Industry in Brandenburg 2013

Transcription

Genießen
industry in
NDENBURG
Brandenburg
RTSCHAFT IN DER MARK Wie unser Essen vom Acker auf den Tisch kommt
a newspaper supplement from the märkische allgemeine
EINE
EINEBEILAGE
BEILAGEIHRER
IHRERTAGESZEITUNG
TAGESZEITUNG
the right chemistry
Every day some 200 Sprinter vans
roll out of the Mercedes-Benz factory
in Ludwigsfelde.
TSCHAFT
SCHAFT IN
INDER
DERMARK
MARK Wie
Wieunser
unserEssen
Essenvom
vomAcker
Ackerauf
aufden
denTisch
Tischkommt
kommt
t
In cooperation with
good: wood
Genießen
Nine out of ten cars in the capital
region run on fuel from the PCK refinery
in Schwedt.
DENBURG
DENBURG
journey to the star
Verlagsbeilage
Verlagsbeilage
Classen Industries in Baruth produces
70,000,000 m² of laminate every year from
local pine.
Wir schaffen Zukunft
Industry in Brandenburg | 3
We've got it made!
Despite suggestions to the contrary,
Brandenburg is a thriving industrial hub with a long history and an exciting future
By Ute Sommer
I
n the past, Brandenburg
was often mocked for having little to its name other than sparse, sandy soil
and unassuming pine forests.
But it's high time we swept
away that dull image, because this region has always
been good for a surprise or
two – like the fact that it actually has a tradition of pioneering work. Take, for instance,
the priest in Rathenow over
200 years ago who patented
a machine that could grind several lenses at once and so paved the way for producing
eyeglasses on an industrial
scale. Today, Rathenow is
home to a glasses factory belonging to optical giant Fielmann (see portrait on page
37).
Then there were the
Schwarzheide
chemical
works, which turned lignite
into petrol nearly 80 years
ago. BASF now uses the site
to produce plastics and
paints (page 10). The PCK refinery in Schwedt keeps cars
running with the diesel fuel
and petrol it produces (page
7). Daimler-Benz built aeroplane engines in Ludwigsfelde during the 1930s, and
these days the town is home
to
the
Mercedes-Benz
factory that produces the popular Sprinter van (page 14).
Brandenburg is thus a thriving industrial hub with a
long history. It seems set for
an exciting future, too. Figures from the Berlin-Brandenburg Statistics Office show
that some 1,200 manufacturing companies employ nearly 100,000 people in the
state, and that last year they
generated over € 25 billion in
turnover. That means the
sector has grown considerably in the past 15 years. In
1997, there were about 1,100
companies employing some
95,000 people and generating the equivalent of
roughly € 13 billion in turnover.
Brandenburg got through
the economic upheavals of
the early 1990s, and now
MTU (top) is an industrial heavyweight that services industrial gas turbines and engines in Ludwigsfelde. Rail vehicles have been manufactured in Hennigsdorf for many years – in 1989 at
the state-owned company LEW (bottom left) and now under the aegis of Bombardier (bottom
PHOTOS: MTU; ARCHIVE/HÜBNER; DPA (2)
right).
things are on the up again. In
2012 it rightly won the title of
the German state with the
most dynamic economy. That
was the third time in a row
that Brandenburg had come
out on top in the comparison
conducted by the Initiative
for a New Social Market Economy, an organisation with
close links to entrepreneurs.
The award confirmed that no
other state has seen as big an
improvement in its supply of
jobs as Brandenburg.
Some 140,000 new jobs are
partly down to the Brandenburg Investment Bank (ILB).
Having paid out the equivalent of € 32.5 billion in funding since 1990, it has helped
to stimulate investments totalling nearly € 70 billion. It is
also thanks to funding policies that Brandenburg is now
home to a number of competitive industrial sites. Vestas in
the south of the state, for
example, is busy building gigantic rotor blades for wind
turbines (page 26). Even British company Rolls-Royce de-
Eyeglasses dating
back to 1860 at the
Optik-Industrie-Museum Rathenow
velops and tests its state-ofthe-art aircraft engines here
(page 23), while Haacke
Haus builds its prefabricated
houses at a site close to Potsdam (page 27).
Speaking after serving in
office in the early 1990s, Brandenburg's first economics minister, Walter Hirche of the liberal FDP party, said: „Brandenburg is in a privileged position compared to other former East German states. It
has at its heart Berlin, and
Berlin is an economic hub.“
He explained that it is always
easier to get companies to set
up around big cities. Today,
the experts at the Brandenburg Economic Development Board (ZAB) clearly
know how to use the state's
geographic situation to its advantage. In 2012, ZAB helped 77 businesses to either
expand their Brandenburg
production sites or set up operations here for the first time.
Speaking about those successes, Steffen Kammradt, CEO
at ZAB, said that 2012 had
been a „really good year“ for
industry
in
particular.
Among the newcomers were
Austrian insulation manufacturer Austrotherm (page
28) and Rheinzink, a maker
of roof gutters and façade
claddings (page 6). This publication gives an overview
of industry in Brandenburg.
We present around 50 companies and research institutes
that are helping to shape industry here today. The portraits also trace production
chains that operate in the
state. For example, Brandenburg companies turn pig iron
into steel, which is then used
to make screws – which cars,
for example, could never do
without. Car-body parts, tyres, engine parts and fuel –
Brandenburg makes them
all. Those famous (and
much-mocked) pine forests are now used to
produce laminate flooring.
Furniture workshops make accessories for home
and office.
PUBLISHING INFORMATION: Industry in Brandenburg, Märkische Allgemeine, Friedrich-Engels-Str. 24, 14473 Potsdam, Tel. +49 331 2840-0. Newspaper supplement produced in cooperation with the
Brandenburg Economic Development Board (ZAB), the Brandenburg Investment Bank (ILB) and the Potsdam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (IHK), 9 September 2013. Editors: Dr Mathias Richter, Dr Ute
Sommer; Layout: Detlev Scheerbarth; Advertising: Gertraude Bieniek (ed.); Cover image: Sebastian Richter. This supplement was funded with the support of the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF).
Industries:
Metal
Chemicals/
plastics
Research
Transport
Energy
Housing
Optics
Wood/
paper
4 | Industry in Brandenburg
HEAVY
METAL
The machinist
Ute Ziegert's workstation is
the control panel for the
decoiler at Arcelor Mittal's
smelting works in Eisenhüttenstadt. The company
produces rolled steel sheets,
and Ute, the shift forewoman, works with her nine
colleagues to turn them into
a more manageable size.
Under her watchful eye,
circular blades cut the sheets
lengthways into narrow
strips known as slit strips.
They're then coiled up into
rings.
„I was always interested in
technical things. That's why I
came to Eisenhüttenstadt to
do my apprenticeship,“ says
Ute (46), who was born in
Wolfen (Saxony-Anhalt) and
grew up in Schwedt in Brandenburg's Uckermark district. Between 1983 and
1985 she trained as a machinist for pumps and compressors at the vocational school
in the steel combine Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost.
She left Eisenhüttenstadt for
a short period, but returned
in 1990 to work as a plant
operator in the cold-rolling
mill. She has lived there ever
since. Ute has been shift
forewoman since 2011, but
also functions as a representative for her colleagues:
„That hasn't always been
easy, especially when Arcelor
and Mittal were merging,
and during the economic and
financial crisis.“
But she says it's reassuring
that the company has cleared those hurdles. When not
at work, Ute enjoys going on
walks with her husband,
working in the garden, or
relaxing in the sauna. Her
holidays are spent either
exploring Germany or jetting
to far-flung corners of the
world. stp
Molten iron being tapped from the blast furnace at Arcelor Mittal in Eisenhüttenstadt
PHOTOS: DPA; JÜRGEN SCHMIDT
Hot stuff
Arcelor Mittal produces around 1,500,000 tonnes of steel each year in Eisenhüttenstadt
By Stephanie Philipp
T
he massive jaw of the
walking beam furnace opens with a
loud hiss. A wall of blistering
heat and steam rushes out, revealing a glowing mass of
steel. This giant slab is
twelve metres long, weighs
34 tonnes, and is heated to
1,250 ˚C. As I watch, it is
brought out of the furnace
and moves away on a conveyer belt. I am at steel manufacturer Arcelor Mittal in Eisenhüttenstadt (district of
Oder-Spree), and the next
stop for the slab is the hot-rolling mill.
The rollers exert up to
4,000 tonnes of pressure on
the steel. Seven deafening
rolling rounds later, and the
twelve metres have stretched to an impressive 120.
Everything happens automatically, and it's just a few minutes before the slab has
been turned into a strip just a
few millimetres thick and is
wound into a finished coil.
The sheets mostly end up
in the automotive industry.
„But we also sell plastic-coated sheets to manufacturers
of domestic appliances, or
white goods,“ says Jürgen
Schmidt of Arcelor Mittal.
The steel gets turned into a
whole host of finished products. Customers can choose
between all manner of coatings and alloys, vertical or
horizontal strips, and different thicknesses.
Steel has been made in Eisenhüttenstadt since the
early 1950s. The works began operating as the steel
combine Eisenhüttenkombinat Ost in the 1960s. Today,
they belong to Luxembourgbased Arcelor Mittal, the
world's biggest steel manufacturer. The site covers 8.8
km² and is home to a pig iron
plant, a steel plant, a hot-rolling mill and a cold-rolling
mill. „Everything starts in the
blast furnace, where we turn
iron ore and other ingredients into pig iron,“ explains Schmidt.
Arcelor Mittal has three
such furnaces on the site, but
for the past two years only
one of them has been in operation. „One is enough because it means we achieve
our main goal, which is to
keep the cold-rolling mill
working pretty much at full
capacity,“ says Schmidt. The
cold-rolling mill thins the
steel out to as little as 0.4 millimetres – that's much thinner
than after hot rolling.
Arcelor Mittal
Eisenhüttenstadt GmbH
K Product: Steel
K Location: Eisenhütten-
stadt (district of Oder-Spree)
K No. of employees: 2,551
K 2012 turnover:
€ 1,132 billion
Nearly 1,500,000 tonnes of
steel left the Arcelor Mittal
works last year. Sales dropped to 1,085,000 tonnes during the 2009 crisis, but business has now picked up
again. In 2012, half of the
steel went to car manufacturers as galvanised steel
strips, and the rest was sold
as either cold-rolled, hot-rolled or coated strips – mostly
to customers in Eastern Europe.
„We aim to supply the
East,“ says Schmidt. As well
as the former East German
states, this includes Poland,
the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia. Schmidt
explains that this is because
a lot of car manufacturers
have opened up factories in
Eastern Europe. So it looks
like the East German govern-
ment's decision to put a steel
works in Eisenhüttenstadt all
those years ago is still paying
off today.
Raw materials, like iron
ore, that used to come from
Eastern Europe now come
from overseas and are
brought to the works from
the port in Hamburg. Once in
Eisenhüttenstadt, the materials are processed over four or
five shifts, which continue
around the clock, meaning
that the pig iron plant, steel
plant, hot-rolling mill and
cold-rolling mill are busy all
the time. The company employs 2,551 staff, of whom
194 are apprentices.
Until well into the 1990s,
production at the works involved a considerable logistical
challenge. Although the
cold-rolling mill, the size of
40 football pitches, has been
in operation since 1968, its
hot-rolling counterpart only
came to Eisenhüttenstadt in
1997. „It closed a huge technological gap when it was
built,“ says Schmidt.
Before that, the slabs had
to be transported to another
location for hot rolling and
then returned to Eisenhüttenstadt, where they were coldrolled to the desired thickness.
A playground for engineers
The Panta-Rhei-Halle at the BTU campus in Cottbus conducts research into lightweight construction materials
By Rüdiger Braun
P
ressing hexagons into
sheet steel makes it
three times more rigid. And
using textured sheets like
these brings another big advantage: material savings. It
makes cars, ships and planes
lighter and therefore more
fuel-efficient. But it also poses extra challenges for engineers: How do you use this
more complex textured sheet
steel in construction, how do
you bend it, and how do you
cut it with a laser?
Bernd Viehweger, Professor of Construction and Manufacturing at the Branden-
The Panta-Rhei-Halle has futuristic looks and first-class facilities.
burg University of Technology (BTU) in Cottbus-Senftenberg, has been working
with other professors and industrial partners like Daimler and Kjellberg to learn
more about textured sheet
metal processing and testing. „We are working to
overcome the obstacles that
PHOTO: BTU
have been standing in the
way of wider industrial application,“ says Viehweger. He
and his colleagues make use
of a 2,164 m2 building called
the Panta-Rhei-Halle on the
BTU campus to achieve
those goals.
When the BTU was founded, no one could have foreseen that one day it would
have a futuristic-looking building for the study of lightweight construction materials.
But when professors of materials engineering, joining
& welding technology and
applied physics got together
in the mid-1990s, they needed a special kind of space.
Today the building is a think
tank for innovative engineering.
Four professors and 70
staff members work behind
this striking glass-cladded
edifice. They test materials,
develop structural elements,
and invent new processes for
technological applications –
like textured sheet metal.
„We cover the whole spectrum, from tiny stents for holding open coronary vessels
all the way to turbine blades,“ says Viehweger. The
Panta Rhei gGmbH
Research centre for
lightweight
construction materials
K Product: Textured sheet
metal
K Location: Cottbus
K No. of employees: Four
professors, 70 research
assistants
K 2012 budget:
€ 3.2 million
Panta-Rhei-Halle is equipped with everything a researcher's heart desires, such as
computers for performing simulations and large machines for materials testing.
The group's research into
textured sheet metal is about
to enter a new phase. It has
applied for a project funded
by the federal government
that helps companies finance
their own professorship.
Viehweger expects a major
breakthrough in the use of
textured sheet metal for purposes such as vehicle body
construction within the next
three to five years.
Keeping it together
This Finsterwalde plant turns 1,000 tonnes of steel wire into screws every month
By Ute Sommer
T
hey look a bit like hula
hoops – many, many
grey hula hoops hung on a
strong metal arm. But this is
actually just one piece, a
single huge coil of steel wire
that will get cut up into small
pieces here in Finsterwalde
(district of Elbe-Elster) to
make screws.
„We make 1,500 different
types of screw,“ says RolfDietrich Brand, Managing
Partner at Formteil- und
Formteil- und
Schraubenwerk
Finsterwalde GmbH
K Product: Screws
K Location: Finsterwalde
(district of Elbe-Elster)
K No. of employees: 170
K 2012 turnover:
€ 32 million
Schraubenwerk
Finsterwalde GmbH. Screws that secure the hoods of luxury convertibles; screws that keep
truck
engines
running;
screws that help vehicle brakes do their important job –
screws from Finsterwalde
have a diameter of anywhere
from five millimetres to two
centimetres.
The
plant
processes
around 1,000 tonnes of steel
wire each month. One by
one, the steel pieces enter
press machines that turn
them into screws. The site
produces up to a million
screws each day.
The Finsterwalde plant
has been in the Brand-Friedberg family for almost 20 years and its affiliate, the August Friedberg company
in
Gelsenkirchen
(North Rhine-Westphalia), has been
processing metal for 125 years. According to Rolf-Dietrich Brand, opening a site in
Finsterwalde offered the
company the chance to extend its product range and
get a good start as a supplier
for the auto industry. Around
80 percent of the Finsterwalde products go into car
manufacture. The industry's
crisis years were a tough
time for the Brandenburg
plant. Turnover was cut in
half, Brand tells me. But
that was four or five
years ago and
times
have
changed.
„We're firing
on all cylinders
now,“ says Brand. The plant
has three production shifts.
Screws from Finsterwalde
get exported to many different countries – the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary,
Poland, Sweden, France and
even the US and China.
Brand tells me the company has invested around
€ 65 million in the Brandenburg location to date. It has
new production machinery
as well as cutting-edge testing equipment.
Brand says quality checks are absolutely critical. Are
the dimensions right? Is the
thread uniform? Are there
any cracks in the material?
Even the tiniest screws undergo meticulous inspections.
Finsterwalde produces
a huge variety of different screws.
PHOTO: U. SOMMER
A shower of sparks
New production methods extend Ortrand ironworks' product range
By Ulrich Nettelstroth
R
ed-hot iron flows from
one of the four smelting furnaces at the
ironworks in Ortrand (district of Oberspreewald-Lausitz). A temperature check
shows that the molten metal
is 1,400 ˚C. Magnesium is
then added to the ladle holding the molten iron to prepare the iron for casting. The
reaction is so violent it sends
out a shower of sparks.
This changes the molten
iron. Now it is a higher quality material. The conventional, brittle grey iron we had
several minutes earlier has
become a more resilient material called nodular cast
iron. The process is a relatively new development. „The
ironworks have come a long
way,“ says Managing Director
Bernd
WilliamsBoock.
The process enables the
foundry to make products
that can hold up in very highstress applications like pressure plates for vehicle clutches and special grating for
rainwater drainage at airports. „You have to be able to
roll an A380 over this without
it breaking,“ says WilliamsBoock. Auto parts are subject
to similarly tough long-term
strain. Without the kind of
close monitoring that reduces error rates to nearly zero,
today's suppliers do not get
orders from the auto industry.
The company has been casting iron in Ortrand since
1887. During the GDR, the
plant was a model operation
for masonry heater fireboxes. In 1992 the Treuhandanstalt privatisation agency
sold the factory to two Bavarian families that invested
around € 45 million. Firebox
production is still important,
but it is just one of several divisions. During the last ten
years, the company has quadrupled its annual turnover
to € 40 million. Foreign de-
Ortrander
Eisenhütte GmbH
K Product: Cast iron
K Location: Ortrand
(district of OberspreewaldLausitz)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 40 million
70 percent of Ortrander Eisenhütte's products are exported.
mand has played an increasingly important role. Some
70 percent of production gets
exported abroad, especially
to neighbouring countries
like Switzerland and Austria.
Russia, Ukraine and the United States are also significant
markets.
The smelting is continuously monitored from the control console. Here, Sabine
Pfennig uses a spectrometer
to check the chemical elements in an iron sample.
Everything looks good, except for the silicon. The reading says 2.07 percent, but it
should be at 2.2 percent.
„We'll have to spice it up,“
says chief smelter Mirko Anger.
The ladle with the molten
iron moves to the pouring
area. The metal flows like
hot chocolate into cavities
that have been compacted
into sand moulds. At the end
of a 60-metre cooling
section, knockout machinery
removes the sand moulds so
the castings can be machined and prepared for dispatch.
„We can reuse 99 percent
of our sand,“ says WilliamsBoock. A silo above the foundry stores and prepares the
sand. In fact, the plant has
two sand storage tanks, as different grades of sand are needed to make fireboxes and
auto parts.
PHOTO: DPA
Think zinc!
Rheinzink produces gutters in Hennigsdorf
By Rüdiger Braun
R
heinzink is a long-standing company. For nearly 50 years, its seven locations across Germany have
been making titanium zinc
structural elements and drainage systems. Early this year
the company opened a location in Brandenburg. The old
site in Berlin's Reinickendorf
district no longer met the
company's needs, nor did it
have good transport links, so
the branch was moved to
Hennigsdorf (district of Oberhavel).
The new plant has a full
2,800 m2 of floor space for cutting and bending sheet metal to shape. „We are in a
great location and the new
buildings meet our needs
perfectly,“ says branch
manager
Stephan
Rackwitz. Right on
the A111 motorway, close
to the northern part of
the ring road
Frank Raschke
with quality zinc
guttering
PHOTO: E. KUGLER
encircling Berlin, the company can now access its customers in Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony much faster. The Hennigsdorf office
reports that it delivers some
4,000 tonnes of zinc sheets
and plates in all sizes each
year. Customers include construction firms like Erich
Weit, Dachdeckerverband
Ost, and Raab Karcher. Rackwitz won't tell me the current
turnover of the Hennigsdorf
branch. But business is good in
Berlin, he says,
although Brandenburg and Saxony still have a
way to go.
The reason for slow sales
in Brandenburg is that the
company is both Germany's
market leader and price leader, says Rackwitz. These
high prices keep Brandenburg customers from choosing the company's roofing,
window sills and rain gutters. Still, moving to Brandenburg has helped generate
more leads and increase
sales.
Seventeen people work at
the Hennigsdorf location.
The production side is highly
automated and only needs
five staff members. Rheinzink received € 420,000 in
funding from the Brandenburg Investment Bank (ILB),
leading to investments of
€ 3.6 million.
„We are the only company
in Germany that builds complete systems,“ says
Rackwitz.
Rheinzink
drainage systems come
with all the fixtures –
from the screws and gutters to water-diverting attachments. However, the
company's speciality, says
Rackwitz, is zinc components that have been cut and
shaped to match customers'
exact specifications.
