On 17 November 2006, the prizes in the 2nd CNC Olympics for joiners and carpenters in the German-speaking countries were awarded on the premises of Messrs. Leuco in Horb.
The CNC Olympics is a competition in which the participants attempt to machine a standard workpiece in the shortest possible time. The competition is open to all companies, training institutes and other interested persons in the joinery and carpentry trade in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

This year, J. Schmalz GmbH donated the 4th prize – a gift voucher for a vacuum clamping system worth 800 € -- and handed this over to the team of teachers from the Technical College "Holztechnik und Gestaltung Hildesheim".

The prize was handed over in Horb by Stefan Eisenkohl, marketing manager for vacuum clamping systems at Schmalz. He congratulated the winners, Ulrich Hanke, Achim Grotjahn, Burghard Krenke and Hermann Sielaff, on their excellent performance. The team managed to complete the assigned task in only 36 minutes.

The task was as follows:
To download a PDF file containing the drawings of the workpiece from the Internet at precisely 10 am on the day of the competition, to convert the data and to program their CNC woodworking centre with these data.
To produce the workpiece, a speaker's podium which can be assembled by plugging the parts together, with the CNC machine tool, to photograph the finished workpiece and to upload the photograph.
The jury then decided the winners on the basis of the times of arrival of the photographs.
Incidentally, the winning team needed only 19 minutes to complete the task.

We were pleased to learn that both the winning team, Schreinerei Luther in Darmstadt, and the winners of the 4th prize used Schmalz products to clamp the parts during machining.
Both teams are extremely satisfied with the Schmalz vacuum clamping systems.

Immediately after the prizegiving ceremony, the four members of the team who won the 4th prize visited the Schmalz factory to learn more about our company and also to collect their prize. 

The 3rd Olympics for joiners and carpenters will probably be held in 2008.
Further information can be found at: