Casetour
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A group of 28 chemical engineering students from six different nationalities and four different universities, namely Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, the University of Groningen and the University of Twente, went on a three day excursion towards the chemical industry of Germany. The three companies which were given a visit were Procter & Gamble, BASF and Bayer, which are located in respectively Schwalbach, Ludwigshafen and Leverkusen.
The trip started in the early morning of March 16th. After everyone arrived in Utrecht at around half past seven by train, the group traveled towards Schwalbach by bus. Since our time of arrival at Procter & Gamble was expected to be at 1 PM, the participants were given some background information in the bus to read as a pre case study. Hereby the participants were divided into six different groups and within each group there were two roles to fulfill, the role of product researcher and technology developer.
After a word of welcome of Frank Wiesemann and a nice lunch, Hao Zhu gave a brief introduction of the job opportunities and the career options within Procter & Gamble. Afterwards, it was time for the case study on the development of a new Pampers product with the product focus on superior healthcare instead of dryness. Each group had to come up with a product concept and a marketing strategy and had to present this to a fictitious board of directors. After the case study it was time to leave and drop our baggage at our hostel in Heidelberg and have dinner in Vetter’s Alt Heidelberger Brauhaus. This restaurant brews its own alt beer and serves out plates with a lot of meat. So, when the restaurant closed, most of us went to the hostel with fully stuffed stomachs.
The next morning everyone had to wake up at seven o’clock and after a nice breakfast at the hostel the bus left with BASF Ludwigshafen as the next destination. After being screened at the site entrance, everyone was flabbergasted at the sheer size of the site. Daniel Barrera-Medrano gave us an introduction about the company. The Verbund-concept was explained, which means that all factories at the site are linked together regarding heat and side products with the result that minimum energy is needed and minimum waste is produced. The Verbund-concept is the main reason why the site at Ludwigshafen is operational today. The second presentation was given by Coen de Ruiter and he explained how it is like to work at BASF after finishing a chemical engineering degree. He also gave an insight in his job of conceptual process engineering.
After the presentation session, it was time to experience the site itself and half of the group went to visit a steam cracker, which is the heart of the Verbund-concept. The other half went to an Imin-Plant. In this plant ethylene imine is produced which is used as a monomer. Even the size of the canteen was overwhelming, which is not that surprising considering there are around 30.000 employees working at the site. More details about the size of BASF Ludwigshafen were given during the one hour site tour. Driving on the 10 square kilometer large site we were told that next to having an own fire department the site has an own medical centre.
In the afternoon the group was divided again to work on a case study. A business model on a new product concept based on either lithium ion battery technology or OLED technology had to be made. Many ambitious new products were presented, which gave quite some questions about their feasibility. The atmosphere during the presentation and the feedback session was entertaining as well as instructive. The visit at BASF ended with a wine cellar tour. Next to being the biggest chemical company of the world, BASF is also within the top ten wine distributors of Germany. The supposed wine tasting session became a wine drinking session since we had to leave quite quickly because of time restrictions. Although there were some buns served at the wine drinking session, some participants went for a second dinner to make sure they would survive St. Patrick’s Day in the Irish pub. There was a great atmosphere and everybody enjoyed the pints of Guinness and Murphy’s.
At Friday the 18th the bus had to leave very early so breakfast was consumed in the bus. After arrival at Bayer in Leverkusen a word of welcome was given in one of the oldest buildings at the site by Sarah Kerimis. The entrance hall was quite impressive. Christa Ring gave a presentation about Bayer as a company and the possibilities for a chemical engineer to do an internship or start a career at Bayer. Bayer is divided into three segments, namely Health Care, Crop Science and Material Science. Within Bayer an engineer has the option to grow towards a management function or an expert function. 
A visit to BayKomm was the next part of the visit. This is a museum-like communication centre with some interactive elements, like a drive simulator and a PUR experiment, which gives an overview of all the segments of Bayer.
The canteen at Bayer was as impressive as the one at BASF and everyone enjoyed a full plate of lunch. Afterwards the HDI 3 plant was visited. Before the plant was actually visited, an overview of the process was presented. In the HDI 3 plant isocyanides are made for the production of polyurethanes. It was interesting to see the way piping was painted. Each compound had its own color and therefore you could easily see which compound entered the different production stages. After the plant visit it was time to go back to the Netherlands. Everyone had a great time together and it was a good opportunity to get a taste of the German chemical industry.