THE
RIGHT
CHEMISTRY
The woman in control
White steam hisses from a
valve. Sylvia Krüger, a brownhaired 45-year-old in flameresistant overalls, sits in the
control room of the PCK
refinery, the beating heart of
the Schwedt-based company,
and casts a glance over one
of the many screens on the
wall displaying numbers,
codes and real-time updates
from the crude oil distillation
units – as well as from that
hissing valve. „We need to
get a clamp round that,“ she
says. Her work station may
look like a space shuttle to
an outsider, but for Sylvia it's
like a living room. Born and
raised in Schwedt, she completed her training as a
chemist at PCK in 1984 and
has been working here ever
since. It was not her dream
job at first, she says, but over
time she has grown to enjoy
it. Having worked her way up
to shift forewoman, she is
now responsible for making
sure that all the distillation
units used for aromatics
production run smoothly.
The units produce additives
that can raise the octane
rating of petrol and that are
used in the manufacture of
paints, plastics and detergents. The temperatures,
pressures and quantities in
the distillation units need to
be just right. If they are not,
an alarm goes off at Sylvia's
workstation. Danger can
arise, for example, when the
exterior wall of a distillation
unit becomes too hot. „Then
my adrenaline level rises
too,“ Sylvia says. But, she
ensures us, she always has
the situation under control,
thanks to her experience and
her inherently calm personality. And that hissing valve?
Not a problem – her colleague is already on his way to
fix it. ang
Huge tanks and a jumble of piping: the PCK refinery site in Schwedt
PHOTOS: DPA; ANGELIKA PENTSI
The land of oil and steel
PCK, a traditional refinery in Schwedt, is holding its own in a difficult market
By Angelika Pentsi
T
he receptionist leads
me into a back room
and switches a monitor on. A safety message flickers on the screen: „Smoking is not permitted,“ the
voice announces. „If the
alarm is sounded, personnel
must evacuate the site in a
cross-wind direction and
should under no circumstances play the hero.“ No one is
allowed to enter the site without watching this message.
Visiting the PCK refinery
in Schwedt/Oder (district of
Uckermark) is like taking a
trip abroad – to a country
with special visa requirements, where the buildings
are a tangle of bare ducts and
pipes. Every year, up to
12,000 tonnes of crude oil
flow every year from Western Siberia through the
5,000 kilometre Friendship
pipeline to the refinery in
Schwedt, where it is processed into petrol, diesel, fuel
oil, jet fuel and other products.
Nine out of ten cars in Berlin and Brandenburg run on
fuel from Schwedt. But like
Robots open up
K Robotic technology being
developed by the Chair of
Automation Technology at
Brandenburg University of
Technology (BTU) in CottbusSenftenberg should be able to
help load and unload hazardous raw materials at the PCK
refinery in the future.
K The materials are delivered
in tankers, which are currently
still opened by hand – no easy
job, particularly in wintry
weather.
K The Chairholder at the
BTU, Ulrich Berger, has developed a step-by-step plan for
automating the process: first,
new equipment will be introduced, followed by a semi-automatic system and then a fully
automatic system. In the final
stage, an industrial robot will
be mounted on a parallel
track.
K Because of the complicated movements involved in
opening a dome cover, the
robotic arm must be able to
move and twist in all directions. Only ultra-modern industrial robots can do this.
K The research study should
be completed by the end of
the year, and the onus will
then be on the refinery to
work out how to implement
the findings. bra
all refineries, PCK doesn't
have it easy these days, now
that oil is going out of fashion, as Management Chairman Jos van Winsen tells me
as we sit around the conference table in the main building. Europe's crude oil consumption, he explains, is steadily decreasing because of alternative fuels such as natural gas, ever more efficient
engines, and the increasing
use of public transport and
car pools.
What's more, the refinery
has to compete with international companies that, unlike
PCK, do not have to pay up to
€40 million every year for carbon credits. „Germany has to
be careful about how much
strain it puts on industry in its
promotion of renewables,“
says van Winsen.
The Uckermark without
PCK is unimaginable – the refinery is like a state within a
state. The firm, established
in 1958, has a staff of 1,150,
making it the biggest employer in the region, where
the unemployment rate is
one of the highest in Brandenburg (14 percent). „PCK is synonymous with Schwedt,“
says spokeswoman Roswitha
Flöter, who has been at the
company for around 40 years.
Flöter has seen PCK
through its ups and downs, in-
PCK Raffinerie GmbH
K Product: Crude oil products like petrol, diesel and
fuel oil
K Location: Schwedt/Oder
(district of Uckermark)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 2.1 billion
cluding the company's postReunification period of privatisation and modernisation,
when it downsized from over
9,000 employees. When she
says that PCK has been named one of the top employers in the country by Focus
magazine, it doesn't seem
like mere lip service.
Jos van Winsen is convinced that PCK will survive despite the difficult market situation: „We are one of the
most efficient refineries in Europe.“ Only recently, € 110
million was invested in improving energy efficiency at the
site. The GDR period taught
refinery managers how to
make a lot out of a little. Although this too is relative – it
is only the oil companies that
make the really big money.
„I'm overjoyed if we make
two cents per litre,“ says van
Winsen.
Big oil in Brandenburg
Provetec produces cutting-edge measuring technology for the petrochemical and cosmetic sectors
By Rüdiger Braun
T
he once-yellow building
has been given a fresh
Anton Paar
coat of reddish-grey paint,
Provetec GmbH
and an adjacent lot has been
K Product: Testing devices
turned into a large car park.
for oils
In March of this year, the PeK Location: Blankenfeldetrotest company, based in
Mahlow, borough of DahleDahlewitz, a borough of Blanwitz (district of Teltowkenfelde-Mahlow (district of
Fl• ming)
Teltow-Fläming), changed
its name to Anton Paar ProveK 2012 turnover:
tec following its acquisition
€ 11.8 million
by Austrian corporation Anton Paar. The site's products,
however, remain the same:
measuring technologies for ped a particular interest in
mineral oil companies – and the flash point testing devices produced by Petrotest.
now for other industries too.
These devices, first develo„Anton Paar bought the
firm in order to expand into ped all the way back in 1873,
can be used to determineral oil testing
mine the temperadevices,“ explains
The plan
ture at which cerBusiness Developis for
tain fuels will comment
Manager
bust – an important
Heinz Kindlhofer.
Provetec
in peThe Austrian comto add at least consideration
trol transportation,
pany first achieved
20 new jobs for example.
worldwide success
The manual proin the 1960s with its
density-measuring devices cedure, performed by two enfor fluids, which can be used gineers, was later automated
for processes like testing the and refined. Provetec further
CO2 content of mineral wa- revised the technology. The
ter. More recently, it develo- company also produces devi-
ces that test the viscosity of lubricating oils, the characteristics of bitumen, and the efficiency of certain mineral oil
mixtures.
Whereas Petrotest primarily sold its products to the mineral oil industry, Provetec is
now targeting customers
from other sectors as well.
The question of whether a
particular oil will oxidize and
thus turn rancid is not only interesting to fuel producers,
but to food and cosmetic
producers, too. Provetec
is also in the process
of developing three
new devices at its
Dahlewitz
site.
„It's all still a secret,“
says
Kindlhofer, who
currently commutes to Vienna once
a week.
He is certain, however, that the
new testing devices will be big hits –
just like the 42
different devices the company has developed to date
that are now
sent to Anton Paar distributors around the world.
„It is important to us to offer the best devices on the
market,“
says
Kindlhofer. One
advantage
is
that all the devices
conduct
their
tests in accordance with the
relevant official standards.
Volkmar Wierzbicki, Petrotest's former owner, will no
doubt be pleased to see
that his long-standing
firm has not been taken over by a locustlike investor – instead,
Anton Paar is making
real investments in Provotec.
Sixteen new jobs
have already been
added to the original 59 positions. If the expanded product portfolio
works
out, Provetec may well
create over
20 more new
positions in
Dahlewitz
over the next
few years.
Heinz Kindlhofer with the company's classic product, the flash
point tester. PHOTO: RÜDIGER BRAUN
Kosher fats and oils
Cremer Oleo produces ingredients that make lotions and foodstuffs smooth and creamy
By Marion Kaufmann
I
f your lipstick crumbles or
your hand cream clumps,
it is unlikely to contain the
quality product made in Wittenberge (district of Prignitz). The name of the ingredient that ensures the perfect
consistency, medium-chain
triglycerides (MCT), may not
roll smoothly off your tongue,
but these fatty acid esters do
slip down nicely.
Cremer Oleo GmbH in Wittenberge, formerly Prignitzer Chemie, which manufactures this special plant oil
from palm-kernel and coconut oils, has no cause for complaint. Used in the cosmetics
and food sectors, MCT oil is
both kosher and halal, meeting the most stringent requirements of both Judaism and
Islam. The substance produced by the Prignitz-based
company makes lotions more
absorbable, jelly sweets shinier, and foods for special dietary requirements more ea-
sily digestible. „We are
pretty much providing the
most vital component in
some products,“ says Managing Director Patrick Knüppel.
The plant oil company
from Wittenberge is operating in a market where suppliers include giants like
BASF and new competitors
from Asia. Nonetheless, so
far it has been successful.
Sales are increasing, and the
number of employees is growing. In 2010, the company
had 56 employees; last year it
had 91. This growth is due primarily to the new ester facility that went into operation
in 2012 after a construction
period of three years. At the
heart of the new facility is a
multi-step short-path distilla-
The new ester facility in Wittenberge
PHOTO: DPA
tion process for the production of highly pure monoglycerides. The € 25 million
investment was also a statement of commitment to the
Wittenberge site, explains
Knüppel. The plant in northern Brandenburg belongs
to the Cremer group, which
is headquartered in Hamburg. „We have highly skilled employees here in Brandenburg,“ says Knüppel.
And educating future specialists from the region is part of
the company's strategy for
the future.
To this end, the Marie Curie grammar school in Wittenberge is working closely with
the chemical plant, which developed in 1991 from the
Wood Chemistry department
of VEB Zellstoff- und Zellwollewerk Wittenberge (a stateowned cellulose and rayon
plant). Pupils at the Marie Curie school designed an acetone-free, environmentally
friendly nail polish remover
from water, emulsifiers and
Cremer Oleo
GmbH & Co. KG
K Product: Basic substances
for the food, cosmetics and
pharmaceutical industries
K Location: Wittenberge
(district of Prignitz)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 32 million
degreasers, which won them
an award in the „Jugend
forscht“ competition for
young researchers.
The only thing that worries
Knüppel is the southern European market. It is easy to see
that purchasing power is decreasing in Spain, and that
people are no longer spending as much on consumer
goods. And that means women aren't buying quite as
much lipstick – even if it is
kosher!
1
32 | Industrieland Brandenburg
GUT
HOLZ
Für die Laminat-Fertigung wird bei Classen Industries in Baruth ausschließlich Kiefernholz verwendet.
FOTOS: DPA; LISA ROGGE
Gut
Der personalisierte Fußboden
Classen Industries produziert in Baruth/Mark Laminat für den Weltmarkt
Von Lisa Rogge
W
er den Weg zum
Holzstandort in Baruth/Mark
(Teltow-Fläming) sucht, der
muss nur den Lkw folgen. Bis
oben hin mit Baumstämmen
beladen, fahren sie hinein in
das Industriegebiet. Mit Paletten voller Laminat schieben sie sich durch den Kreisverkehr wieder gen Bundesstraße 96 zurück.
Genau wie die Unternehmen in dieser Straße angeordnet sind, so verläuft auch
der Produktionsprozess: Am
Anfang steht ein Sägewerk
der Klenk Holz AG, nur einige hundert Meter weiter
wird das Holz bei Classen Industries zu Laminat. „Das ist
ein entscheidender Vorteil,
dass wir hier eine Wertschöpfungskette haben und so die
Transportkosten
minimal
sind“, sagt Carsten Buhlmann, Geschäftsführer von
Classen Industries.
Seit 2001 investierte das
Unternehmen 350 Millionen
Euro in den Baruther Standort. Über die Investitionsbank des Landes (ILB) wurde
es mit knapp 45 Millionen
Euro gefördert. Classen Industries sieht sich als Global
Player: 80 Prozent der Pro-
duktion werden für den Export hergestellt. 70 Millionen
Quadratmeter Laminat verlassen jährlich das Brandenburger Werk, auch am Firmensitz
in
Kaisersesch
(Rheinland-Pfalz) wird produziert. Ein Drittel des gefertigten Bodenbelags geht
nach Nordamerika. „Wir mischen auf dem Weltmarkt
mit“, sagt Buhlmann.
Vor seiner großen Reise
fängt das Laminat ganz klein
an: als zerkleinerte Holzreste, die bei der Herstellung
anderer Holzprodukte übrig
geblieben sind. Aus den Resten werden bei Classen Industries hochdichte Faserplatten, sogenannte HDFPlatten, gepresst. Sie sind die
Grundlage eines jeden Laminatbodens. Dekorpapier verleiht den Platten ihr holzartiges Aussehen. Darüber
kommt eine Schutzfolie, die
mit einem Zwei-Komponentenkleber angebracht wird.
Dafür wird die Platte auf 200
Grad Celsius erhitzt. Entsprechend heiß schiebt sie sich
aus den riesigen Pressmaschinen und erhitzt die Werkhallen im Sommer und im
Winter auf mehr als 30 Grad.
„Ich merk das schon gar
nicht mehr“, sagt Carsten
Buhlmann, der bei einem
Rundgang durch das Werk jeden Arbeiter mit Handschlag
begrüßt. Auf den T-Shirts der
Beschäftigten prangt neben
dem Firmenlogo ein Aufdruck in kräftigem Rot: Der
hauseigene Laminatboden
ist bei einem Vergleich der
Stiftung Warentest Testsieger geworden. 16 Laminatböden wurden gecheckt. Die
Baruther Bretter namens
„Classen Style megaloc“ haben gewonnen, berichtet der
Geschäftsführer stolz.
600 verschiedene Dekore
bringt das Unternehmen auf
die Platte. Viele davon stehen aufgerollt in der Werkshalle. Dazu können 15 unterschiedliche
Oberflächenstrukturen in den Laminatboden gepresst werden. „Künftig sind bei uns unendlich
viele Designs denkbar“, kündigt Buhlmann an. Denn
Classen
Industries GmbH
Produkt: Laminat
Standort: Baruth/Mark
(Teltow-Fläming)
Beschäftigte: 300
Umsatz 2012:
keine Angaben
eine Halle weiter wird
Werk 3 gerade eingerichtet
und dort steht ein Tintenstrahldrucker in Übermannsgröße. Mit dem kann das Laminat selbst mit Blümchen
oder anderen ganz speziellen Mustern verziert werden.
Gerade laufen die ersten
Testreihen. An einer Wand
lehnt eine Probe mit aufgedrucktem
Damengesicht.
Ein Scherz, aber die Entwicklung ist klar: „Der Boden der
Zukunft ist individueller.
Und schneller wechselbar,
passend zur jeweiligen Einrichtung und Lebenssituation“, sagt Buhlmann. Eine
bezahlbare Illusion sei mit Laminat zu verwirklichen.
Wie wäre es mit Ahorn, Eiche oder Nussbaumboden?
Alles möglich, zu geringen
Kosten und mit umweltschonender Herstellung. Denn
verwendet wird ausschließlich Kiefer. Und die ist im Radius von 200 Kilometern um
den Standort im Landkreis
Teltow-Fläming in ausreichender Menge zu finden.
Laminat ist dabei ressourcenschonend: Während für Parkett nur die edlen Filetstücke
von Bäumen verwendet werden, kommen beim Laminat
die Reste aus anderen Produktionen zum Einsatz.
Wir finanzieren
und begleiten
Unternehmen
in der Region.
* Quelle: Diagnose Mittelstand 2012
Laut ist es am Arbeitsplatz
von Roland Puschisch. Wenn
die noch metergroßen Bretter von Greifarmen angesaugt werden, geschieht das
unter einem ständigen lauten Zischen. Ohrenschützer
gehören daher zur Standardausrüstung des Maschinenführers. Gespräche sind
kaum möglich, erst im Aufenthaltsraum – einem kleinen Bauwagen in der Mitte
der Werkshalle – sind seine
Worte zu verstehen.
Der 42-Jährige ist „für alle
Großgeräte verantwortlich,
die bei der Beschichtung des
Laminats zum Einsatz kommen“, erzählt er. Der gelernte Zimmerer ist seit 2001
bei Classen Industries Maschinenführer. Er hatte in der
Zeitung gelesen, dass in dem
damals neu eröffneten Werk
Arbeiter gesucht werden,
und bewarb sich. „Kurz
darauf hatte ich die Zusage,
nach nur ein paar Tagen
konnte ich anfangen“, sagt
der Mann aus Alt Zauche
(Dahme-Spreewald).
In Baruth wird ihm mitunter
kräftig eingeheizt. Etwa an
der Maschine, die das Laminat versiegelt: Dort drin
werden die Bretter für zwölf
Sekunden auf 200 Grad
erhitzt. Das ist auch in der
Umgebung zu spüren. Klar,
dass er die grüne Glasflasche
mit Mineralwasser ständig
zur Hand hat. Erst nach der
Beschichtung ist die Dekorfolie mit den jeweiligen Aufdrucken haltbar.
Puschisch bedient auch die
Maschinen der nächsten
Verarbeitungsstationen.
Dort werden die überstehenden Folienreste abgetrennt.
Und wenn die Laminatplatten abgekühlt sind, sorgt
Puschisch dafür, dass sie in
handliche und leicht zu
verlegende Teile zersägt
werden. lir
Die Sparkassen im
Land Brandenburg
für die Wirtschaft.
Die Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe ist der wichtigste
Partner des Mittelstandes und Motor der Wirtschaft
in Deutschland. Insgesamt finanzieren wir
und unsere Partner etwa jede zweite
Existenzgründung* in Deutschland.
a4 auf Rheino-Tabloid Standbogen, ungerade 02_09_13
Der Maschinen-Mann
Tank storage at BASF Schwarzheide GmbH: The grounds of the plant in southern Brandenburg cover a total of almost three square kilometres.
PHOTO: DPA
Frothy like a fizzy drink
BASF Schwarzheide's product ranges from automotive paints to pesticides
A
lmost nobody crosses
the grounds of the
BASF
plant
in
Schwarzheide (district of
Oberspreewald-Lausitz) on
foot. The plant covers almost
three square kilometres, so
many employees get around
by bicycle. A bike is the ideal
vehicle for reaching the 17
production facilities, where
paints, pesticides and synthetic materials are manufactured – including polystyrene.
The
polystyrene
production hall is next to the
plant's own container terminal. Huge stacks of the green
insulating panels known as
Styrodur surround the building. Schwarzheide is one of
four BASF locations in Europe that manufacture these
panels. The raw material for
the product are beads, which
are melted into a viscous
mass. Other substances are
added, including carbon dioxide as a blowing agent.
This acts like the carbonation
in fizzy drinks, turning the
mixture into a frothy mass
that consists primarily of air.
As soon as the foam hardens,
it is cut into panels 20 to 200
millimetres thick. Styrodur is
notable for its excellent heat
insulating properties and low
water absorption rate. „Because of its great compression strength, it can also be
used in road and track construction,“ explains Arne Petersen, spokesman for BASF
Schwarzheide GmbH. The
panels can be used, for example, to insulate the area under the points on railway lines so they don't freeze so easily in winter. The rigid foam
panels are the plant's only
product that end customers
have direct contact with,
says Petersen. But that do-
esn't mean that other production lines are less important, just that they make intermediate products that go to
other companies for further
processing.
One such product is environmentally friendly waterbased auto paint: „We supply many leading car manufacturers,“ says Petersen.
Very particular demands are
placed on those paints, and
the chemical composition varies greatly depending on
whether they will be applied
to metal or plastic components. Yet the colour of the
It all began with brown coal
K The Schwarzheide chemis-
try plant started out processing lignite, or „brown coal“.
From 1935, petrol was produced here from lignite in order
to make the German Reich,
which was heading towards
war, independent of oil imports.
K During the era of the German Democratic Republic, the
site continued to be used by a
state-owned corporation
called Synthesewerk Schwarzheide. Petrol production was
discontinued in 1971, and
from 1973 Schwarzheide
instead became the largest
manufacturer of polyurethane
in the entire Eastern Bloc.
K Turnover and the number
of employees at BASF Schwarzheide GmbH recently decreased slightly. Turnover in 2012
was € 1.007 billion, compared
with € 1.064 billion the previous year. The number of
employees decreased from
1785 to the current figure of
1718.
