“Senior” and “Junior” Bindewalt both working at Inalfa Venray

Their last name is the same, their passion to work for Inalfa as well. A duo interview with these 2 men about their work and each other.

Franklin has been working for 29 year with Inalfa. He has worked in the Cutting department, Pressing, Warehouse, Production and now works as a proto engineer at the Proto department. In all these years, next to his work, he did many trainings and studied to improve himself to facilitate his growth within Inalfa

Mickey is now with Inalfa for almost 5 years. He started -while still doing his study of mechanical engineering- to work with Inalfa during the holidays. That was mainly in the proto department and measuring chamber. After this study, he continues with industrial product designer. This all led to a perfect combination of knowledge and practice and as a logical step a job at Inalfa. Today Mickey is a Junior CAD design leader, so leads his colleagues and has daily contact with many of Inalfa’s departments such as the sales design team, quality, proto, measuring room and Global competence center (Advanced Engineering).

The biggest challenge and related success that Franklin can remember is a project of Mercedes; a small van called the VS20. It contains the biggest roof system that Inalfa ever delivered. Franklin faced a great challenge to gather all the components, assemble them in 4 days, drive it to the customer and place it in the vehicle. It matched perfectly and the customer was satisfied. That is a memory he will never forget.

For Mickey the biggest FUN factor and the most satisfying for him is the experience of new product development: from the basics to something that can be manufactured into a good design. “To make something out of nothing” so to say. All of this while keeping in mind the cost aspect as well.Costs are becoming more and more of a crucial factor in the process. To make changes or repairs once a product is has entered production, entails a load of extra costs. Also often parts of the process have to be done within a time limit, which might result in a situation that it is not yet as ideal as would be the case in which more time could be devoted on the design, drawing and prototyping. In order to keep up quality, we should ask for that extra time and not only listen to OEM’s and suppliers. We are the experts in making sun roofs and know how to deliver our hallmark quality.

For Franklin the FUN factor goes hand in hand with the challenge of perfecting the roof system. He is always on the lookout for process improvements to prototyping and the end product. He thinks in solutions and of small changes to shape the product even better. Thanks to his hobby of collecting and modelling cars he especially geared towards this.

If ‘Senior’ had to describe his son in relation to Mickey’s work and career, he would describe him as ambitious, pursuing his goals, is always polite and respectful to others and speaks his mind. The other way around ‘Junior’ gives his father the qualification of thinking in solutions, being very creative and sometimes slightly headstrong.

When they are off work, they share updates with each other such as how a specific issues were resolved. After that, work is set aside and other topics such as Formula 1 are discussed.