s annual Clean Event.”
Central role of the Precision Fair
Naturally, the Precision Fair continues to play a central role in the relationship between DSPE and Mikrocentrum. “DSPE can make even more substantive contributions to our activities,” says Woertman, “such as for the lecture programme at the Precision Fair. We will be paying more attention to this, in the preparation and implementation, and in the publicity surrounding it. Our collaboration fits in perfectly with that ambition.” Krikhaar adds, “We also thought along with Mikrocentrum about the fair’s move to the Brabanthallen in Den Bosch because of the pandemic. As far as we are concerned, it went very well and we have therefore advised them to continue holding the fair there.”
Informal meetings
Periodic consultations are held to give even more substance to mutual coordination and collaboration. This can also lead to new initiatives, such as low-threshold meetings that DSPE and Mikrocentrum will organise together, for example in the run-up to a major event. “Innovation leads to innovation,” Krikhaar concludes, “but collaboration is required. This applies to the high-tech ecosystem in the Brainport region in a broad sense, and to DSPE and Mikrocentrum in particular. We also want to try organising informal joint meetings, where precision engineering is featured in a casual atmosphere.”
In the Mikrocentrum building in Veldhoven (NL), DSPE chairman Hans Krikhaar (left) and Mikrocentrum director Bert-Jan Woertman seal their intensified collaboration.