K A number of companies
that perform additional processing steps are now also based
on the plant grounds. net
car must, in the end, be absolutely uniform. Meanwhile,
trucks loaded with Ultradur
granules pull up in front of
another facility. This product
is produced in Schwarzheide
and used elsewhere to make
rigid plastic shells, for example for mobile phones.
When the BASF Group
took over the Schwarzheide
site in 1990, its main activity
was the production of polyurethane, a material used as
the basis for foams, paints
and glues that has been produced here for a long time.
BASF sought to make use of
established supplier relationships and to deliver polyurethane from here to former
Eastern Bloc countries. Because trade with Eastern Europe soon slowed, that did
not pan out.
Now the plan is to move all
polyurethane production to
the main BASF site in Ludwigshafen and to close down
the
Schwarzheide
production facility in 2015. This
move will affect 300 employees, but the company
plans to seek replacement
jobs for them within the
plant.
According to Petersen,
thanks to the broad range of
BASF
Schwarzheide GmbH
K Product: Plastics, paints,
pesticides
K Location: Schwarzheide
K 2012 turnover:
€ 1.007 billion
products made here, there is
a good chance that the plan
will work out. For example,
recently the Schwarzheide
site won out in an internal
competition for the production of a fungicide called
F500, which protects crops
like soybeans.
The facility is now being expanded for the second time,
involving an investment of
around € 100 million. Since
1990 the Group has invested
over € 1.5 billion in the
Schwarzheide location. It
has received € 229 million
from the Brandenburg Investment Bank (ILB), of which
€ 18.6 million came from the
European Regional Development Fund.
A glossy finish
Atotech's chemicals make surfaces shine and also find use in the semiconductor industry
I
t's a little like a cake mix.
„We supply the ingredients, the oven and the necessary instructions; the customers have to do the rest
themselves,“
says
Jens
Boese, Aotech's branch manager in Neuruppin (district
of Ostprignitz-Ruppin). Except in this case the ingredients are not flour, sugar
and butter, but chemicals,
which are combined in 66 mixing tanks into about 2,000
different products.
There is little to actually
see inside them, though: „It
all happens in a closed system,“ explains Boese. The
Atotech
Deutschland GmbH
K Product: Chemicals for
surface treatments and for
the semiconductor industry
K Location: Neuruppin
(district of OstprignitzRuppin)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
only indication that a new
mixture is being made in the
tank is the hum of the exhaust system. But when
that product reaches the
customer, it makes metals and synthetic materials shine or protects them from
corrosion.
Atotech
has
been at its site in
northern Brandenburg since
1996. The company, headquartered in Berlin,
develops chemicals that are used
to apply thin layers
of metal on various
surfaces. The semiconductor
industry
needs these products for
its chips and circuit boards.
The chemicals are shipped
to locations around the
world, in quantities ranging
from 100 g to 1,500 kg. The
Atotech branch in the Bavarian town of Feucht makes
the appropriate machinery –
the „ovens“ for that cake
mix.
„Think of it as a row of
tubs,“ says Boese. The products to be finished, such as
Atotech mixtures are used to produce
COMPANY PHOTOS (2)
silicon wafers.
showerheads, are placed on
a rack that moves across
those tubs. Those products
are automatically dunked
into the individual tubs and,
after about 20 individual
steps, emerge with the desi-
red metallic finish. The chemicals, with the help of electricity, ensure that metals
such as copper form thin layers on the surface of the unfinished object. „The challenge is making sure that
each product looks the same
and that none of the finish
chips off,“ says Boese. „Our
customers come to us with a
certain objective, which
we then have to
achieve as quickly as
possible, with the
highest
possible
quality,“ explains
Boese.
The sequence
of steps is always
the same, whether the customer
manufactures automobiles or aeroplanes, mobile
phones or taps, medical devices or jewellery.
And the list of chemicals in Atotech's warehouse is just as varied as the
range of uses for the company's technology. „We can
supply chemicals in all colours,“ says Boese, giving
me a tour of the warehouse.
Of course, what really matters is not the appearance of
the mixtures, but rather their
effectiveness. And that's
where it's different from making a cake, which should always be a feast for the eyes
as well.
With very good resin!
Synthetic resins from Erkner were used in the body of the East German Trabant and can still be found in many cars
By Ute Sommer
Y
es, „a few things have
happened,“ says Anja
Plugge with a chuckle. From
her office, Plugge, Managing
Director of Dynea Erkner
GmbH, has a view of the new
warehouse that is being constructed at the company's facility in the town of Erkner.
There is a new truck
weighbridge, and the production equipment has been
improved. Since 2008, about
€ 20 million has been invested in Erkner (district of
Oder-Spree). To date, the
Brandenburg
Investment
Bank (ILB) has provided the
company with a little over € 5
million in funding.
At this site, Dynea produces synthetic resins, which
are used, for example, in the
wood industry to ensure that
fibreboard doesn't fall apart.
The resins can be found in
sandpaper and in grinding
wheels. Insulating foam, too,
is manufactured from synthetic resins.
Seventy thousand tonnes
of resin, in liquid or powder
form, are shipped out from
the facility each year. Plugge
reports that more than 200 for-
mulas are used in Erkner to
make this material. She became the manager of the facility two years ago. „It's my
first company with an East
German
history,“
says
Plugge, an engineer who pre-
The plant supplies 70,000 tonnes of synthetic resins per year.
viously worked in the state of
Hesse. What she really notices in Erkner is „the employees' dedication to the
company, their identification
with the firm.“
And this plant really is
quite special. During the
GDR, Erkner supplied the basic material for the body of
the legendary Trabant automobile. Today, a wide range
of cars and trucks contain products from the Dynea plant.
For example, the paper that
air filters are made from is
made is soaked in phenol resin, which has what Plugge
calls „an incredibly good property“ – i.e. it is not flammable.
Dynea employes 120 people in Erkner. The plant belongs to Dynea Chemicals,
an internationally active company based in the Finnish capital of Helsinki. Synthetic resins are produced at a total of
seven Dynea locations across
Europe. According to Plugge,
Dynea Erkner GmbH
K Product: Synthetic resins
K Location: Erkner (district
of Oder-Spree)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 72 million
there is „absolutely no need
to worry“ about the future of
the Brandenburg site. After
all, each plant has its own particular specialisation, and –
what's more – preparations
for the next investment are already underway in Erkner. A
formalin-producing facility is
to be built here by the end of
2014. Formalin, a material
used in the production of synthetic resins, currently has to
be brought in from external
sources. This switch to local
production will soon bring
even more jobs to Erkner.
Motzen makes
rubber and
more
Rubber and plastics specialist keeps
electronics giants and
car manufacturers running
By Bastian Pauly
A
hard-working robot arm
reaches for one sealing
washer, then another, and
another. Its four cameras exa-
Motzener Kunststoffund Gummiverarbeitung GmbH
K Product: Plastic and
rubber parts, e.g. sealing
washers and rubber rings
K Location: Mittenwalde,
borough of Motzen (district
of Dahme-Spreewald)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 6 million
mine the little rings – each is
about the size of a 2 coin –
and pick up even the
slightest imperfection. If
they pass the test, the plasticand-rubber washers will go
on to live their lives as capacitor components.
Here in the village of Motzen (district of Dahme-Spreewald), they know a thing or
two about handling plastics
and rubber. Motzener Kunststoff- und Gummiverarbeitung has an 82-year-history
producing plastics at this
green, idyllic site close to the
golf course. „We're a pretty
old hand,“ says Thomas König, who runs the company
along with Bernd Moos.
The same could be said of
König (61). He's been with
Quality control workers keep a close eye on things.
the firm since 1974, when it
only produced injectionmoulded plastic parts. He
tells me it began moving
more and more towards rubber in the 1980s. When the
Berlin Wall came down, the
company decided to hold on
to both product areas and
keep developing them. „We
injection-mould these nowadays,“ says König, holding a
rubber ring with a 1.5-metre
diameter. He calls them
„O-rings“, for obvious reasons, and proudly explains
that the world's biggest dumper truck uses the thin membranes in its axles.
Supplying the automotive
industry is an important part
of the business and means
that things like air vents and
door handle gaskets are
among the company's product lines. As well as making
parts of either plastic or rubber, König and his team are
also dab hands at plastic-rubber combinations – like the
sealing washers the robot
was examining earlier. The
capacitors that they are used
in are often found in kitchens
or bathrooms, though most
people don't know they're
there. Top brands like Miele,
Bosch and Siemens use them
PHOTO: WIEGAND STURM
in their tumble dryers, washing machines and dishwashers. Overall, the Motzen
team have about 800 parts in
their repertoire. The company has so far received
some 2 million in funding
from the Brandenburg Investment Bank, and about half of
that came from the European
Regional
Development
Fund.
Things are clearly going
well here, and with enquiries
starting to come in from Scandinavia, it looks like König
will have to add a map of Europe to the company presentation soon.
High-speed safety
In Fürstenwalde, Goodyear Dunlop makes tyres for high-class cars and their demanding drivers
By Angelika Pentsi
A
round aluminium mould
descends ponderously,
encompasses the waiting
tyre (which at this unfinished
stage is known as a „green
tyre“) until it disappears entirely, and then lets out a satisfied hiss. Vulcanisation is the
last step in the complicated
process of tyre production,
says Markus Wachter, who
heads Goodyear Dunlop's
tyre factory in Fürstenwalde
(district of Oder-Spree).
Wachter stands by the mould,
which is still hissing away
happily, and explains what's
going on inside it.
After having its various layers and components put together by a machine, the tyre is
now heated to 250 ˚C and put
under 28 bars of pressure to
bind the parts together permanently. The process produces
an elastic rubber tyre, and the
imprints in the aluminium
mould give it the all-important tread. „It all takes ten to
15 minutes,“ says Wachter.
Next comes quality control
and, if it passes, a new tyre is
born.
As many as 11,000 car tyres
roll off the production line
each day at the factory, which
used to belong to Pneumant
but was taken over by SP Rei-
fenwerke GmbH (Dunlop) in
1992 and has been run by Goodyear Dunlop Tires GmbH
since it formed in 1999. Its annual output is about 3.7 million tyres, most of which end
up under a BMW, a Porsche or
a Jaguar. The factory specialises in the upmarket segment:
Up to 11,000 tyres roll off the production line each day at the
PHOTO: DPA
Fürstenwalde factory.
„We mainly make high-performance tyres for sporty drivers,“ says Wachter – which
means the company clads
wheels in rubber that, thanks
to its material and design, will
get motorists safely to where
they're going, even at 250
km/h.
Focusing on this market has
both pros and cons. Wachter
explains that the company
only produces very small batches (fewer than 2,000) of its
392 tyre models. That, he
says, is a challenge for the
team, who have to get a new
production run going 2.5 times a day on average. But the
good news is that, while the
market for small cars is currently weakening, things are
going quite well for more expensive models.
Wachter believes that tyre
manufacturers will be facing
ever tougher demands in the
future: „Tyres have to have
low rolling resistance but still
be able to maintain good
handling, especially when it's
Goodyear Dunlop Tires
Germany GmbH
K Product: Car tyres
K Location: Fürstenwalde
(district of Oder-Spree)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
wet and over short braking
distances.“
To ensure that employees
are able to fulfil these complex demands, Goodyear
Dunlop trains most of its staff
itself. Right now, the company
employs 800 people in Fürstenwalde. Of those, 45 are apprentices who are training to
become mechatronics engineers, process mechanics,
electricians or plant mechanics, to name just a few. And
the system is clearly working:
employee turnover is just two
percent.
1
Ein Fünfer für die Region
Das Österreichische Unternehmen Austrotherm investiert 40 Millionen Euro in Wittenberge
F
und polnischen Markt herstellen. Die gute Verkehrsanbindung hat die Österreicher
in die Mark gelockt. Im Norden entsteht gerade die Autobahn A 14, die in Richtung
Ostsee führt.
Werksleiter Lars Peter ist
ganz in seinem Element,
wenn er den künftigen Produktionsablauf
Mit den Dämmplatten von Austrotherm werden Dächer und
FIRMENFOTO
Böden isoliert.
schildert. Von den Silos aus
werde das Granulat in die
Anlage gepumpt und zunächst unter Druck und
Hitze zu einer rund 180 Grad
heißen, zähflüssigen Masse
verarbeitet. Dann „beruhigt“ sich der Brei und ist nur
noch rund 100 Grad heiß.
Er wird durch eine Düse gepresst und auf eine Plattenbreite von 120 Millimetern
gebracht, erklärt Peter. Erst danach
kommt das, was die
stattliche Hallengröße nötig macht:
eine rund 110 Meter
lange Abkühlstrecke. Auf der wird
das Styropor wie auf
einem Band vorwärts
geschoben.
In eine handliche
Länge von 60 Zentimetern zerteilt, geht
es für die Platten zum
weiteren Abkühlen in
eine Art Paternoster.
Rund zehn Meter fahren sie
auf der einen Seite in die
Höhe und auf der anderen
Austrotherm
Dämmstoffe GmbH
Produkt: Dämmmaterial
Standort: Wittenberge
(Prignitz)
Beschäftigte:
BSH HAUSGERÄTEWERK NAUEN GMBH
Umweltfreundliche Produktion
Supereffiziente Waschmaschinen aus dem Land Brandenburg
70 (geplant)
noch kein Umsatz
Seite geht es wieder hinunter. Auf Paletten in Zweierreihen gestapelt, warten die
Platten dann im Hof auf den
Abtransport per Lkw.
„Die ganze Anlage fährt
vollautomatisch und integriert alle Reste wieder in
den Produktionsprozess“, berichtet Werksleiter Peter
stolz. Die Beschäftigten werden überwiegend zur Kontrolle und zum Transport im
Werk eingesetzt. Eine der
häufigsten Qualifikationen
bei Austrotherm in Wittenberge ist daher der Gabelstapler-Schein.
Das BSH-Hausgerätewerk in Nauen wurde zweimal als
„Fabrik des Jahres“ in Deutschlands härtestem
Unternehmenswettbewerb ausgezeichnet.
2009 konnte die effiziente Ressourcennutzung am Standort überzeugen
und 2010 wurden die wirtschaftlichen Leistungen in der gesamten
Wertschöpfungskette mit dem Award „Global Excellence in Operations“
honoriert.
Die Fabrik in Nauen zeichnet sich aber nicht nur durch eine besonders
umweltschonende Produktion aus – auch die Hausgeräte, die hier vom
Band laufen, setzen Maßstäbe. So verbrauchen die Waschmaschinen heute
bis zu 50 Prozent weniger Strom und bis zu 46 Prozent weniger Wasser als
vergleichbare Maschinen vor fünfzehn Jahren.
Das Hausgerätewerk Nauen, eine hundertprozentige Tochter der BSH
Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH, ist seit der Eröffnung 1994 zu
einem wichtigen Arbeitgeber in Brandenburg geworden.
Der Standort gilt als die modernste Waschmaschinenfabrik Europas.
Bis zu 600.000 Waschmaschinen werden hier jedes Jahr produziert
und in Deutschland, Europa und in vielen Ländern der Welt verkauft.
Mehr über die BSH und den Standort Nauen
erfahren Sie unter www.bsh-group.de.
Es ist wie Zwieback machen
ZEFIRO –
Porcelaingres produziert in Vetschau exklusive Bodenfliesen für Großkunden in der ganzen Welt
Von Gerald Dietz
W
olfgang Bludau ist immer für einen flotten
Spruch gut: „Aus der Lausitz
in die Welt“, schwärmt der
Werksleiter von Porcelaingres in Vetschau (Oberspreewald-Lausitz) vom Absatz
der eigenen Produkte. Steinzeug-Fliesen sind das Markenzeichen von Porcelaingres. Erst kürzlich habe das
Unternehmen einen Kunden
auf den Malediven gewonnen. Dort soll ein neues Hotel
mit Bodenbelägen aus Vetschau beliefert werden. Fliesen aus dem Süden Brandenburgs liegen auch in Einkaufszentren in Hongkong,
Riad und Mexico, so Bludau.
Porcelaingres GmbH
Produkt: Fliesen aus
Feinsteinzeug
Standort: Vetschau
(Oberspreewald-Lausitz)
Beschäftigte: 180
Umsatz 2012:
33 Millionen Euro
Rohstoff für die exklusiven
Trittflächen sind staubige
Brocken, die zum Beispiel im
Nordosten Brandenburgs gewonnen werden. Aus den Mineralien Ton, Kaolin oder
Feldspat werden die Keramikfliesen der Tochter des
italienischen Herstellers Granitifiandre seit nunmehr fast
einem Jahrzehnt produziert.
Die Italiener gehören zu den
Weltmarktführern bei Keramikfliesen. Der Besuch der
Werkshallen in der Lausitz
ist Standardprogramm der
Branchenvertreter für Fußbodenbeläge aus aller Welt.
Vier Millionen Quadratmeter der frostbeständigen und
extrem stabilen Ware gehen
pro Jahr durch die Brennöfen
in Vetschau.
„Im Grunde ist es wie Zwieback machen“, sagt Bludau
über das Herzstück der Produktion. Nach einem Zwischenstopp in der Hochdruckpresse durchlaufen die
Platten aus gemahlenen Mineralien eine 130 Meter
lange Ofenstrecke bei 1300
Grad Celsius. Hier entfaltet
das vorher unifarbene Feinsteinzeug durch zugefügte
Farbpigmente sein künftiges
Design. „Entwickelt wurde
das aber zuvor am Computer“, erklärt Bludau. Mindestens 50 verschiedene Serien
plus Gestaltungen nach Kundenwunsch werden gefertigt. Rund die Hälfte der Produktion geht an Großkunden
wie die Betreiber öffentlicher
Gebäude oder Einkaufszen-
tren. In Brandenburg sind
etwa die Shoppingmeile Blechen-Carré in Cottbus und
das Hotel „Zur Bleiche“ in
Burg (Spree-Neiße) mit Vetschauer Fliesen ausgelegt.
Die andere Hälfte geht an
den Einzelhandel zum Verkauf an private Bauherren.
Porcelaingres ist über die
Investitionsbank ILB bisher
Hochgeschwindigkeitszüge
mit gut neun Millionen Euro
gefördert worden. Fast die
Hälfte davon stammt aus
dem Efre-Fonds. Viel Wert
legt Porcelaingres auf ökologische Standards. Rund ein
Drittel der Energie fürs Werk
wird durch eine Dach-Solaranlage produziert. Regenund Brauchwasser werden
für die Produktion genutzt.
INNOVATIVE
SCHIENENVERKEHRSTECHNIK
AUS BRANDENBURG
www.zeﬁro.bombardier.com
Feinste Fliesen entstehen in Vetschau bei 1300 Grad Celsius.
FOTO: DPA
a4 auf Rheino-Tabloid Standbogen, ungerade 02_09_13
ünf riesige Silos werden
in Wittenberge (Prignitz)
ab dem Herbst riesige Mengen an Styroporgranulat beherbergen, das später einmal Wohnhäuser und Industriebauten vor Wärmeverlust
schützen soll. Aus dem Granulat entstehen Platten, mit denen Dächer und auch Böden
isoliert werden können. Für die Produktion der Dämmstoffe
baut das österreichische Unternehmen
Austrotherm in Wittenberge eine Werkshalle,
die so groß ist wie fünf
Fußballfelder.
Rund 40 Millionen
Euro investieren die
Österreicher im Brandenburger Norden. 8,75 Millionen Euro steuert Brandenburg an Fördermitteln bei.
Seit 60 Jahren schon entwickelt und produziert Austrotherm Styropordämmstoffe.
In Wittenberge baut das Un-
ternehmen sein 19. Werk in
Europa. Der Region bringt
diese Investition 70 neue Arbeitsplätze.
Die Beschäftigten werden
ab dem 5. Oktober im
24-Stunden-Betrieb rosafarbene Dämmplatten vor allem für den skandinavischen
ZEFIRO is a trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries.
Von Gerald Dietz
JOURNEY
TO THE
STAR
King of the assembly line
Heiko Glitz never seems to
manage to make his round
without an interruption –
there's always something
happening. „Did you see? The
parts have arrived,“ shouts a
colleague, pointing at a box.
Heiko immediately registers
what he's talking about. He
waves, „Right you are!“, and
continues on his way through
the hall.
Heiko is trained in vehicle
body construction, but since
last year he's been working
as a foreman for vehicle
assembly at Mercedes-Benz
in Ludwigsfelde, managing a
team of 54 employees. „One
of my tasks is to ensure that
our production operations
run smoothly,“ he says.
Although Heiko can rely on
his team, his job does involve
running occasional checks on
the work schedules that
accompany each car as they
travel through the individual
stations of the assembly line.
