Niche competences have led to Big Science orders since 1998
Mark & Wedell won its first Big Science contract 20 years ago, and has worked with the German facility GSI for almost 15 years. The company points to its niche competencies as the basis for its success as a Big Science supplier.
The Danish company Mark & Wedell (M&W) develops special machinery, including current leads. In 2004, the company was contacted by the German facility GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung with a request for current leads to superconducting magnets, which M&W subsequently designed, manufactured and delivered to GSI.
Eight years after, in 2012, M&W was contacted again by GSI - this time the task was far more extensive and included design studies, calculations and materials selection in relation to the FAIR accelerator facility. GSI ordered prototypes, which M&W designed and delivered. The good performance of the supplied current leads and - not least - a good, technical cooperation between GSI and M&W, meant that the company afterwards received an order to supply the large current leads for the SIS100 ring.
- These good examples are based on our technical specialist knowledge in this area, which we have gradually developed since we started the first current leads project with CERN in 1998. This was soon followed by three large LHC related orders for current leads, says Torben Paulli Andersen, Development Manager at M&W.
Before M&W received its first order at GSI in 2004, the company had been a supplier to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. In June 2018, M&W participated in DK@CERN, to renew their contacts at CERN.
- We went on the trip to reinvent ourselves in relation to CERN and to make new contacts. The visit was strategically important to us and since then we have received some new inquiries, says Torben Ekvall, Manager at M&W.
In addition to CERN, M&W is now looking for new potential deliveries from the Big Science organisations within other areas of the company, for instance related to vacuum technology.