Perfect match for applied science

Just across the Belgian border, you’ll find one of the locations of Flanders Make, the Flemish research centre for applied research and innovation in products and processes. Close to Eindhoven, and offering a world of possibilities. After various jobs in the Netherlands, Ellen van Nunen joined Flanders Make. She explains why she loves working here.

Flanders Make is the strategic research centre for the manufacturing industry in Flanders. From several establishments, Flanders Make stimulates open innovation through excellent research. It also works together with companies on customised innovations and offers a comprehensive range of infrastructure for testing and validating products and production processes. The aim is to contribute to the technological development of the vehicles, machines and factories of the future.

Between university and industry

Ellen van Nunen is project leader at Flanders Make in Lommel, just below Eindhoven. At the end of 2004, she received her Master’s degree in Applied Mathematics from TU/e. In 2005, she started working for Philips Electronic Design & Tools. In 2006, her division joined the autonomisation of the semiconductors’ business unit under the name NXP. In 2007, she moved to TNO Automotive in Helmond, where she performed safety-related research into, amongst other things, human modelling and cooperative adaptive cruise control. In 2018, Ellen van Nunen started working for Flanders Make in Lommel, just below Eindhoven in Flanders “I already enjoyed performing research into autonomous vehicles at TNO and already knew Flanders Make from my time at NXP. A colleague had already told me great stories about it. As a strategic research centre, Flanders Make bridges the gap between universities and industry: that role also appealed a lot to me. At Flanders Make, we mainly focus on the digitalisation of the manufacturing industry, on the one hand by looking at how we can make production more efficient, and on the other by focusing on product optimisation. We work, for example, for the logistics and agricultural sector, and in my department we focus on autonomous driving with applications such as mobile robots or an autonomous tractor. We are currently working on a self-managing system for waste containers for the industry that is able to process different types of containers. This is quite a challenge because the system also has to work outdoors, where you have to deal with weather conditions and irregular surfaces, features that are very different from those of production areas.”

Flanders Make is a non-profit organisation (‘vzw’). Many (production) companies are affiliated as members of Flanders Make, and they co-determine our policy. Half of the activities are set up as covenant research projects funded by government subsidies, the other half consists of assignments from companies, such as helping them to solve specific problems. Some 180 employees are working at the four locations in Lommel, Leuven, Kortrijk and Sint-Truiden, and about 450 researchers are working at the Flemish universities.

Highly varied

What makes working at Flanders Make so interesting for Ellen?

“It is a very varied job, no day is the same. You work on many different projects and come into contact with many different industries and customers. In this way, you also get to know the different needs that exist in all these areas. And we act as a bridge between the universities – which are often working at a lower technology-readiness level – and the industry, which focuses on specific applications.

Here, we develop up to the stage of working prototypes. We demonstrate that a prototype works, after which it is further developed into a product by a manufacturer. It is exactly these steps from theory to a working demonstration version that I find most fascinating: when you drive a car that is controlled by your software and everything reacts as you had intended it, that is so gratifying!”

“I started at Flanders Make as a researcher and then fairly quickly became a project leader. I am now also a ‘tech domain lead’, leading a team of my own that works on various autonomous mobility projects. I don’t program as much myself now, but it’s great to work with new colleagues who code in different languages than I do.”

Values

At Flanders Make, cooperation is one of the most important values, alongside efficiency and excellence beyond the state of the art. Showing appreciation for each other and good communication are important for such good cooperation. This cooperative team spirit enables you to work with your colleagues in both a customer-oriented and resultoriented way.

In return, Flanders Make offers you numerous career opportunities in various areas of expertise. All of our locations also have their own specialisation, such as our Drone Port in Sint-Truiden, but drones are also used at the other locations; you can work in all specialisations from any of the four locations.

Perfect match

Ellen: “The open communication makes the atmosphere at Flanders Make very pleasant. You notice that everyone at meetings simply dares to say what they think. I can recommend everyone from TU Eindhoven to inquire about a job at Flanders Make. Recently, a beautiful connecting road between Eindhoven and Lommel has been built, which makes Flanders Make even more accessible.”

“If you like challenges and variety, and if you want to find out which area of expertise suits you best, this is a great place. Especially for people who like demonstrations, showing that what you make actually works, Flanders Make is a perfect match.”

Flanders Make is the research centre for the manufacturing industry. Our specialised researchers work together on the latest technologies to improve machines and vehicles, optimise production systems and bring innovation into the design process of new products. This leads to, amongst other things:

• autonomous vehicles and systems

• smart, connected machines and production environments

• innovative robot/cobot applications

• high-tech research infrastructure

Our offer:

• A challenging job in which you can work together with experts in various domains and can use state-of-the-art infrastructure for autonomous systems, machine and vehicle dynamics, model-predictive control, data analytics and the development of software prototypes;

• An open corporate culture with short communication lines;

• Research within a multi-stakeholder context;

• An enthusiastic, international team.

Flanders Make Oude Diestersebaan 133 Lommel, Belgium (30 min south of Eindhoven)

Post your details on our job alert. https://jobs.flandersmake.be

Do not hesitate to ask questions about our internships and jobs for researchers and young graduates: Liesbet.decuyper@flandersmake.be +32 16 910 614