So even though Heiko is now
a foreman, he does still get to
work with the Sprinter.
It was his dream job from a
young age: „I loved the idea
of producing something with
my hands.“ Everything went
well early on in Heiko's
career, and his apprenticeship was swiftly followed by a
permanent contract.
But then came German
Reunification, and the Ludwigsfelde factory, which at
the time was still owned by
the East German state,
started laying off staff. Heiko
was among them. But despite losing his job he remained true to the industry and
simply moved to a different
company.
Then, in 2006, he returned to
the Ludwigsfelde factory,
which was now under new
ownership. He says cars are
his life – and he's thrilled that
he is able to work for Mercedes-Benz: „I always wanted
to work under that threepointed star.“ stp
A soon-to-be Sprinter takes a dip in the Mercedes-Benz paint shop.
PHOTOS: STEPHANIE PHILIPP; COMPANY PHOTO
Sprinting to the finish line
The Mercedes-Benz factory in Ludwigsfelde will build 40,000 Sprinters this year
L
ike bizarre kites pulled
by their strings, a series of half-finished vehicles drifts through the assembly hall on overhead conveyors. One is bright green,
another is orange, but the majority are white. Of course,
this isn't just any old white –
it's Mercedes-Benz white,
the trademark colour of the
company's popular Sprinter
van. As the vehicles slowly
make their way through the
Mercedes-Benz factory in
Ludwigsfelde (district of Teltow-Fläming), they stop off
at countless different stations.
Metre by metre, the vans
become a little more complete. The cabling is installed, then the handbrake, the
base for the driver's seat, and
the lights. A little further on,
a crane helps workers lift the
finished dashboard through
the passenger door and into
the right position. Once a few
screws are added and tightened, the dashboard is fixed in
place and the interior starts
to look like what you'd expect from a van. But the famous Mercedes-Benz star is
only attached right at the
end, once all the parts, even
the tiniest, are fitted and
ready to go.
Sprinters have been rolling
out of Ludwigsfelde since
2006, and the factory started
making the new model at the
end of July this year. Body
construction, painting and final assembly all happen on
the 182,000 m2 production
site. The factory has a long
history. It was founded in the
1930s as Daimler-Benz Motoren GmbH Genshagen.
Today it has 1,000 welders,
painters and mechanics on
hand to build the Sprinters.
They're helped out by robots
too, of course. Together, they
roll out a finished van every
4.5 minutes – that's 200 a day.
Factory manager Michael
Bauer tells me that they'll be
up to 40,000 by the end of the
year.
That's a solid result for the
site, which was hit hard by
the crisis in the automotive industry. In 2009, it received
just half the number of orders
it had filled in previous years.
But that's all history now;
today's figures are much healthier. „The site's securely
anchored in Daimler AG,“
says Bauer. He explains that
the Ludwigsfelde factory is
Mercedes-Benz
Ludwigsfelde GmbH
K Product: Sprinter vans
K Location: Ludwigsfelde
(district of Teltow-Fl• ming)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
an important part of the corporation – not least because
it's the only site in Europe
that can produce all the open
models. Only one in five vehicles actually leaves the
factory as a complete van. In
most cases, it's only the driver's cab that's finished, and
the vehicle goes on to specialist body builders who will
produce the finished vehicle
– be it an ambulance, a mail
van, or even a camper van.
Most Sprinters travel on European roads: „We generate
most of our turnover in Europe,“ says Sebastian Michel, a spokesman for Daimler. But the vehicles are also
available in the United States, and the company now
has its sights on Asia. „We
have to tap into new markets,
no question,“ says Bauer.
The Sprinter will be on board
for that, but the Vario, which
is also built in Ludwigsfelde,
is on its way out. Production
will stop at the end of September. Bauer says the decision
was made because modifying the model to make it comply with the new Euro 6 emissions standard, which will
apply from early 2014, would
have been too costly. But
when production stops, another 3,000 vans will still have
rolled off the line this year.
„These had already been ordered, like all the vehicles
we produce here,“ says Michel. The Vario is still in demand in Germany and Western Europe, and Michel says
there was a good deal of
haggling involved as people
tried to get their hands on
one of the last batch.
Although it's the end of the
road for the Vario, the 150 employees who currently work
on it are set to keep their jobs:
„Our goal is to move them
into Sprinter production,“
says Bauer. There will be job
cuts, but not for operational
reasons, and these won't happen before 2016. „That's the
most security you can give in
this industry,“ says Bauer.
A meat
grinder
for plastics
Potsdam researchers are developing
high-performance fibres for cars
By Marcel Jarjour
H
ow does Germany get
its high-tech solutions
into its cars? Simple: it uses
the „meat grinder“ at the
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research
(IAP), where scientists develop high-performance fibres
Fraunhofer Institute
for Applied
Polymer Research
K Product: High-performance fibres for the car
industry
K Location: Potsdam-Golm
K 2012 budget:
€ 14.7 million
for use in cars. The institute
has been based in the Golm
neighbourhood of Potsdam
for some 20 years, and its five
research divisions are dedicated to exploring new ways of
using plastics. The team
make sure that, as well as
running smoothly in the lab,
the new processes will also
work under real production
conditions.
The lab's pride and joy is its
extruder. „It basically works
like a meat grinder,“ says Dieter Hofmann of IAP. „The plastics are melted down, kneaded thoroughly, and then forced through a nozzle to get
them into the desired shape.“
The machine can produce
everything from plastic film to
individual fibres. The scientists can also add colours, or
mix in fibres of different mate-
The Fraunhofer IAP is based in the Golm neighbourhood of Potsdam.
rials to make the plastic stronger. That's important when it
comes to using plastics in, say,
the car industry. IAP has worked with auto companies to investigate how plastics reinforced with cellulose fibres perform as interior panelling for
cars. One advantage of cellulose is that, because it comes
from the walls of plant cells,
it's a renewable raw material.
The fibres are also lighter
than the alternatives. Glass fibres are currently often used
in cars, but they are both heavier and more complicated to
process than cellulose. The
new solution is of great interest to the car industry.
Lighter vehicles consume less
fuel, which means the fibres
„give the cars a coat of
green,“ as Hoffmann says
with a chuckle.
The IAP researchers have
made it their mission to ensure that each product they
develop (such as interior panelling for cars) lasts longer
and is more environmentally
friendly than the last. This has
earned the Brandenburg institute international acclaim.
PHOTO: B. GARTENSCHLÄGER
The American Chemical Society awarded the 2012 Anselme Payen Award to IAP Director Hans-Peter Fink for his
contributions to cellulose research. But IAP isn't just about
cars. The researchers are also
involved in medical projects
and are currently helping to
develop synthetic corneas for
human eyes. At the moment,
patients needing transplants
have to wait for donor corneas. Since these are often
few and far between, the synthetic versions would be a big
help.
Making engines run smoothly
Luckenwalde-based automotive supplier Schaeffler makes more than 100 million components each year
By Kerstin Voy
T
he noise in the factory is
deafening. With machines rattling right and left, I
watch as steel gets cut down
to size, and wire gets thrust
into flames and bent into
shape. „We make over 100
million parts for engines
each year,“ says Steffen Dibow, plant manager at Schaeffler Technologies AG & Co.
KG in Luckenwalde (district
of Teltow-Fläming). The company mainly produces steel
tappets, which ensure that
the valves in a combustion engine open and close at the
right time.
They're only small, but the
parts need to stand up to a
lot: „Tappets have to be able
to work at over 6,000 revolutions per minute,“ explains Dibow. The Luckenwalde tappets, which end up in engi-
nes at manufacturers like General
Motors, Ferrari
and Toyota, have
no problem managing that. „We
haven't had a
complaint
in
over five years,“
says Dibow, clearly proud of the
track record. The
Luckenwalde
team supply companies in around
50 countries in
Europe, Asia and
South America.
Dibow
says
that the business
is doing well –
so well, in fact,
that the
The coating division at Schaeffler in LuckenPHOTO: MARGRIT HAHN
walde
company now
employs
480
members
of
staff. That's triple the number
it had in 1992,
the year that
Schaeffler
(headquartered
in Herzogenau-
rach, Bavaria) took over the
long-standing Luckenwalde
site from an East German
state-owned company that
produced rolling bearings.
The factory initially operated
under the name INA Motorenelemente Luckenwalde.
The Schaeffler Group has
three brands (INA, FAG and
LuK) that produce components for the automotive,
mechanical
engineering
and aerospace industries.
Dibow explains that modern engines are using
increasingly
lightweight
components
that cause less friction
during rotation. This
keeps the engines working for longer, and reduces fuel consumption and exhaust emissions.
Dibow has managed
the Luckenwalde factory
since 2012. He knows the
site inside and out because it was here, in 1979
at the state-owned be-
Schaeffler Technologies
AG & Co. KG
K Products: Tappets for
engines, other engine parts
K Location: Luckenwalde
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
arings factory, that he began
his apprenticeship in engine
production. He went on to
study mechanical engineering and eventually returned
to Luckenwalde, where production operations cover an
impressive 11,000 m2. Despite being a part of his life
for so many years, the site
has lost none of its fascination for Dibow. He still loves
walking through the production halls and marvelling
at the amazing machines
they contain.
Gearing up for the premium segment
Even car manufacturer Porsche relies on the ZF transmission systems produced in Brandenburg
By Anne Voß
T
ransmission systems are
the veins that pump power to the heart of a car – the
engine – and those manufactured at the ZF Friedrichshafen AG factory in Brandenburg an der Havel are in high
demand: BMW was the first
to use them, Porsche now
uses the seven-speed version, and from 2014 Mercedes-Benz will have them too.
The Brandenburg factory
was founded in 1948 as a
tractor plant, and in the
1960s began to specialise in
transmission systems. In
1991 the site was taken over
by ZF Friedrichshafen AG –
the third-largest family of automobile suppliers in Germany and one of the world's
leading companies in driveline and chassis technology.
A lengthy work process is involved before Porsche
drivers
can rev up their new, sevenspeed transmissions. Every
day, thousands of shiny new
gear blanks arrive at the company. „These are manufactured into the gears and shafts
that make up the transmissions,“ explains Susanne Re-
A gearwheel from
the ZF factory
PHOTO: ANNE VOSS
sech, who is in charge of apprenticeships at ZF's Brandenburg factory. „We get the
screws and gear housing for
the transmissions from external suppliers,“ she adds.
Computer-controlled machines with an accuracy of
up to one thousandth of a millimetre cut the silver-coloured blanks into the correct
shape. Once this is completed, the gears, shafts and
synchronising parts enter the hardening shop.
Here they are placed
in a special furnace for
twelve hours where
temperatures reach
over 1,000 ˚C, causing
the metallic parts to
glow red. Resech explains that this hardens
the surface of the metal.
After fine sanding the
parts are ready to assemble. Gears, shafts and the
fronts and backs of the gear
housing are put together like
pieces in a jigsaw, then a robotic arm fills the casing with
engine oil. ZF's Branden-
ZF Friedrichshafen AG
Location: Brandenburg
K Product: Transmission
systems
K Location: Brandenburg an
der Havel
K 2012 turnover:
€ 288 million
burg factory produces 700
gear boxes a day – a total of
171,092 units a year. To
achieve this output, the work
is organised in a three-shift
system.
Prior to delivery, the transmissions are subjected to
another thorough inspection.
„We measure the noise level
and check that the gears shift
smoothly,“ says shift supervisor Günter Hermann. The ultimate goal is that the Porsche drivers feel no evidence
of the transmission that is
hard at work inside their car.
Packhorses for special missions
Trailers made by Neustadt-based transport company Hüffermann are used the world over
B
lack rubber partitions divide the large production hall into small work
areas, providing protection
from the blinding light and
sparks emitted by the welders. These screens are so effective that the only sign of
the hard work taking place
beyond is the characteristic
crackling noise of the equipment.
In the space of either a few
hours or a few days – depending on the complexity of the
order – the framework of a
trailer will emerge from the
Hüffermann Transportsysteme GmbH
K Product: Trailers for the
transport of various interchangeable containers
K Location: Neustadt
(Dosse) (district of Ostprignitz-Ruppin)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 28 million
factory in Neustadt (Dosse)
(district of Ostprignitz-Ruppin), the production plant of
Hüffermann Transportsysteme GmbH.
Stephan von Schwander,
Managing Partner at Neustadt, explains that 90 percent of the company's business is making trailers for the
transportation of interchangeable containers, i.e. anything
that can be unloaded, filled
up, and then collected again.
These include containers and
skips as well as silos, such as
those used on building sites.
Hüffermann trailers are used
the world over, and therefore
they have to function equally
well in the arctic temperatures of Scandinavia as in the
50 ˚C heat of the desert.
In 1990 the company set up
a production site in Neustadt,
coordinated from its headquarters in Wildeshausen, Lower Saxony. Everything to do
with trailer production happens in Neustadt – from development to final assembly. After the welding process, the
metal is either sprayed with
zinc to protect against corrosion or goes straight for pain-
The wheels and electronics are fitted to the trailers at the end.
COMPANY PHOTO
rent location, and the reason
it is against relocating production to Eastern Europe.
Von Schwander admits that
maintaining the location is
hard, „but we do it because
we want to encourage development, and for that we
have to be in close proximity
to the customers.“ Since
1990, € 20 million has been invested in the site, and another € 3.2 million is earmarked
for investment by the end of
2014. Von Schwander says
that with this investment the
company is hoping to increase the quality, flexibility
and efficiency of its operations. So far it has received
€ 3.34 million in funding from
investment bank ILB. The latest Hüffermann innovations
include a hybrid truck for
household waste disposal
and a fully electric truck set
to roll out of the site in 18
months' time.
ting, depending on the job it
will be needed for. The final
stage is adding the wheels
and electronics. The length
of time it takes from welding
the first joint to delivering the
trailer can be anything between three weeks and two
months.
„Being local means we can
address our customer's wishes quickly,“ says von
Schwander. That is the main
benefit of the company's cur-
Hot-worked
metal for an
array of cars
By Jutta Abromeit
R
ail passengers travelling
through Ludwigsfelde
(district of Teltow-Fläming)
ride past an extremely long
factory hall. One end of the
building belongs to car manufacturer Mercedes, the other
to Gestamp Umformtechnik,
one of the biggest employers
in this car-manufacturing
town. The company employs
350 workers on the industrial
estate.
Umformtechnik Ludwigsfelde – once owned by Thyssen-Krupp – and its considerably larger sister plant in
Bielefeld (North Rhine-Westphalia) now belong to Madrid-based company Gestamp. The parent company
has 95 locations in 19 countries worldwide and employs
roughly 28,500 people. The
Ludwigsfelde
manufacturing plant stretches across
11.3 hectares.
The workers at Umformtechnik produce car body
components for vehicles
such the Mercedes-Benz
Sprinter van, which is built in
the factory next door. The
company also delivers to
clients in other European
countries. One of the most
spectacular cars on the road
containing Umformtechnik
parts is the luxury sports car
Lamborghini Gallardo. Although that contract has expired, the Brandenburg plant
still manufactures many
parts for quality cars, like the
hardtop for the BMW 3 Series Convertible.
Alongside convertible roof
systems, the Ludwigsfelde
Gestamp plant makes car
body and structural components including A and B-pillars, tailgates, bonnets, bumpers and rear wings. Highperformance steels can be
heated to 900 ˚C and pressed
into the desired form on the
plant's two hot-stamping lines.
And that's not
all – the Ludwigsfelde manufacturing
plant uses special technology
to alter material properties.
One example
of this is hotworking blanks to
make them extremely hard.
In Luckenwalde ordinary trucks are converted into fire engines.
PHOTO: DPA
Multi-hued lifesavers
Rosenbauer manufactures fire engines for the whole world – in some surprising colours
By Kerstin Voy
I
t doesn't always have to
be fire-engine red – the
world's fire fighters
leave their stations in bright
orange and sunny yellow vehicles, too. Every country has
its own colour, and all manner of fire engines can be
found on the premises of Rosenbauer
Deutschland
GmbH in Luckenwalde (district of Teltow-Fläming).
„The Rosenbauer Group is
the world's largest manufacturer
of
fire-fighting
equipment,“ says Klaus Tonhäuser, Managing Director
of Rosenbauer Feuerwehrtechnik, Luckenwalde. „We
produce equipment for the
whole world.“
The Luckenwalde plant takes normal commercial vehicles and modifies them. First,
the body of the truck is gutted and then workers spraypaint the exte-
rior surfaces. Fire engines
headed for Australia are painted a vibrant greenish yellow; those
meant for
Newcastle International Airport in the UK get a purplish
blue and white coating.
Bright yellow vehicles are
standard in Saudi Arabia and
Sudan. In most of Europe,
fire engines are one of two colours: bright orange or deep
red. Although Rosenbauer
exports vehicles made in Luckenwalde all over the
world, the majority of its vehicles are sold domestically.
After getting a paint job,
the vehicle is fitted with heavy fire-fighting equipment,
cables, electrical systems
and pumps in a space-efficient manner. „In the last 20
years we have continuously
improved the internal fittings,“ Tonhäuser explains.
He began working at Rosenbauer in 1996. He started out
in customer service
and sales and has
been in charge
in Luckenwalde since
2009.
We walk
past Fritz
Gebuhr,
who works
in the finishing area.
An airport
fire engine for
Sudan COMPANY PHOTO
Aged 61, Gebuhr has been at
the plant since 1977. He used
to build aerial ladders for Luckenwalder
Löschgerätewerk, and Rosenbauer kept
him on when it bought the
plant. „Lots of things are
more practical for use than
they once were,“ Gebuhr
tells me. In addition to spacesaving construction methods, Rosenbauer takes
care to use materials that are
as robust and durable as possible. For example, it uses a
protective undercoating to
prevent corrosion.
„Everything has to be durable,“ says Tonhäuser. The
stairs leading up to the driver's seat in the cab have a
non-slip coating. A decade
ago, the stairs were made of
normal chequered plates.
The non-slip finish is only
found on recent models. The
interior lighting has changed
as well. Glaring lights were
once the norm, now strip
lighting is used. This makes
it easier for fire fighters to
find their way in a hurry. Depending on the specific order, trucks are equipped
with luminescent stripes and
badges, examined and, if necessary, improved upon. Modern fire engines require
only a single person to operate them.
The Luckenwalde site has
two employees dedicated solely to technological development. Fire engines remain in
use for many years, although
Rosenbauer
Deutschland GmbH
K Product: Fire-fighting
equipment
K Location: Luckenwalde
K 2012 turnover:
€ 90 million
some assignments put major
strain on the vehicles. „For
example, these vehicles are
used during floods, too,“
says Tonhäuser. Nonetheless, they hold up a long time.
Municipal fire brigades usually trade in old fire engines
after ten to 15 years of service, volunteer fire brigades
do so after 20 to 25 years of
use.
The company also equips
special fire-fighting vehicles
for airports. These vehicles
have a discharge rate of
10,000 litres a minute. The
stream of fluid can reach 100
metres, making it possible to
extinguish particularly severe fires inside aeroplanes.
In the last ten years Rosenbauer has manufactured 82
such vehicles.
The Luckenwalde plant
has received € 820,000 in funding from the ILB investment
bank. The money has been
used to trigger investments
totalling over € 3.6 million.
Precision
all-rounder
Supplier Körber & Körber manufactures
custom metal and plastic parts
By Judith Görs
W
hen Steve Hawemann
is at the lathe, he's not
easy to shake up – equipped
with yellow earplugs, he shapes stainless steel parts for
testing and measuring devices. As he works, long steel
shavings curl up from his
workpiece and spiral to the
ground. People who do this
kind of work need to be precise and follow a set routine –
especially when they have
two bosses looking over their
Körber & Körber GmbH
Präzisionsmechanik
K Product: Machined parts
and assembly groups
K Location: Birkenwerder
(district of Oberhavel)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 1.5 million
shoulder. At Körber & Körber
Präzisionsmechanik in Birkenwerder (district of Oberhavel), everyone can see
what everyone else is doing
anyway. Glass walls are the
only thing separating the managers' offices from the employees in the production
area. And Peter Körber likes
it that way.
Two years ago Körber
found the building on the industrial estate in this small
town of 7,600 and grabbed it.
„Birkenwerder was a common-sense location for us,“
says the 65-year-old entrepreneur. „It's close to Berlin,
it offers good transport options, and we also live close
by.“ Körber, who holds a degree in industrial engineering, founded the familyowned company with his son
Benjamin in 2010. „We are a
classic outsourcing partner,“
says 35-year-old Benjamin.
What he means is that Körber & Körber produces the
Körber & Körber produces everything its customers can't make themselves.
parts its customers can't
make themselves – from plastic to brass and aluminium.
