Electrification, increasingly global markets, rising customer expectations, and not least growing competition from new market entrants – across the industry, a range of trends is accelerating the pace of innovation. For companies, it is essential to be set up in a way that allows them to keep pace and stay ahead. This is exactly what Thomas aims to achieve with its newly established International Innovation Team.

The International Innovation Team and Advanced Engineering pursue different, yet closely connected approaches. While Advanced Engineering focuses on technological developments and broader technology trends, the International Innovation Team focuses on market and product trends and the needs of specific customers.
By building on existing technologies, the team helps bring practical solutions for real-world applications to life at an early stage.

Internationally Connected

In idea generation and innovation acceleration, the team serves as a link between markets, customers, development, and production. The team combines experts from the United States, China, and Germany with a wide range of technical backgrounds. They are supported by a strong network of experienced colleagues that brings together decades of expertise in development, applications, and production.

From initial concepts and 3D printing to sample fabrication and fully functional prototypes, the team covers the entire spectrum of prototype development. In doing so, it works closely with the Thomas prototype team and other specialized departments at Thomas. This enables ideas to be turned into tangible solutions in a short period of time.

Ideas and projects are discussed through central Teams channels, complemented by dedicated platforms for hardware and software topics. At the same time, the Innovation Team stays in close contact with colleagues across the United States, Germany, and China.

When teams work across three continents, traditional working hours quickly blur: while the day is coming to an end in Germany, it is only just beginning elsewhere. Late-evening calls or meetings in the middle of the night are therefore part of everyday work – not out of habit, but out of conviction, because true innovation happens when all perspectives come together at the same time.

First Project, First Success: The Dual Coil Actuator

The team’s first project already demonstrates how effective this approach can be: the Dual Coil Actuator. The concept behind the product was not entirely new. The challenge was to turn the concept into a practical solution for a specific customer application within a short period of time.

For the newly established team, the project was also its first real test. Within just a few weeks, the team developed an initial concept. To achieve this, the team brought together expertise in software, hardware, and mechanical engineering, carried out simulations, and coordinated the entire development process. In close collaboration with the Thomas prototyping team, it guided the project from system architecture and design through to a working prototype.

Throughout the project, the team kept a specific application for a key customer in mind. Early on, the team engaged with the customer to ensure that its requirements were incorporated into the development process. From the outset, the team considered factors such as cost, functionality, cybersecurity, and project timelines. The result was not a product developed in isolation, but one designed for a specific customer application from the very beginning.

Success wasn’t long in coming: “The customer told us early on that we were significantly ahead of their in-house development. Since then, they have been using our Dual Coil Actuator for further testing and to support the continued development of their application. To us, this confirms that we are on the right track with our approach,” recalls Mark Jankowski.

For the International Innovation Team, this first test was an important milestone. It demonstrated how quickly an idea can be transformed into a practical solution for real customer applications when diverse areas of expertise come together and development is consistently aligned with customer needs.