Since January 2007 GKSS, the reknowned national research centre in the Helmholz community based in Geesthacht, and Horst Witte Geraetebau Barskamp e.K. have been working on a common research and development project.

Due to the various processes involved semi-finished aluminium sheets, manufactured by industry, exhibit different internal stress depending upon alloy and plate thickness. In the case of welded integral structures the internal tension condition is additionally affected by joining processes. During machining changes take place in the internal condition of the basic material. This can lead to an inadvertent deviation of nominal contours from target geometry. Thus for each semi-finished material the industry is forced to test and/or change sequences of production steps to minimize the resulting tension on the product as far as possible.

In the context of the research and development project "IMAGINE ' optimization of processes, equipment and clamping system is to be obtained by employing a scientific approach and methods. The objective is to develop a manufacturing process which saves cost and resources. Goals of the research and development project are:

1. Increasing understanding of machining large, thin-walled wide structures.
2. Advance planning of machining steps with the help of numerical methods.
3. Production of suitable adaptive clamping systems.
4. Development of requirements of machine equipment.
5. Design of machine tools after technical preparation of the necessary data and/or correlations.
6. Reduction of cost and resources, in particular in comparison to chemical etching.
7. Improving quality.