The company's arsenal of seven milling machines, three
machining centres and a 3D
measuring machine make it
all possible.
One of its customers is Motorola. The electronics giant
contracted Körber & Körber
to produce brackets for analogue radio equipment – for
use in fire engines, for instance. Other customers include Siemens and Jungheinrich, a provider of storage
and transport technology.
Benjamin Körber says things
are going well and the company is aiming to expand further. Peter Körber has over 30
years of experience as a supplier for the auto industry.
The Hannover native founded Körber GmbH in 1977 as
a traditional supplier but
then sold the company following the crisis that hit the
auto industry in 2008-09. The
Birkenwerder
company's
products no longer go
straight to clients in the auto
industry; instead Körber &
Körber became more diversified so it would no longer be
PHOTO: JUDITH GÖRS
dependent on a single industry.
The shortage of skilled workers in the region is a real problem for the company; it's
hard to find lathe operators,
metrologists and machinists.
Peter Körber says this has
been a problem for a long
time. To address it, the company trains apprentices itself. There are two in the firm
right now. Trainees can look
forward to good job opportunities, says Körber – as long
as they don't mind getting
their hands dirty now and
then.
Keeping things steady
Freudenberg Schwab in Velten produces seals and vibration dampeners for smoother movement
By Michaela Grimm
O
nce in place, products
by
Freudenberg
Schwab Vibration Control
are hidden from sight. „We
make rubber-to-metal bonded parts that ensure vibrations get absorbed in things
like wind turbines, so that rotor blades don't strike the turbine tower, for example,“
says Jörn Clasen, Managing
Director of the company's
site in Velten (district of Oberhavel).
Freudenberg
Schwab's
gaskets and bumpers can be
found all over the world –
and not just in planes, agricultural machines and ship engines. The company also supplies rail vehicle manufacturers Bombardier and Stadler.
Its parts even dampen vibrations in washing machines
and incubators. „Reducing vibrations is our mission,“ says
Clasen.
A year and a half ago, the
company moved its adminis-
The smell of rubber fills the air in the production area.
COMPANY PHOTO
trative office from Hennigsdorf to join the production
site in Velten and changed
the group's name to Freudenberg Schwab Vibration Control. „We have the longest
company name in Velten,“
Clasen says with a grin. He leads me through the production areas. The air smells
strongly of rubber. „Our peo-
ple get a face full of rubber
here,“ he jokes. „But seriously, it has to smell like this,“
he explains.
What else can you expect
when factory workers are
heating natural rubber at
high pressure and at temperatures of up to 200 ˚C? This softens the material so it can be
injected into metal moulds.
The rubber is imported from
Asia.
Like other engineers and
metal workers, Thomas Ettert is no longer bothered by
the smell. He likes working
at the press machines. The
vulcaniser in front of him kneads the natural rubber like
pizza dough. After that, the
material moves to the preheated deposit areas and the
dies to be pressed. Ettert is
from Oranienburg and has
been working at the Velten
plant for ten years. His son
has since joined the company too. Managing Director
Jörn Clasen says that's not
unusual.
But what is rather unusual,
says Clasen, is that the parent company Freudenberg
is a family-owned enterprise.
„It's wholly owned by more
than 300 heirs,“ he adds.
Carl Johan Freudenberg
founded the company as a
tannery in 1849, in the town
of Weinheim in Baden-Württemberg. The group's head-
Freudenberg
Schwab Vibration
Control GbmH & Co. KG
K Product: Sealing and
anti-vibration technology
K Location: Velten (district
of Oberhavel)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 56 million
quarters is still there. Its product portfolio not only includes gaskets and filters but
also nonwoven fabrics, lubricants and cleaning supplies.
Its Vileda brand is known
throughout Europe and beyond.
The factory in Velten received € 4.5 million in funding
from the Brandenburg Investment Bank (ILB). Nearly one
fifth of that came from the European Regional Development Fund.
Like a living room on wheels
Trains built in Hennigsdorf make journeys all over the world –
now Bombardier is looking to take on the Berlin S-Bahn
By Viktoria Bittmann
T
he most critical of passengers get on board
before the first commuters. Testing engineers
take their seats on the crisp
new cushions before any
tram, regional or high-speed
train even leaves the Bombardier factory units in Hennigsdorf (district of Oberhavel).
For the first time, the lights
and air-conditioning are switched on and the information
display begins flashing. Do
the doors shut properly? Do
the brakes work as they
should? „The testing process
lasts between ten and twelve
days,“ says Rainer Fellenz,
Director of Technical Service
in Hennigsdorf. The trains
cannot embark on their first
journey with real passengers
until every single function
and about 40,000 contact
points have been tested.
Trains manufactured in
Hennigsdorf are found in
many cities around the
world, from Stuttgart to
Shanghai. According to deputy site manager Jörg Winkelmann, every client has its
own ideas regarding the interior of trains. For example, a
Swedish client opted for lami-
nate flooring in the carriages
rather than the grey PVC surfaces that are trodden daily
by thousands of commuters
on German regional trains.
Scandinavian trains are also
furnished with particularly
warm lighting that evokes
nothing so much as a cosy living room. Winkelmann says
that the development phase
of a project, in which all the
details are fine-tuned and implemented by engineers, can
last as long as two and a half
years.
However, the actual assembly of the trains normally takes only a few weeks. As the
It all started with ceramic insulators
K Emil Rathenau, founder of
the Allgemeine Elektricit• ts-Gesellschaft (AEG), bought a plot
of land in Hennigsdorf in 1910.
Just a few months later, the
company began manufacturing
ceramic insulators there.
K Locomotive production
was relocated from Berlin to
Hennigsdorf in 1913. AEG also
expanded its range of products
and became the first company
in Germany to build electric
vehicles powered by battery.
K In the 1930s the Nazi re-
gime took over the factory and
used it to manufacture armaments. The factory lost 80
percent of its buildings as a
result of WWII bombing and
subsequent demolition.
K From 1948 the factory was
home to a state-owned company called VEB LokomotivbauElektrotechnische Werke,
which later became the leading
manufacturer of locomotives
and multiple units in the Eastern Bloc.
K AEG, a subsidiary of Daimler
Benz AG, took over once again
in 1992. Soon after, the joint
venture Adtranz was formed
with the Swiss-Swedish ABB
Group.
K Bombardier Transportation
acquired Adtranz in 2001 and
continues to grow as the global
leader in the rail industry. bit
largest Bombardier site in
Germany, the Hennigsdorf
factory has established itself
as a centre of excellence for
single-decker trains such as
the Talent 2. Initially, this regional train gave the company bad press following a
number of breakdowns. But
that is all in the past. The
trains are now on the market
and follow-up orders from private providers are coming in.
Apart from the bogies, everything in a Bombardier train
is concealed – engines, aerodynamics, pre-installation
elements and final assembly
pieces. Bombardier is particularly proud of its test track, on
which trains can travel up to
70 km per hour. „It is one of
the great advantages of our
location, and all our products
benefit from it,“ says Winkelmann. And the company cannot complain about a lack of
orders; it has new major contracts with the Hamburg
S-Bahn and the Stockholm
Metro. And the next stop will
hopefully be the Berlin
S-Bahn. In spring, Bombardier submitted a proposal for
Berlin's S-Bahn covering all
Bombardier
Transportation GmbH
K Product: Rail equipment
K Location: Hennigsdorf
(district of Oberhavel)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
aspects of development, production and maintenance.
The billion-euro project
would provide the Hennigsdorf factory with several years' work. The winner of the
tender is expected to take
over a number of S-Bahn lines for 15 years from 2017, requiring as many as 400 new
carriages. Both national and
international
corporations
are in the running. However,
Fellenz is not put off by the
competition: „We are number
one, without question.“ The
head of the works council, Michael Wobst, adds, „We could
manage the entire project
right here in Hennigsdorf.“ A
decision is due in 2014.
In spring, Bombardier submitted a proposal for the Berlin S-Bahn covering all aspects of development, production and maintenance.
COMPANY PHOTO
20 |
Industry in Brandenburg
| 21
Industry in
Brandenburg setting the pace
for growth
Company locations
Page
4
5
Arcelor Mittal Eisenhüttenstadt GmbH
Panta Rhei gGmbH
Eisenhüttenstadt
Cottbus
5
6
6
Formteil- und Schraubenwerk Finsterwalde GmbH
Ortrander Eisenhütte GmbH
Rheinzink GmbH & Co. KG
Finsterwalde
Ortrand
Hennigsdorf
Prenzlau
Meyenburg
7
7
8
PCK Raffinerie GmbH
BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg
Anton Paar Provetec GmbH
Schwedt/Oder
Cottbus
Blankenfelde-Mahlow
8
10
11
11
Cremer Oleo GmbH & Co. KG
BASF Schwarzheide GmbH
Atotech Deutschland GmbH
Dynea Erkner GmbH
Wittenberge
Schwarzheide
Neuruppin
Erkner
12
12
Motzener Kunststoff- und Gummiverarbeitung GmbH
Goodyear Dunlop Tires Germany GmbH
Mittenwalde
Fürstenwalde
34
Karstädt
Rheinsberg
Pritzwalk
Schwedt
Wittenberge
8
28
Neuruppin
Mercedes-Benz Ludwigsfelde GmbH
Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research
Schaeffler Technologies AG & Co. KG
ZF Friedrichshafen AG, Location: Brandenburg/Havel
36
Fehrbellin(Dosse)
Neustadt
16
Rosenbauer Deutschland GmbH
Gestamp Umformtechnik GmbH
Körber & Körber GmbH Präzisionsmechanik
Freudenberg Schwab Vibration Control GmbH & Co. KG
Bombardier Transportation GmbH
Neustadt (Dosse)
Luckenwalde
Ludwigsfelde
Birkenwerder
Velten
Hennigsdorf
22
23
MTU Maintenance Berlin-Brandenburg
Rolls-Royce Deutschland Ltd & Co KG
Ludwigsfelde
Blankenfelde-Mahlow
23
24
24
26
Fraunhofer Research Institution Pyco
Chemie- und Tankanlagenbau Reuther GmbH
Repower Systems SE
Vestas Blades Deutschland GmbH
Teltow
Fürstenwalde
Trampe
Lauchhammer
Eberswalde
34
Oranienburg
Trampe
Birkenwerder
24
18
37
Ludwigsfelde
Potsdam-Golm
Luckenwalde
Brandenburg/H.
16
17
17
18
18
19
11
30
Bad Wilsnack
Rathenow
14
15
15
16
B
7
Nauen Hennigsdorf
6
30
19
Velten
18
Falkensee
Wustermark
37
36
Berlin
Ketzin
31
Brandenburg/
Havel
Neu
Plötzin
16
Potsdam
Teltow
Erkner
23
11
15
31
12
24
Blankenfelde-Mahlow
27
Ludwigsfelde
Beelitz
8
23
Mittenwalde
14
17
22
12
Eisenhüttenstadt
4
Guben
Luckenwalde
15
17
Lübbenau
Baruth
32
33
Vetschau
28
Cottbus
5
7
Finsterwalde
27
28
28
Haacke Haus GmbH + Co. KG
Austrotherm Dämmstoffe GmbH
Porcelaingres GmbH
Neu Plötzin
Wittenberge
Vetschau
30
30
31
BSH Hausgerätewerk Nauen GmbH
PAS Deutschland GmbH
Selux AG
Nauen
Neuruppin
Ketzin, OT Zachow
31
University of Potsdam
Potsdam
32
33
Classen Industries GmbH
Klenk Holz AG
Baruth/Mark
Baruth/Mark
33
34
34
Reiss Büromöbel GmbH
Meyenburger Möbel GmbH
University for Sustainable Development
Bad Liebenwerda
Meyenburg
Eberswalde
35
36
36
Hamburger Rieger GmbH & Co. KG
Herlitz PBS AG
Cleo Schreibgeräte GmbH
Spremberg
Falkensee
Bad Wilsnack
37
37
Panther Packaging GmbH & Co. KG
Rathenower Optische Werke GmbH (Fielmann)
Wustermark
Rathenow
Frankfurt
(Oder)
Fürstenwalde
5
Spremberg
Lauchhammer
Bad
Liebenwerda
33
Schwarzheide
26
35
10
Ortrand
6
Metal
Chemicals/
plastics
Research
Transport
Energy
Housing
Optics
Wood/
paper
randenburg has now been named
stitute to work on a pilot plant for biopolyGermany's most economically dymer processing.
namic state three times in a row. InOf course, Brandenburg's thriving industry has had a big hand in this success,
dustry also needs workers who have the
directly employing 100,000 people and
professional training necessary to deliver
nourishing a whole host of supthe outstanding quality that
pliers, service providers and lothe world has come to expect
gistics companies. It is setting
from German products. The
the pace for growth in Brandencounty's dual education sysburg and the entire capital retem, which combines apprentigion.
ceships with classroom educaBrandenburg's industry is
tion to prepare individuals for
well positioned and highly ditheir vocational career, guaranverse. This applies to every
tees Brandenburg a supply of
cluster and every region, with
well-trained, highly motivated
big-name international compayoung talent. It is not uncomnies existing side-by-side with Steffen Kammradt
mon for people who have gone
numerous innovative small
through this system to enrol in
and medium-sized enterpriuniversity later on in their cases. Science and research are
reers. This creates a solid basis
also a big part of the industrial
for research and development,
mix, and the perfect partner for
and thus for producing firstthe businesses operating here.
class, innovative and sustainaWhether it's drive systems for
ble solutions.
vehicle engineering, lightThe Brandenburg Investweight construction for the mement Bank (ILB), the Brandental cluster, or polymer research
burg Economic Development
for the plastics and chemicals
Board (ZAB), and the chamcluster, Brandenburg's acade- Tillmann Stenger
bers of industry and commerce
mic achievements help Gerand their regional partners
many's capital region truly excombine to offer businesses a
cel in industry.
comprehensive range of serBrandenburg also offers
vices that support them as they
ideal conditions for industry to
grow and develop. Every ingrow and develop. Its well-condustrial business – whether it
nected industrial and commeris arriving new or expanding,
cial sites come in all shapes
focusing on innovation or techand sizes and at highly affordnology transfer, looking for
able prices. The state governfunding or financing, working
ment is supporting industrial
in foreign trade or providing
development with its Pro Indus- Victor Stimming
energy consultancy services –
trie action plan and a cluster powill find that Brandenburg oflicy in which industries play a major role.
fers it strong political support, as well as a
In other words, this is a place where induswide variety of services and partner nettry is more than welcome!
works that will give it the comprehensive,
The positive effects of Brandenburg's
individual support it needs. And as we
open-arms approach are currently being
move into the future, we will continue to
felt throughout the state. Everywhere you
work together to ensure that industry in
turn – the automotive sector, metal procesBrandenburg keeps setting the pace for
sing, energy technology, aeronautics, the
growth.
food industry – our industrial businesses
are hard at work, investing and innovating. One needs only to cast a glance back
Dr Steffen Kammradt
over the past year to see it all happening:
CEO
Austrian insulation manufacturer AustroBrandenburg Economic Development
therm is setting up shop here, as is RheinBoard (ZAB)
zink. Cremer Oleo, US cocoa producer Euromar and wood processing firm Classen
Tillmann Stenger
are all expanding their existing operatiChairman of the Management Board
ons. Rolls Royce is building a new turbine
Brandenburg Investment Bank (ILB)
testing facility at its vast site just outside
Berlin. Further south, things are also moDr Victor Stimming
ving along well in the Lausitz, where, at
President
its Schwarzheide site, BASF has joined forof the Chamber of Industry
ces with a Potsdam-based Fraunhofer Inand Commerce (IHK), Potsdam
CHOCKS
AWAY!
The engine doctor
There is something of the
healthcare professional
about Christian Krawielicki.
He doesn't wear a white
coat, but he does have that
trademark dentist's mirror
on a pole – though in his
case the mirror is actually
the size of a palm and he
uses it to examine not teeth
but engines, for cracks and
worn-out components.
Christian (29) is an aircraft
mechanic and works in the
inspection division at MTU
Maintenance in Ludwigsfelde. He decides which
parts of the engines still
have life in them, which need
to be fixed, and which need
to be thrown out and replaced. „I assess everything that
I can see,“ he says. And it's
true: Christian examines
every last inch and every
screw in the complex engine,
which doesn't have to be
completely dismantled for its
inspection.
He tells me that the process
can take up to three days.
Christian has been doing the
job since 2005 and was
already prepared for it during his apprenticeship.
These days he's a team
leader. „I'm really lucky to
have ended up here,“ he
says. Christian never gets
bored at MTU because the
engine manuals, which are
the basis of his work, are
constantly changing: „You're
starting from scratch all the
time,“ he says.
As is so often the case in life,
Christian's career plans
changed somewhere down
the line. The native of Ludwigsfeld was actually aiming
for an apprenticeship as a
car mechanic, but chose to
apply to MTU as well. The
company offered him a
place, his gut feeling told
him to accept, and he's never
looked back. stp
Munich-based engine manufacturer MTU has been operating out of Ludwigsfelde since 1991.
PHOTOS: PHILIPP; COMPANY PHOTO
A health farm for engines
MTU gets engines for regional aircraft and helicopters up to speed
E
mergency lay-bys are
pretty useful for motorway drivers, but what
if your vehicle doesn't run on
the ground? „You can't
exactly make an emergency
stop if you're piloting a
plane,“ says André Sinanian,
Managing Director of MTU
Maintenance Berlin-Brandenburg. Thank goodness,
then, for the 800 people that
work with Sinanian in Ludwigsfelde (district of TeltowFläming). Their job is to prevent airborne emergencies
from happening, by making
sure that the engines in regional aircraft and helicopters
are in perfect working order.
Munich-based engine manufacturer MTU opened its
Ludwigsfelde site in 1991.
„We're mainly involved in
maintaining engines used in
civil aviation,“ says Sinanian. The engine they have
the most to do with is General Electric's CF34, which is
used in regional aircraft. Sinanian says that just a handful
of companies specialise in
maintaining this model
worldwide.
He and his team also look
after engines made by Pratt
& Whitney Canada, which
are used in single-engine aircraft and helicopters. Ludwigsfelde also takes in gas
turbines that are used in compressor stations or to generate electricity. „The turbines
are in our portfolio because
MTU Maintenance
Berlin-Brandenburg
K Service: Maintenance on
engines and industrial gas
turbines
K Location: Ludwigsfelde
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
they were derived from aircraft engines,“ explains Sinanian. That simplifies things
for the engineers and mechanics.
The process, says Sinanian, is always the same.
When an engine arrives, it is
taken apart, cleaned and examined. The team then work
on the components before reassembling them and sending the engine to be put
through its paces on the test
rig. With an industrial gas turbine, which contains as
many as 8,000 individual
parts, the whole thing can
take a good 80 days. But it's
very rare for these to be completely dismantled.
Still, the maintenance doesn't happen overnight, because not all the components can be dealt with in
Ludwigsfelde. Sinanian
MTU apprentices learn
to develop an expert eye
early on.
PHOTO: DPA
says that MTU is working on
fixing the problem and has invested € 140 million in new
machinery for the site since
the turn of the millennium.
This has made Ludwigsfelde
a secure part of the MTU family. „We also offer tests that
aren't available at any of the
other sites, so they can send
their parts to us,“ he adds.
The engine checks are first
and foremost about safety.
But they can also cost customers a lot of money. The inspectors have to examine the
engines really closely and decide which parts are still fit
for use, which need to be fixed, and which need to be replaced.
„We only want to take
parts out if repairing them is
absolutely out of the question,“ says
Sinanian. Some models get
tested every four to five years, and some come in even
more regularly than that. Sinanian explains that the
strain an engine is under isn't
just a matter of the number of
flight hours it puts in, but also
about how frequently it takes
off and lands. The extreme
temperatures, especially during take-off, are very tough
on the engines.
Helicopters used for emergency rescues face particularly tricky conditions. „Pilots can't be choosy about
where they land,“ says Sinanian. Temperatures can vary
wildly, and this, combined
with impurities whirling
around the machinery, can
make life very difficult for an
engine.
The result is that the MTU
check might have to be carried out earlier than planned.
There is, after all, no emergency lay-by in the sky.
Clean and quiet
Robust
yet
lightweight
Rolls-Royce makes aircraft engines for international customers
By Anne S. Wildermann
I
t is surprisingly peaceful
in the large, bright and
clean
Rolls-Royce
factory in Dahlewitz (district
of Teltow-Fläming), giving
no indication that the company is hard at work manufacturing small and mediumsized engines for use in regional and business jet aircrafts.
Exactly 20 years ago, the
British manufacturer set up a
production site in Dahlewitz,
a borough of BlankenfeldeMahlow.
Spokeswoman
Steffi Anders explains that
the site's main activity is „developing,
manufacturing
and maintaining aircraft engines“.
In 2012 the Brandenburg
factory produced a total of
584 engines: „That is our record to date,“ says Anders.
The engines are destined for
customers such as aircraft manufacturers Gulfstream and
Bombardier in the United States and Canada.
The Dahlewitz-manufactured engines have a good reputation as they consume
comparatively less fuel and
have low pollutant emissions. „They are also very
quiet,“ adds Anders. These
high-tech products comprise
over 10,000 individual components and carry a seven or
even eight-figure price tag.
Every engine is carefully examined before it leaves the
site.
During this examination
all working conditions are simulated, such as take-off,
cruising, landing approach,
and go-around. Fuel consumption, thrust and vibration levels are also measured. This, of course, is far
from a quiet process.
Last year Rolls-Royce began construction of a new testing centre. The company
has invested € 90 million in
the project, bringing the total
money spent on the infra-
Rolls-Royce
Deutschland
Ltd & Co KG
K Product: Aircraft engines
K Location: Blankenfelde-
Mahlow, borough of Dahlewitz (district of TeltowFl• ming)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 1.644 billion
By Anne S. Wildermann
A
Engines are examined in the Rolls-Royce testing centre in Dahlewitz.
structure of its Brandenburg
site to well over € 300 million.
So far Rolls-Royce has also received around € 71 million in
funding from investment
bank ILB.
The new testing centre is
designed for large aircraft engines – the highest-thrust variant of the Trent XWB, for
example, will be tested here.
This is the engine inside the
Airbus A350-1000. The
A350-800, which has slightly
less power under its wings,
completed its maiden flight
in June this year in France.
Some engineers involved in
the development of that engine can be found right here
in Dahlewitz, hard at work
on this – usually – peaceful
site.
COMPANY PHOTO
Brandenburg economy receives millions from Brussels
K The European Regional
Development Fund (ERDF)
provided just under € 1.5 billion
in funding for the state of
Brandenburg. The state can
draw on this amount throughout the funding period of
2007 to 2013. Even though this
funding period is now drawing
to a close, Brandenburg can
continue to make use of confirmed funds until 2015.
K The ERDF funds are supplemented by money from the
federal government, the state,
local authorities and private
investors.
K The largest slice of the
ERDF pie – € 660 million – is
destined for operational investments and innovations. Around
€ 330 million has been allocated for improvements in Brandenburg's infrastructure.
K Since 2007, some 5,200
projects have received a total
of € 1.3 billion in funding. This
money has triggered investments to the tune of almost
€ 3 billion.
K Since 1991 around 14,000
projects in Brandenburg have
received ERDF funding, amounting to a total of € 4 billion. so
www www.efre.brandenburg.de;
www.entdecke-efre.de
long, tiled corridor runs
the length of the basement floor at the Fraunhofer
Research Institution for Polymeric Materials and Composites (Pyco) in Teltow (district
of Potsdam-Mittelmark). It is
lined with countless wooden
doors, each containing a
large, round glass pane
where I can peer through to
the laboratories behind. Inside, scientists are busy working away on new materials
for use in aircraft cabins or
car interiors. „We develop
synthetic materials that are
robust, lightweight and
safe,“ says Christian Dreyer,
the institution's Deputy Vice
President.
The Teltow site specialises
in the production of thermoset. This hard plastic is more
robust than others, thanks to
a special structure of many
small, closely connected molecules. Dreyer has a nice
example to illustrate this molecular structure: „You know
Jenga – the game of skill
where you have to remove
wooden blocks from a tower?“ he asks, grinning.
„Well now, imagine that you
have to do the same but with
a tower made of hardpacked Lego bricks.“ Impossible. The structure is too stable – and such is the structure
of thermoset. In addition, this
plastic can withstand high
temperatures, and when combined with something like
carbon fibre it becomes extremely strong. These properties make thermoset a very interesting product for the aircraft industry. The Teltow laboratories carry out fire tests
to see whether the plastic
would distort in an aircraft
fire, and whether it gives off
any poisonous gases or produces too much smoke. The
Pyco research institute was
founded in 1992 and currently has 50 members of
staff working at its two sites
in Teltow and Wildau (district of Dahme-Spreewald).
Monika Bauer has been
head of Pyco for 21 years.
„We started out manufacturing adhesives and developing resin,“ she tells me. The
institute has come a long way
since – its budget for 2012
was € 4.8 million and clients
now include companies like
Airbus and Rolls-Royce.
The tower builder of Fürstenwalde
Reuther GmbH produces giant wind turbines for the whole of Europe
By Bastian Pauly
K
laus Gurack is standing
in a tunnel made of
steel. When he speaks, the
metal colossus throws his
words back at him like an
echo in the mountains. Daylight creeps in from 25 metres away. The gigantic
15-tonne tube that the Sales
Manager has climbed into
will later be erected out in
the countryside – just one of
the five sections of a wind turbine tower. The steel giants
produced for the European
market by Chemie- und
Tankanlagenbau
Reuther
GmbH in Fürstenwalde (dis-
Chemie- und
Tankanlagenbau
Reuther GmbH
K Product: Steel tube
towers for wind turbines
and tanks
K Location: Fürstenwalde
(district of Oder-Spree)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
Reuther in Fürstenwalde produces gigantic steel tube towers for wind turbine manufacturers.
trict of Oder-Spree) are up to
100 metres high. „That is the
top section,“ says Gurack,
pointing to the smallest part,
which is three metres in diameter; a bottom section is 4.3
metres wide. Gurack (64) has
been with the company for
nearly five decades; he
knows every welder and
every metal bending machine on the 160,000 m2 site.
When Gurack began his
apprenticeship as a metalworker in Fürstenwalde in
1964, it already had a long
history as an industrial site.
Much has happened since
Berlin industrialist Julius
Pintsch set up a light bulb
factory here in 1872. During
the Second World War, the
factory produced torpedoes;
in the GDR era it turned out
equipment and machinery –
for the oil refinery in
Schwedt, for example.
After privatisation in 1992,
the Fürstenwalde site made
tanks for petrol stations. But
once the demand for new petrol stations in eastern Germany was met, the company
went bankrupt. Then, in
1998, a new wind started blowing. The new government
coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the
Greens made renewable
energy a viable proposition –
and Reuther was among the
first to step in. That year the
first prototype of a steel tube
tower for wind turbines left
the premises. „The market
was there,“ says Gurack. But
there were doubts: the engineers in Fürstenwalde had
not made conical objects before; unlike wind turbine towers, petrol tanks do not
meet at one end.
Reuther now focuses almost entirely on steel tube to-
PHOTO: TILL BUDDE
wers, which account for 95
percent of its annual turnover. The company ceased production of all equipment and
machinery in 2012.
The Brandenburg Investment Bank (ILB) provided
subsidies to the tune of some
€ 4 million, enabling investments worth € 16.5 million.
And business is now better
than ever; Gurack expects annual sales figures to set a
new record this year. Major
wind turbine manufacturers
such as Repower and Nordex
have placed orders with Reuther.
A small place creates quite a stir
Repower's Trampe site delivers assembled wind turbines to the United States and Australia
By Rüdiger Braun
T
he founders of a metalworking shop on the
southern outskirts of Trampe
in the district of Barnim could
hardly have foreseen that it
would eventually become
part of wind turbine manufacturer Repower Systems,
whose products are sold all
over the world. Equally unexpected was the career path of
Martina Schulz. In the late
1980s she was still a teacher
in Eberswalde; now she is in
charge of organising operations at all Repower sites in
Germany – Hamburg, Husum, Trampe, Bremerhaven,
Büdelsdorf, Osterrönfeld and
Osnabrück.
Showing me around the
factory in Trampe, which covers a good 2,500 m2, Schulz
points to the rear quarter of
the production hall. „Our metalworking shop used to reach back to there, where the
truck now stands. The smaller section is the extension.“
In the production hall, enormous ceiling-mounted cranes are moving the wind turbine components: the nacelles that contain the machinery for these towering turbines are 13.4 metres long, and
the hubs that connect the rotor blades to the rest of the
turbine weigh several tonnes. „We don't manufacture
the parts ourselves – we just
assemble them all,“ says
Schulz. In Trampe, as at the
company's other sites, the
parts are purchased from suppliers. With one exception:
Repower produces the rotor
blades itself at its Bremerhaven site. Repower came to
Trampe almost by chance. By
the late 1990s the metalwor-
The giant turbines are carefully assembled.
PHOTO: DPA
king shop run by Schulz's
husband was making heavy
losses. Schulz realised that
the large site would be suitable for the wind power business, and production soon
commenced – at that time for
the company Brandenburgische Wind- und Umwelttechnologien (bwu). In 2001, this
company merged with three
other businesses on an equal
footing to become Repower
Systems SE, with its head office in Hamburg. „The smaller companies were unable
to handle major projects by
themselves, so we decided it
would be a good idea to
merge,“ says Schulz.
Repower, which is part of
the Indian Suzlon Group, no
longer supplies only the German market. Its wind turbines are also despatched to
the UK, Australia, Canada
and the US. On Tuesdays and
Wednesdays low-loaders set
out from Trampe for the motorway – always with a police
escort and with a special per-
Repower Systems SE
K Product: Wind turbines
K Location: Trampe (district
of Barnim)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
mit for heavy transport. „We
can build up to five turbines a
week,“ Schulz tells me.
The factory employs 93
workers and trains the next
generation of experts itself.
„In the long term, we foresee
enormous potential for wind
energy worldwide,“ says
Schulz, who enjoys the very
different career she pursues
today. Despite never having
obtained a business degree,
Schulz has reached the top of
the ladder, and she intends to
carry on for another ten years
or so before it is time for Repower to find a replacement.
2
Luxuriöse Schaltzentrale
Kaltgewalzte Profilringe aus Luckenwalde
Die Dr. Schiller Walz- und Werkzeugtechnik GmbH wurde 1992
von Dr. Harald Schiller gegründet.
Sogar Autobauer Porsche setzt auf die Getriebe des ZF-Werkes in der Stadt Brandenburg
Von Anne Voß
a4 auf Rheino-Tabloid Standbogen, gerade_02_09_13
D
er Münchener Autobauer BMW hatte sie
als Erstes. Porsche hat sie sogar in der Siebener Ausführung. Und ab 2014 will sie
auch Mercedes-Benz. Die
Rede ist von Getrieben aus
dem Werk der ZF Friedrichshafen AG in Brandenburg an
der Havel. Sie sind die
Adern, die das Herz eines jeden Autos – den Motor – mit
Kraft versorgen.
Der Brandenburger Betrieb wurde 1948 als Traktorenwerk gegründet und
spezialisierte sich in
den 60er Jahren auf die Herstellung von Getrieben. 1991
übernahm die ZF Friedrichshafen AG den Standort. Damit gehören die Brandenburger zur drittgrößten deutschen AutomobilzuliefererFamilie, die zu den weltweit
führenden Unternehmen auf
dem Gebiet der Antriebsund Fahrwerktechnik zählt.
Bis allerdings der
Porsche-Fahrer mit seinem
neuen 7-Gang-Getriebe ordentlich Gas geben kann,
müssen die Brandenburger
kräftig Hand anlegen. Tausende blank glänzende Rohlinge erreichen täglich das
Unternehmen. „Daraus werden bei uns die Räder und
Wellen für die Getriebe her-
Ein Zahnrad aus
dem ZF-Werk.
FOTO: ANNE VOSS
gestellt“, sagt Susanne Resech, die sich im Brandenburger ZF-Werk um die Lehrlingsausbildung kümmert.
„Die Schrauben und das Gehäuse für das Getriebe beziehen wir von Zulieferern.“
Computergesteuerte Maschinen verpassen den Silberlingen auf das Tausendstel eines Millimeters genau
die richtige Form. Anschließend kommen die Räder,
Wellen und Synchronisierungsteile in die Härterei. Dort wird ihnen
kräftig
eingeheizt:
Zwölf Stunden lang
bleiben die Getriebeteile in speziellen
Heizöfen, in denen
Temperaturen
von
mehr als 1000 Grad
Celsius
herrschen.
Das lässt die Metallteile rot glühen und
macht vor allem aber
„die Oberfläche hart“,
wie Resech erklärt.
Dann ein letzter Feinschliff und endlich die Montage. Wie ein Puzzle werden
Räder, Wellen, Vorder- und
Hinterteil des Gehäuses zu-
Unser technologisches Know how ist das Profilringkaltwalzen,
eine äußerst wirtschaftliche Form der Massivkaltumformung –
mit einem deutlichen Marktvorteil gegenüber den spanenden
Mitbewerbern!
ZF Friedrichshafen AG
Standort Brandenburg
Produkt: Getriebe
Standort: Brandenburg
an der Havel
Beschäftigte: 1141
Umsatz 2012:
288 Millionen Euro
Wir sind dabei !
sammengesetzt und verschraubt. Ein Roboterarm
füllt das Gehäuse mit Motoröl. Pro Tag werden bei ZF
in Brandenburg 700 Getriebe hergestellt. Das sind
171 092 Elemente im Jahr.
Um das zu schaffen, wird im
Drei-Schicht-System gearbeitet.
Vor der Auslieferung wird
das Getriebe noch gründlich
geprüft. „Wir messen den Geräuschpegel und gucken, ob
die Schaltung auch nicht hakelt“, sagt Schlichtleiter Günter Hermann. Schließlich soll
der Porsche-Fahrer gar nicht
spüren, das das Getriebe in
seinem Fahrzeug schaltet.
Packesel für Sondereinsätze
Anhänger des Unternehmens Hüffermann Transportsysteme aus Neustadt sind weltweit unterwegs
Von Stephanie Philipp
T
rennwände aus schwarzen Gummimatten teilen die große Produktionshalle in kleinere Arbeitsbereiche. Sie schützen vor dem
grellen Licht der Schweißer
und vor sprühenden Funken.
So gut abgeschirmt, ist einzig das charakteristische
Knistern das Zeichen dafür,
dass emsig gearbeitet wird.
In Stunden oder Tagen – je
nachdem wie komplex die
Bestellung ist – entstehen bei
Hüffermann Transportsysteme in Neustadt an der
Produkt: Anhänger für
den Transport verschiedener
Wechselbehälter
Standort: Neustadt
(Dosse) (Ostprignitz-Ruppin)
Beschäftigte: 180
Umsatz 2012:
28 Millionen Euro
Dosse (Ostprignitz-Ruppin)
Gerüste für Anhänger.
„90 Prozent unseres Geschäfts sind Anhänger für
den Transport von Wechselbehältern, also für alles, was
abgeladen, befüllt und wieder abgeholt werden soll“, erklärt Stephan von Schwander, Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter in Neustadt. Das
sind Container und Mulden
genauso wie Rundsilos, die
etwa auf Baustellen zum Einsatz kommen. Die Anhänger
von Hüffermann sind in der
ganzen Welt unterwegs. Sie
müssen bei arktischen Temperaturen in Skandinavien
genauso gut funktionieren
wie bei 50 Grad in der Wüste.
Seit 1990 produziert Hüffermann in Neustadt. Vom
Firmensitz im niedersächsischen Wildeshausen aus
wird der Vertrieb organisiert.
In Sachen Anhänger passiert
von der Entwicklung bis zur
Endmontage alles in Neustadt. Je nach Auftrag folgt
auf die Schweißarbeiten die
Spritzverzinkung für den
Korrosionsschutz oder direkt
Mit unseren Mitarbeitern fertigen wir rotationssymmetrische
Bauteile für die Wälzlager- und Automobilindustrie.
FRÄNKISCHE ist ein mittelständisches Unternehmen mit jahrzehntelanger Erfahrung in der Entwicklung, Herstellung und
Vermarktung von Rohren, Schächten und Systemkomponenten
aus Kunststoff und Metall.
Wir nehmen den Span aus der Fertigung!
Dr. Schiller Walz- und
Werkzeugtechnik GmbH
Industriestraße 2b
D - 14943 Luckenwalde
Telefon +49(0) 3371 / 632548
Fax:
+49(0) 3371 / 620403
Mail:
[email protected]
Internet: w ww.dr-schiller-wwt.de
exklusiv
liebt standard
Ihre Investition ist etwas Besonderes.
Da muss das Ambiente stimmen. Lassen
Sie sich überraschen, welcher Service
bei uns Standard ist. Sie proﬁtieren direkt
von der chemietypischen Infrastruktur
und dem Know-how eines global agierenden Unternehmens sowie von unserem
Konzept „ready to use“. Wenn besondere
Erwartungen ganz einfach erfüllt werden,
dann ist das Chemie, die verbindet.
Bei BASF in Schwarzheide.
www.basf-schwarzheide.de
Räder und Technik der Anhänger werden zum Schluss montiert.
die Lackierung, anschließend kommen Räder und
Technik dazu. Von der ersten
Schweißnaht bis zur Auslieferung dauert es zwischen drei
Wochen und zwei Monaten.
„Weil wir vor Ort sind, können wir Kundenwünsche
schnell umsetzen“, sagt von
Schwander. Das sei das
Hauptargument für den
Standort und gegen eine Ver-
lagerung der Produktion
nach Osteuropa. „Es ist sehr
schwierig, das zu halten, wir
tun es aber, denn wir wollen
die Weiterentwicklung vorantreiben und dazu müssen
wir nah am Kunden sein“,
sagt er. Investitionen von 20
Millionen Euro seit 1990 hätten den Standort stark gemacht. Weitere 3,2 Millionen
Euro sollen bis Ende 2014 fol-
FIRMENFOTO
gen. „Damit wollen wir Qualität, Flexibilität und Durchsatz steigern“, erklärt von
Schwander. Von der Investitionsbank ILB gab es bisher
3,34 Millionen Euro Fördergeld. Jüngste HüffermannInnovationen sind ein Hybrid-Lkw für die Hausmüllentsorgung und ein vollelektrischer Lkw, der in 18 Monaten vom Gelände rollen soll.
Unternehmertum, Qualität und Flexibilität prägen unsere Kultur.
Unsere Rohre werden von Maschinen gemacht – unser Erfolg
von Menschen. Deshalb investieren wir in die Regionen und die
Menschen an unseren weltweit 18 Vertriebs- und Produktionsstandorten – jetzt und in Zukunft!
www.fraenkische.com
Mike Budich, a fitter with Vestas, stands on a V112 turbine, whose tower is 140 metres high.
PHOTO: DPA
Catching a favourable wind
Industry leader Vestas from Denmark produces wind turbine rotor blades in Lauchhammer
T
he wind turbine blade
in Vestas' warehouse
in Lauchhammer (district of Oberspreewald-Lausitz) is enormous, but one
only needs to touch the
55-metre-long component
lightly for it to start quivering. Vestas spokeswoman
Ines Heger explains that the
rotor blades have to be very
flexible in order to harness
the power of the wind.
The secret behind the pliant yet strong blades lies in
their design. Coated with a fibreglass-enhanced plastic,
the blades contain a carbon
rod that provides the necessary resilience. The carbon fibres combine light weight
with extreme sturdiness.
This is why carbon is used in
aircraft construction, racing
bikes or, as here, wind turbines.
Demand for the impressively long blades from Lauchhammer is high. „This is our
most modern product,“ says
Heger. Wind turbine manufacturing is currently experiencing surplus capacities
all over the world, and industry leader Vestas from Denmark has not been spared either. However, its plant in
southern
Brandenburg,
where the company has produced rotor blades for eleven
years, is largely an exception.
Turbines featuring Vestas'
latest blades are called V112
because they have a rotor diameter of 112 metres when
the three blades are mounted. The V112 series has an
electric output of three megawatts, and the turbines can
be up to 200 metres in height.
Each one costs between € 3
and 4 million, including the
tower and generator. But Vestas also produces even larger
turbines. At a factory in England, the company is manufacturing offshore turbines
Representing the interests of over 77,000 firms
K Western Brandenburg, the
area covered by the Potsdam
Chamber of Industry and Commerce, has a thriving industrial
sector. The economy in the
region is shaped by the traditional industries of metalwork,
road and rail vehicle construction, electrical engineering, electronics, chemicals and
wood processing.
K Over 77,000 companies are
members of the Potsdam
Chamber of Industry and Commerce. The region covered by
the chamber accounts for
almost 45 percent of the total
area of the state of Branden-
burg. This includes six rural
districts, the urban district of
Brandenburg an der Havel, and
the state capital Potsdam.
K The chamber's Industry and
SME Committee looks after the
needs of industrial companies.
Twenty-eight companies from
all regions of the area covered
by the chamber are currently
represented on this committee.
K Current problems are
discussed at committee meetings with politicians and
administrators. This means that
regional concerns can be placed on the agenda. so
info Contact: Johannes Ginten:
S +49 331 2786-209; e-mail: [email protected]; For
information about industrial apprenticeships, please contact Jan Hagedorn: S +49 331 2786-426; e-mail:
[email protected]
with a rotor diameter of 164
metres and an output of seven megawatts for use in the
North Sea. However, this model is still in the prototype
phase.
The company still produces its standard models in
Lauchhammer. „At peak demand, we deliver 45 blades
per week,“ Heger says. This
takes time and effort, as the
extra-long trucks used to
transport the turbine components are only allowed to
drive at night, and many of
the blades have a long journey to their final destination.
The original idea was that
the factory would supply the
German market only, but in
the meantime it exports half
of its products. Vestas hopes
that the export business will
boost sales. „Wind farms outside Europe are built on a
completely different scale,“
Heger says. „For example,
we are supplying a 160-turbine wind farm in Australia
with 480 rotor blades.“
This means a lot of work for
the Lausitz plant – and a lot of
that is done by hand, as rotor
blade production is a complex business. The workers
place the fibreglass mats for
making the shell by hand in a
Vestas Blades
Deutschland GmbH
K Product: Rotor blades for
wind turbines
K Location: Lauchhammer
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
ready-made mould, which is
the same length as the blades will be – 55 metres – and
thus almost the length of the
factory itself. Then a type of
oven is fitted over the mould.
At a temperature of 120 ˚C,
the components fuse to form
a resilient material. This process is used to coat the blade
layer by layer until the shell
has acquired the necessary
hardness. Then two shells
are joined together and the
carbon rods produced in the
production hall next door are
placed inside them. At a total
weight of eleven tonnes, the
finished rotor blade is comparatively light when you consider that it is as tall as a
church tower.
Ready-made homes
FEELING
AT HOME
At Haacke Haus in Neu Plötzin a whole house is constructed in ten days
By Martin Küper
S
The master sawyer
Fred Görner (48) switches
off his circular saw, takes off
his ear protectors, and punches out on the time clock –
a chat with a reporter doesn't count as time on the
job. But with 20 years of
professional experience as a
carpenter with prefabricated
house builder Haacke in Neu
Plötzin, Fred often puts in
overtime and regularly receives a nice bonus.
In his job there's no room for
mistakes, which could ruin a
whole house. „You have to
really concentrate,“ says
Fred, the longest serving of
150 employees. „If I sawed
off half a metre too much
somewhere, it would be
disastrous for my colleagues
on the construction site.“
Fortunately he has never yet
made an error of this sort.
The trained construction
worker with broad shoulders
and a small, trim beard
knows that his own work is
just the beginning of a finely
tuned production process.
Beams of spruce wood, easily
twelve metres long, are piled
up in front of his workbench
– this is the basic material
used to make all of Haacke's
prefabricated timbered
houses. Fred uses a rig to
heave the beams onto his
rolling workbench so that he
can cut holes for windows,
pipes and cross-beams with
his circular saw.
He was one of the first employees to be hired by Haacke when the company first
located to the area. „Of
course I was really lucky to
have a job like this land on
my doorstep,“ says Fred, who
lives in nearby Bochow with
his wife and three children.
Since then Fred has worked
on all stages of production
and now knows every process inside and out – he is a
mine of information for his
colleagues. küp
ix trucks – that is all
that's needed to deliver one detached family home to its new address.
This afternoon at the Haacke
factory in Neu Plötzin near
Werder an der Havel (district
of Potsdam-Mittelmark) only
a couple more gables have
yet to be loaded.
The exterior and interior
walls, the roof truss and the
foundations are already on
their way to their destination.
Since 1992, prefabricated
building manufacturer Haacke, based just outside Potsdam, has been producing
country-style homes using a
modular construction method.
But Marketing Manager
Björn Beckers (32) explains
that the family-run company
by no means deals in off-therack housing: „We design
every house according to the
individual requirements of
our customers.“ Each project
takes around eight weeks to
plan and design before production can start.
All the raw materials and
individual parts, from beams
of spruce wood for timbering
to sheets of polystyrene, clinker bricks and insulation material for façades are delivered to the factory for processing. Even pipes and toilet seats are included.
Six assembly lines are arranged in parallel inside the
production hall, which has a
floor space of 5,500 m². „We
need ten days at most to
make a house, and we can
produce six at the same
time,“ explains Beckers.
„The assembly at the final
site only takes one to two
days and then the interior fittings are installed.“
Most of the work on a Haacke house is completed with
the façade elements lying on
their sides. Carpenters slot together joists and beams;
windows and doors are added. Only once the outer panelling and insulation have
been added are the façade
elements, weighing up to ten
tonnes, pulled into the upright position by cranes. Like
sides of pork in an abattoir,
they wait on metal hooks to
be transported away.
But can a pre-fab house really compete with a solid
stone structure? „The oldest
houses in Germany are timbered houses like ours,“ Beckers says. „They're built to
Most of the work on a Haacke house is completed with the façade elements lying on their sides.
PHOTOS: DPA; MARTIN KÜPER
last.“ Beckers is keen to
point out the advantages of
Haacke's construction method: „Recently we had a
house that was flooded. We
took it apart completely, let it
dry in the wind, cleaned it
up, and put it back together.“
Renovations and extensions
are also simple, says Beckers.
Between 100 and 120 prefabricated buildings leave the
production site every year –
mostly detached family homes but also nurseries and
school buildings. The company had a turnover of
around € 24 million in 2012:
„We've always been in that
ballpark and it's fine for
things to stay that way,“ says
Beckers. In 1992 the company moved its main site to
Neu Plötzin from Celle in Lower Saxony. „Before the Second World War there had
been a site in Berlin,“ says Beckers. „After Reunification,
the family wanted to come
back to the area and they resettled here.“ Haacke employs around 150 joiners, car-
Haacke Haus
GmbH + Co. KG
K Product: Prefabricated
housing
K Location: Neu Plötzin
(district of PotsdamMittelmark)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 24 million
penters, engineers and administrative staff in Neu Plötzin.
The firm has been family
owned since it was first established in 1879. Initially a supplier of insulation material
and clinker bricks, the company later expanded into manufacturing
prefabricated
housing. Today, insulation
material is again being produced under the umbrella of
the Haacke holding company.
But Haacke Haus GmbH +
Co. KG, the prefabricated
housing manufacturer, remains the consortium's flagship company. „You won't
find any vacant Haacke houses on the market,“ says Beckers. „The name Haacke is
a real selling point.“
Northern Brandenburg warms up
Austrian company Austrotherm is investing € 40 million in Wittenberge
By Gerald Dietz
O
n this site in Wittenberge (district of Prignitz), five enormous silos
will soon be used to store
vast quantities of polystyrene granules, which will prevent heat loss in houses and
industrial buildings once
they have been turned into insulation
panels for roofs and
flooring. Austrian
company
Austrotherm is building a
production hall the
size of five football
pitches here in Wittenberge, where it
will manufacture the
insulation material.
Austrotherm is investing around € 40 million in northern Brandenburg. The state of Brandenburg is providing € 8.75
million. Austrotherm has developed and produced polystyrene insulation for 60 years, and the plant in Wittenberge will be the firm's 19th
factory in Europe, creating
70 new jobs in the region.
As of 5 October, the firm
will produce pink insulation
panels around the clock, primarily for the Scandinavian
and Polish markets. It was
the good transport connecti-
ons that attracted Austrotherm to Brandenburg; the
A14 motorway to the Baltic
coast is currently under construction in northern Brandenburg.
Plant manager Lars Peter
is in his element when he
talks to me about the future
production processes.
„The gra-
Austrotherm's
insulation panels prevent heat loss via roofs and
COMPANY PHOTO
flooring.
nules will be pumped from
the silos to the plant, where
pressure and heat will turn
them into a thick mixture of
around 180 ˚C. The paste
then cools down to a temperature of around 100 ˚C.“
At that point, the liquid polystyrene is pressed through
a nozzle and formed into a
slab measuring 120 millimetres in width. The next
stage involves the
slab being pushed
along a 110-metre-long conveyor
belt to cool down –
and this explains
why the factory
has to be so big.
The slab is then
divided into several
manageable
lengths of 60 cm and
the individual panels are sent to an
open lift – rather like
a paternoster – for a
further cooling process. This lift raises the panels about ten metres high
on one side and then brings
Austrotherm
Dämmstoffe GmbH
K Product: Insulation
material
K Location: Wittenberge
(planned)
K No turnover yet
them down again on the other side. The panels are stacked in two rows in the yard
and loaded onto trucks for
transport.
„The entire factory is automated and integrates any leftover products back into the
manufacturing process,“ Peter says proudly. The staff
mainly work in quality control and transportation inside
the plant. This means that
many members of Austrotherm's team in Wittenberge
will be qualified forklift operators.
„Like twice-baked cookies“
Porcelaingres produces premium floor tiles in Vetschau for corporate clients all over the world
By Gerald Dietz
W
olfgang Bludau, plant
manager at Porcelaingres in Vetschau (district of
Oberspreewald-Lausitz) is
never short of a snappy slogan: „From Lausitz to the
world,“ he says proudly
when talking about his firm's
sales. Stoneware tiles are Porcelaingres' signature product. „We recently received
an order for floor tiles for a
new hotel in the Maldives,
and you will also find our tiles in shopping centres in
Hong Kong, Riyadh and Mexico.“
Dusty rocks from northeast
Brandenburg, among other
Porcelaingres GmbH
K Product: Porcelain
stoneware tiles
K Location: Vetschau
K 2012 turnover:
€ 33 million
places, provide the raw material for this premium flooring.
Porcelaingres, a subsidiary of
the Italian manufacturer Granitifiandre, has been producing ceramic tiles from clay minerals, kaolinite and feldspar
for almost ten years now. The
Italian company is one of the
global leaders in the ceramic
tile market. Flooring sector representatives from all over
the world always make sure
to visit the plant in the Lausitz,
where 4,000,000 m² of the
frost-resistant and extremely
resilient tiles are manufactured each year.
„Basically, it's like making
twice-baked cookies,“ says
Bludau. After being processed in the high-pressure machine press, the plain slabs of
ground
minerals
pass
through a 130-metre-long
oven at a temperature of
1,300 ˚C where pigments are
added to them. Bludau explains that the design is
drawn up in advance on a
computer. The company produces at least 50 different tile
series, as well as customised
designs. Around half of the
products are sold to corpo-
rate clients, such as companies that run public buildings
or shopping centres. Porcelaingres supplied the floor tiles for Blechen Carré shopping mall in Cottbus, for
example, and the Hotel Zur
Bleiche in Burg (district of
Spree-Neiße). The remai-
ning tiles go to the retail
sector, which sells the flooring to home owners.
To date, Porcelaingres has
received € 9 million in funding from the investment
bank ILB. Almost half of this
funding comes from the European Regional Development
Fund (ERDF). Porcelaingres
is a big believer in ecological
principles. A rooftop solar
plant generates around a
third of the energy consumed
by the factory, while rainwater and industrial water are
used in the manufacturing
processes.
Premium tiles are produced in Vetschau at a temperature of 1,300 ˚C.
PHOTO: DPA
2
Motzen
gibt nicht nur
Gummi
MAZ-ePaper
inkl. iPad mini
schon ab mtl.
Kautschuk- und Kunststoffspezialist
beliefert Elektroriesen und Autoindustrie
a4 auf Rheino-Tabloid Standbogen, gerade_02_09_13
Von Bastian Pauly
I
m Sekundentakt langt der
Roboterarm zu, vier Kameras entgeht keine einzige Unwucht. Eine Dichtscheibe
nach der anderen geht durch
die Qualitätskontrolle. Kaum
Motzener Kunststoffund Gummiverarbeitung GmbH
Produkt: Kunststoff- und
Gummiteile wie Dichtscheiben oder Gummiringe
Standort: Mittenwalde,
Ortsteil Motzen (DahmeSpreewald)
Beschäftigte: 60
Umsatz 2012:
sechs Millionen Euro
größer als ein Zwei-EuroStück sind die Teilchen, die
später in einem Kondensator
zum Einsatz kommen, zusammengesetzt aus Kunststoff
und Gummi.
Davon verstehen sie was
in Motzen (Dahme-Spreewald), inmitten märkischen
Grüns, unweit eines Golfplatzes: Kunststoff und Gummi
zu verarbeiten, das ist die
Spezialität des Traditionsunternehmens. Die Firma Motzener Kunststoff- und Gummiverarbeitung hat eine
82-jährige Geschichte am
Standort vorzuweisen. „Wir
sind ein Urgestein“, sagt Thomas König, neben Bernd
Moos Geschäftsführender
Gesellschafter.
Was der 61-jährige König
über die Firma sagt, trifft
auch auf ihn persönlich zu.
12,90 €
Bei der Qualitätskontrolle wird ganz genau hingeschaut.
Seit 1974 ist er im Unternehmen. Damals produzierten
die Motzener Maschinen
noch ausschließlich Kunststoff-Teile im Spritzgießverfahren. Seit den 80er Jahren,
erzählt König, habe sich die
Produktion zunehmend in
Richtung Gummi verlagert.
„Nach der Wende haben
wir die Chance genutzt,
beide Bereiche zu erhalten
und weiterzuentwickeln“,
sagt König. „Heute spritzen
wir das“ – in seinen Händen
hält er einen Gummiring von
anderthalb Metern Durchmesser.
Der
Fachmann
spricht von „O-Ringen“, die
Form ist namensgebend. In
den Achsen der weltweit
größten Muldenkipper, erklärt König stolz, würden solche dünnwandigen Membranen zum Einsatz kommen.
Der Automobilbranche zuzuliefern, ist ein starkes
Standbein der Firma. So kommen Lüftungsklappen und
Türschloss-Dichtungen aus
Motzen. Neben Kunststoffund Gummiteilen wissen König & Co. auch KunststoffGummi-Kombinationen wie
eben die Dichtscheiben herzustellen. Ein solches Kondensatorteil hat so mancher
in seiner Küche oder seinem
Badezimmer, ohne sich dessen überhaupt bewusst zu
FOTO: WIEGAND STURM
sein. Premiummarken wie
Miele, Bosch oder Siemens
verbauen in Motzen hergestellte Teile in Trocknern,
Wasch- und Spülmaschinen.
Insgesamt knapp 800 Teile
haben die Motzener im Repertoire. Für die Firma gab
es von Brandenburgs Investitionsbank bisher gut zwei
Millionen Euro Fördergeld.
Etwa die Hälfte davon
stammt aus dem Fonds Efre.
König wird wohl die Firmenpräsentation bald um
eine Europakarte ergänzen
müssen, die Kunden werden
internationaler. Kürzlich haben sich Interessenten aus
Skandinavien gemeldet.
Goodyear Dunlop in Fürstenwalde produziert Reifen für Edelkarossen und ihre anspruchsvollen Fahrer
B
ehäbig senkt sich die
schwere, runde Aluminiumform hinab, umschließt
den Reifenrohling so, dass er
ganz in ihr verschwindet,
und gibt dann ein zufriedenes Zischen von sich. Die Vulkanisation ist der letzte
Schritt im komplizierten Prozess der Reifenherstellung,
sagt Markus Wachter, Leiter
des Reifenwerkes von Goodyear Dunlop in Fürstenwalde
(Oder-Spree). Er steht vor
der Maschine, die immer
noch vor sich hin zischt und
erklärt, was gerade in ihrem
Inneren passiert.
Die verschiedenen Schichten und Komponenten des
Reifens, die zuvor mechanisch zusammengefügt worden sind, werden bei Temperaturen um die 250 Grad und
28 Bar Druck endgültig miteinander verbunden. Aus dem
Rohling wird elastischer
Gummi. Gleichzeitig bekommt der Reifen sein Profil
aufgedrückt, das sich als Negativ in der Aluminiumform
befindet. „Zehn bis 15 Minuten dauert das alles“, sagt
Wachter. Dann kommt noch
die Qualitätskontrolle – und
ein neuer Reifen ist geboren.
Bis zu 11 000 Pkw-Reifen
pro Tag produziert das einstige Pneumant-Werk, das die
SP Reifenwerke GmbH (Dunlop) 1992 von der Treuhand
übernommen hat und das
seit dem Joint Venture 1999
zur
amerikanisch-japanischen Goodyear Dunlop Tires GmbH gehört. Rund 3,7
Millionen sind es jedes Jahr.
Die meisten von ihnen landen eines Tages unter einem
schicken BMW, Porsche oder
Jaguar. Das Werk hat sich
auf dieses hochwertige Segment spezialisiert. „Wir ma-
Bis zu 11 000 Pkw-Reifen rollen im Fürstenwalder Werk tägFOTO: DPA
lich vom Band.
chen vor allem Hochleistungsreifen für sportlich ambitionierte Fahrer“, sagt
Wachter – also Reifen, die
dank ihres Materials und Aufbaus auch bei 250 Sachen sicher über die Straße rollen.
Diese Spezialisierung hat
ihre Vor- und Nachteile.
„Wir produzieren sehr kleine
Losgrößen“, so Wachter. 392
verschiedene Reifen, jeweils
in einer Stückzahl von weniger als 2000. „Das stellt hohe
Anforderungen
an
das
Team.“ So müssten die Mitarbeiter im Schnitt 2,5 Mal pro
Tag eine neue Produktion
zum Laufen bringen. Das
Gute: Während der Markt
für kleine Fahrzeuge derzeit
schwächelt, läuft es für die
teuren Karossen ganz gut,
also auch für das Fürstenwalder Werk.
In Zukunft werden die Anforderungen an die Reifenhersteller noch weiter steigen, ist Wachter überzeugt:
„Reifen müssen einen niedrigen Rollwiderstand haben,
für da
as eige
ene WLAN
N
MAZ Media Store
Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 85/86 · 14467 Potsdam
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Laufzeit für alle Angebote: 24 Monate. Das Entgelt für das Voll-Abonnement
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Ingenieur (m/w)
Mess- und Regeltechnik
Sicher selbst bei 250 Sachen
Von Angelika Pentsi
*
Goodyear Dunlop Tires
Germany GmbH
Produkt: Pkw-Reifen
Standort: Fürstenwalde
(Oder-Spree)
Beschäftigte: 800
Umsatz 2012:
keine Angaben
aber dabei ihr gutes Handling, vor allem bei Nässe,
und kurze Bremswege behalten.“
Damit die Beschäftigten
diesen hohen Ansprüchen
gewachsen sind, bildet Goodyear Dunlop die meisten von
ihnen selbst aus. Von derzeit
800 Mitarbeitern sind 45
Lehrlinge – in den Bereichen
Mechatroniker, Verfahrensmechaniker, Elektriker oder
Betriebsmechaniker zum Beispiel. Die Fluktuationsrate
spricht für sich: Sie liegt bei
zwei Prozent.
Sie sind Ingenieur (m/w)?
Sie haben ein ingenieurwissenschaftliches Studium mit Schwerpunkt
im Bereich Elektrotechnik/Automatisierungstechnik oder einen vergleichbaren Studiengang an einer Universität oder Fachhochschule
abgeschlossen. Sie haben schon mehrere Jahre im Chemieanlagenbau gearbeitet und verfügen über Projekterfahrung.
Jetzt wollen Sie zeigen, was Sie können?
Und zwar bei einem der größten konzernunabhängigen Biokraftstoffproduzenten Europas, wo Sie die grüne Mobilität der Zukunft mitgestalten. Als Ingenieur (m/w) für Mess- und Regeltechnik verstärken Sie
das Team an unserem Produktionsstandort in Schwedt/Oder.
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■ Zuverlässig und professionell planen und realisieren Sie Projekte
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■ Mit Ihrem fachmännischen Know-how entwickeln Sie die
Automatisierungssysteme in unseren Produktionsanlagen weiter
■ Mit sicherem Auftreten und hoher Fachkompetenz leiten Sie die
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Der Wirbel um die Trommel
BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte montiert in Nauen Waschmaschinen der Premiumklasse
Von Juliane Primus
M
anchmal bekommt Tilman Dominik Post von
seinen Kunden. Sie berichten, „dass sie nach 34 Jahren
ihre Waschmaschine ausrangiert haben“, erzählt der
technische Geschäftsführer
des BSH Hausgerätewerkes
Nauen (Havelland). Die antiken Stücke landen dann im
Museum der Fabrik.
1995, als es in Berlin-Spandau zu eng wurde, ging das
Nauener Werk in Betrieb. Zunächst entstanden hier Trockner, nach und nach kamen
Waschmaschinen – Top- und
Frontlader – hinzu. Seit dem
Jahr 2006 werden ausschließlich Frontlader produziert.
BSH Hausgerätewerk
Nauen GmbH
K Produkt: Premiumwasch-
maschinen
K Standort: Nauen
(Havelland)
K Beschäftigte: 604
K Umsatz 2012:
keine Angaben
Mindestens zehn Jahre lang
sollen die Maschinen halten.
„Der Fortschritt ist aber so
gravierend, dass dann die
neuen Generationen nur
noch die Hälfte an Wasser
und Strom verbrauchen“, erklärt Dominik.
BSH-Kunden gibt es auf allen Kontinenten. Rund 600
Beschäftigte arbeiten im Havelland für die Premiumqualität in Waschkellern oder Badezimmern. 440 MaschinenVarianten sind möglich: Dabei soll die Marke Bosch mit
Schonwaschgängen und Allergikerprogrammen vor allem Familien ansprechen.
Siemens will Technikfans erreichen.
Jetzt, wenn der Sommer zu
Ende geht, herrscht im Werk
Hochsaison. „Im Herbst werden mehr als doppelt so viele
Waschmaschinen verkauft
wie im Frühjahr“, sagt Dominik. Drei Stunden dauert es,
bis aus vielen Einzelteilen,
die zumeist in Deutschland
produziert werden, eine
Waschmaschine
komplett
montiert ist. „Nur die Innentrommel mit ihren 1247 Löchern und das Gehäuse stellen wir hier her – die Teile
Die Nauener sind Spezialisten für Waschmaschinen, die von vorn beladen werden.
sind so groß, dass man nur
Luft transportieren würde.“
Die Vorfertigung ist automatisiert, die Montage teilweise
Handarbeit. Mit dem sogenannten
Milkrun-System
wird sichergestellt, dass die
Beschäftigten am Fließband
kurze Griffwege haben.
Material wie Schrauben,
Kabel und Schläuche wird
erst dann an den Platz ge-
bracht, wenn es gebraucht
wird. Damit niemand zum falschen Schlauch greift, blinkt
auf einem Bildschirm über
dem Band die Produktnummer auf. Betongewichte werden vollautomatisch in das
Gehäuse geklebt oder per
Hand geschraubt. „Das wird
gemacht, um die Unwucht
beim Schleudern auszugleichen“, erklärt Dominik.
FOTO: DPA
„Das macht Waschmaschinen so schwer.“ Wenn Trommel und Gehäuse am Hochzeitspunkt der Fabrik zusammengeschraubt sind und die
Software auf die Elektronik
der Maschine gespielt ist,
geht sie zu mehreren Prüfstationen. Die Ergebnisse sind
auch noch zehn Jahre nach
Auslaufen einer Produktreihe abrufbar.
Schicke Verblendung
Im Neuruppiner Gewerbegebiet Treskow produziert die PAS Deutschland GmbH Blenden für „Weiße Ware“
Von Juliane Primus
W
as in Neuruppin (Ostprignitz-Ruppin) als
weiße, unscheinbare Kunststoff-Kügelchen seinen Anfang nimmt, kann das jahrelange Vergnügen an der absoluten Lieblingsjeans bedeuten. Die PAS Deutschland GmbH – PAS steht für
Providing Appliance Solutions, das heißt soviel wie
Schaffung von Geräte-Lösungen – produziert Blenden für
„Weiße Ware“. Also die Teile
an der Waschmaschine, bei
denen am Rad gedreht und
zwischen Jeans- oder Dessouswaschgang
gewählt
wird und die roten Lampen
leuchten. Auch für Kühlschränke und Gefriertruhen,
Trockner und Geschirrspüler
baut PAS Blenden.
Dafür wird das KunststoffGranulat getrocknet und
über Rohrleitungen angesaugt. Die Millionen Kügelchen bestehen aus dem gleichen Stoff, der auch bei Fahr-
radhelmen oder Snowboards
verwendet wird. Auf bis zu
240 Grad Celsius wird der
Kunststoff erhitzt und in eine
Form gespritzt, wieder abgekühlt und herausgedrückt.
Das können stündlich bis zu
300 Rohteile sein. „Wir kontrollieren, ob alles top ist“,
sagt Petra Nest, die genau
hinschaut, dass jede Kante
ausgespritzt ist.
240 Mitarbeiter sind am
Standort im Neuruppiner Gewerbegebiet Treskow beschäftigt, zwei Drittel davon
arbeiten im Werk. Die restlichen Angestellten betreuen
als Logistiker oder Ingenieure die Zentrale. Denn
PAS hat weitere Fabriken in
Polen, der Türkei, den Vereinigten Staaten und Mexiko
und seit 2011 auch in China.
An der Blende wird das Waschprogramm gewählt. FOTO: GEISLER
Dort werden neben Systemund Bedienblenden Kabelbäume hergestellt. Mit diesem Produkt begann 1992
auch die Geschichte des Neuruppiner Werkes. Mittlerweile bestimmen Blenden in
500 Varianten die Produktpalette. Abnehmer sind BoschSiemens in Nauen und Miele
in Gütersloh, aber auch Weltmarktführer Whirlpool mit
Hauptsitz in den Vereinigten
Staaten oder der schwedische Konzern Electrolux.
Damit die Kunden in
Deutschland, der Türkei
oder Russland verstehen,
was auf ihrer Maschine
steht, werden in Neuruppin
die Namen von allen erdenklichen Waschprogrammen in
wiederum allen erdenklichen Sprachen auf die
Blende gestempelt. Mithilfe
von UV-Strahlung härtet die
Blende aus. Anschließend
prägen Mitarbeiter Metallfolie auf den Kunststoff – genau dort, wo ein Knopf silbern glänzen soll. Zuletzt
PAS Deutschland GmbH
K Produkt: Kunststoffblen-
den f! r „Weiße Ware“
K Standort: Neuruppin
(Ostprignitz-Ruppin)
K Beschäftigte: 240
K Umsatz 2012:
24 Millionen Euro
wird die Elektronik samt Kabel eingesetzt. Erst dann
kommt eine vollautomatische Prüfmaschine zum Einsatz. Sie hat künstliche Finger und testet, ob alles funktioniert. In der belieferten Fabrik muss die Blende dann
nur noch an Waschmaschine, Trockner oder Kühlschrank gesteckt werden.
PAS Deutschland ist über
die Investitionsbank ILB mit
2,2 Millionen Euro gefördert
worden. Davon kommen 1,8
Millionen Euro aus dem EUFörderfonds Efre.
Selux AG
K Product: Interior and
exterior lighting
K Location: Ketzin, borough
of Zachow (district of
Havelland)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
By Stephan Henke
LEDs light
the future
Lasers
from
Potsdam-Golm
By Marcel Jarjour
C
ollaboration is important in the laboratories
of the institutes of chemistry,
biology and physics at the
Potsdam-Golm
Science
Park. Researchers here are
hard at work testing new
kinds of lasers and their applications. „These lasers are
unique and we need to take
advantage of them,“ says
Hans-Gerd Löhmannsröben
of the Institute of Chemistry.
What sets these lasers apart?
They are high-powered and
extremely bright. University
of Potsdam researchers are learning to bring these high
fliers down to earth.
Expertise from Potsdam
has helped to develop new
devices for discovering cancer, for instance. The lasers
are used to find biomarkers
that organisms produce in reaction to cancer. The laser
beam causes the complexes
to emit light of their own, thereby revealing their identity.
Researchers in Golm worked
with partners from five different countries to develop this
technology. Their symbiosis
puts them on the map as global players.
The researchers at the University of Potsdam are not
just interested in basic research; they always attempt to
find applications for their la-
Street lights by Selux AG
are found all over the planet –
and built in Ketzin
W
atching
Christa
Schiller assemble
lights at Selux AG
reminds me a little of playing
with a construction kit. She
screws together the 20 or so
parts laid out at her workstation to make a reflector assembly that will later intensify the light emitted by the
lamp. It's precision work. After about 45 minutes, all of
the parts have been put together and we are looking at the
company's best-selling „Olivio“ model.
About 40 of these lights
were recently installed on
Berlin's Alexanderplatz. The
port of Marseille is decked
out with them too.
The Selux factory in Ketzin's Zachow borough (district of Havelland) has been
exporting streetlights across
the globe since 1996. The
company is currently working to fill a large order for
the Dutch capital Amsterdam. It is to build 7,500 historic recreations of Kroonlantaarn (“crown lanterns“) and
Ritterlantaarn (“knight lanterns“) to illuminate the
city's famous canals. Foreign
demand is rising faster than
domestic demand right now,
says Selux boss Ulrich Misgeld.
The company was originally called Semperlux, Latin for „always light“. But
since old telex machines
made senders identify themselves with just five characters, Semperlux was abbreviated to Selux. „That often
confused people,“ says Misgeld. So in 2010 they decided
to change the name to Selux.
Misgeld and his colleagues in administration and
development have their offices at the company headquarters in Berlin. The company
built the assembly plant in
Zachow in the early 1990s
when it became too big for
the Berlin space.
At the time, the mayor of
Zachow was advertising
land prices of one deutschmark per square metre.
„Compared to 350 or 400
marks in Berlin, that sounded like heaven,“ says Mis-
Selux lights illuminate the port of Marseille.
geld. The company quickly
secured a 144,000 m2 plot in
nearby Zachow to complement its plant near Halle (Saxony-Anhalt) that makes interior lighting. „Looking
ahead, this Brandenburg location will be important for
us,“ says Misgeld. For him,
the future is LEDs more than
anything else. They already
make up about 40 percent of
new business. „They cost
more to buy, but work out
cheaper in the long term,“ he
says.
The Olivio lights that
Christa Schiller assembles
still use conventional bulbs.
Before they are packaged,
Gabriele Tobian makes sure
the seals on the housing are
tight. They mustn't let water
in when it rains, after all.
PHOTOS: COMPANY PHOTO; ARCHIVE/LIEBE
Funding rates of up to 50 percent for SMEs
K The core business of the
Brandenburg Investment Bank
(ILB) is funding public and
private investment in business,
infrastructure and housing.
K Its most important funding
programme for the local economy is a joint scheme with
the federal government for the
„Improvement of Regional
Economic Structures“, abbreviated in German as GRW-G.
The programme provides
subsidies for investments in
permanent establishments, for
example. Small companies can
receive funding of up to 50
percent. For larger companies,
funding rates depend more on
employment effects and innovation potential.
K The rules of the programme are expected to
change in the third quarter of
2014. The ILB says funding
rates will begin to drop at that
point so it advises companies
to submit funding applications
and invest now, if they can.
K In addition to subsidies,
the ILB offers risk capital and
venture capital, as well as low
interest loans such as the
Brandenburg Credit for
SMEs. so
info For more information,
contact ILB customer service:
S +49 331 660-2211, e-mail:
[email protected], www.ilb.de
Hans-Gerd Löhmannsröben
ser technology too, says Oliver Henneberg of the Institute of Physics and Astronomy. And the resources
they have for doing so are
unique in Europe, adds Löhmannsröben. These Potsdam
researchers are part of the
networks Photonik-BB and
Optec-Berlin-Brandenburg,
which bring together regional science and business partners. The groups aim to
bring to market new innovations that employ optical technologies. The market is also
eager to get its hands on graduates of these institutes.
„Our people get snatched up
like hotcakes,“ says Löhmannsröben.
GOOD:
WOOD
The machine man
Roland Puschisch's workplace is rather noisy. Every
time a metre-long fibreboard
plank is sucked into the
machine it is accompanied
by a loud and constant hissing. Ear protection is therefore a standard piece of
equipment for all machine
operators, making conversation almost impossible. It is
only when we go to the staff
room - a small trailer in the
middle of the production hall
- that we get the chance to
speak.
Roland explains that he is
responsible for all the large
machinery used in the lamination process. The 42-yearold carpenter comes from Alt
Zauche (district of DahmeSpreewald) and has worked
as a machine operator at
Classen Industries since
2001. He applied for the job
after reading in the paper
that the newly opened
factory was looking for
workers. "Shortly afterwards
I received a positive response telling me I could
start work in just a few days,"
he recalls.
Roland sometimes works up
quite a sweat in the Baruth
factory. The machine that
seals the laminates, for
example, heats the planks to
200 ˚C for twelve seconds.
Standing in the vicinity of
such heat, Roland makes
sure he always has a bottle
of mineral water to hand.
The lamination process fuses
together the plank and the
decorative applique layer.
Roland also operates the
machines at the following
work stations, trimming off
any excess film. Finally, when
the laminated panels have
cooled, he has to make sure
that they are cut into manageable sizes that can be laid
with ease. lir
Classen Industries in Baruth uses only pine wood to make its laminates.
PHOTOS: DPA; LISA ROGGE
A flawless floor
Classen Industries produces laminate flooring for the global market at its site in Baruth
By Lisa Rogge
T
o find the way to the
wood processing site
in Baruth/Mark (district of Teltow-Fläming) you
can simply follow the trucks.
They enter the industrial
estate filled to the brim with
logs and then head back to
the B96 main road carrying
palettes full of laminated panels.
The production process is
mirrored in the way the companies are lined up along the
road. First there is the sawmill at Klenk Holz AG. This
supplies the wood that Classen Industries, just a few hundred metres down the road,
turns into laminates. „It is a
huge advantage for us to
have a supply chain here, as
it keeps transport costs to a
minimum,“ says Carsten
Buhlmann, Managing Director of Classen Industries.
Since 2001 the company
has invested € 350 million in
its Baruth site and has received almost € 45 million in funding from the Brandenburg
Investment Bank (ILB). Classen Industries is prominent
in the global market, with 80
percent of its production exported.
Every
year,
70,000,000 m² of laminate lea-
ves the Brandenburg factory.
More is produced at the company's headquarters in Kaisersesch (Rhineland-Palatinate). A third of the finished
flooring is destined for North
America. „We have a clear international presence,“ says
Buhlmann.
The origins of this well-travelled laminate, however,
are very humble – it starts life
as small scraps of wood left
over from the manufacture of
other products. Classen Industries compresses these
scraps into high-density fibreboards, known as HDF boards, which form the basis of
every piece of laminate flooring.
Printed paper gives the panels the appearance of wood,
and a protective film is then
applied to the surface with a
two-component adhesive. To
attach this film, the panels
are heated to 200 ˚C. The
press machine gives off a lot
of heat, and temperatures in
the factory hall reach above
30 ˚C in both summer and
winter. „I don't notice it anymore,“ says Buhlmann, who
greets every worker with a
handshake as he does his
rounds of the factory. There
is a bright red motif emblazoned on the employees'
T-shirts alongside the company logo, attesting that the
firm's laminate flooring was
awarded the highest rating
in a comparison test conducted by Stiftung Warentest – Germany's leading consumer organisation. The comparison tested 16 laminate
floorboards, „and the Classen Style megaloc emerged
as the winner,“ Buhlmann announces proudly.
The company in Baruth/
Mark has 600 different finishes for customers to choose
between; many of these reams of decorated paper are
rolled out in the factory hall.
Additionally, 15 different surface textures can be applied
to the flooring. „In the future
we will be able to offer an infinite number of designs,“
says Buhlmann. In the next
hall, a third production cen-
Classen
Industries GmbH
K Product: Laminates
K Location: Baruth/Mark
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
tre is being set up. It houses
an enormous inkjet printer
that can add extra decoration
to the laminates such as
small flowers and other special patterns.
The first series of tests are
currently underway, and leaning against one wall is a
sample displaying the printed face of a woman. This
one may be just a joke, but it
clearly reflects a development: „In the future, flooring
will be individual and easy to
change so that it can be adapted to every setting and living situation,“ says Buhlmann.
Laminate provides an affordable illusion. Whether
you want floorboards of maple, oak or walnut, laminates
make everything possible at
a lower cost and with a more
environmentally friendly production process. The wood
used is exclusively pine, all
sourced within a 200 km radius of the site in the district
of Teltow-Fläming. Laminate
production therefore represents a more sustainable approach – while parquet flooring requires only the finest
quality parts of the tree for its
production, laminate flooring makes good use of the
leftovers.
Making a woodpile
Klenk Holz AG processes around 1,000,000 m³ of pinewood in Brandenburg every year
By Lisa Rogge
W
hen it comes to wood,
Klaus Böltz of Klenk
Holz AG in Baruth/Mark (district of Teltow-Fläming) says
his company is in one of the
best locations in Germany:
„And our sawmill formed the
nucleus for this development.“ It's no coincidence
that the sawmill is located
very close to pine forests, as
transporting raw timber over
long distances would make
processing much more expensive.
The trucks unload their
cargo at the round wood area.
The logs are four to five metres long with diameters of between 10 and 50 cm. The wood
is measured electronically
and manoeuvred according
to diameter into one of 190 crates on a conveyor belt. „The
Klenk Holz AG
K Product: Sawn timber
K Location: Baruth/Mark
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
When the wood arrives at the sawmill, it is first measured electronically and then sorted.
difference between the diameters is five millimetres. The
more precise the pre-sorting,
the greater the yield from the
wood,“ Böltz explains. The
wood that does not end up as
sawn timber is sold as wood
chips to companies that use
them to make fibreboard.
Klenk Holz AG has been in
Baruth/Mark since 1996. It
processes 1,000,000 m³ of
wood each year. This summer, the company announced
that it was being taken over
by an investor, the Carlyle
Group, one of the biggest financial investors in the world.
Klenk Holz AG, based in
Oberrot near Schwäbisch
Hall (Baden-Württemberg),
has the highest turnover of all
German wood processing
firms. The company says that
business is good and that the
negotiations on the takeover
had confirmed this. Back at
the sawmill in Baruth, the
trunks are sliced into quarters. The saws remove the
bark and cut off the sides.
Only then does the main product come to light – the core of
the trunk. The wooden planks
are dried in an enormous
sauna, where they „sweat“ at
a temperature of around
85˚C. „We have our own biomass cogeneration plant,
which burns the bark and heats the kiln,“ Böltz says. The
rule of thumb is that it takes
COMPANY PHOTO
24 hours per centimetre of
thickness for the wood to dry
in the kiln.
Then there are some finishing touches, such as sanding
or sealing, before the Brandenburg pinewood is delivered to DIY shops as slats,
planks or squared timber.
Böltz says that the company
also has large customers in
Belgium, the Netherlands
and Luxemburg, as well as in
the United States and Japan.
Holding office
Reiss has been producing intelligent furniture in Bad Liebenwerda for over 130 years
By Gerald Dietz
T
he Reiss drawing board
is a symbol both of painstaking precision and the generation of new ideas – and it
comes from Brandenburg.
The famous board was deve-
loped by the company Reiss
right here in Bad Liebenwerda (district of Elbe-Elster) and used to be a standard
tool for designers and architects. It works along the lines
of a principle that is still associated with the 131-year-old
Reiss furniture is also in demand abroad.
COMPANY PHOTO
firm, the „sitting/standing
philosophy“, as Managing
Director Dietmar Menzel
calls it. „Health experts say
that we should spend 40 percent of our time in the office
standing, 30 percent sitting,
and 30 percent walking,“
Menzel says.
This principle was put into
practice for the first time over
100 years ago, and height-adjustable desks are still the
company's main area of expertise. The desk height is adjusted by a spring, at the
touch of a button, by turning
a handle, or electronically.
„We think ahead,“ was the
motto of company founder
Robert Reiss back in 1882. A
qualified land surveyor,
Reiss' idea was to earn his living by setting up a mail-order firm for technical institutes and surveyors.
From the beginning, Reiss
also used another axiom in
his company: „Only supply
Reiss Büromöbel GmbH
K Product: Office furniture
K Location: Bad Lieben-
werda (district of Elbe-Elster)
K 2012 turnover:
€ 24 million
the best.“ The company remains true to that principle to
this day. The manufacturer of
complete office solutions is
the only firm of its kind to
have survived in the region.
Its clients include the Federal
Employment Agency, Knappschaft-Bahn-See (a health
and pension insurance company for transport workers)
and the Brandenburg state
government.
Menzel says that the company sells around half of its
products via public tenders
and the other half via authorised dealers in Germany and
neighbouring countries. The
company
produces
150
desks every day. And over
the course of a year, it makes
60,000 filing cabinets and
45,000 cupboards.
Despite these figures, it
does not manufacture its products on a conveyor belt. Although automation has constantly increased over the years, the individual modules
are produced by teams working in a cellular manufacturing system. Each team has
up to five members, who
work together like clockwork. Menzel explains that
the excellent teamwork is a
result of the company's policy of training its own apprentices – some of them in
special Reiss schools. The
company also set up its Reiss
Zweck design competition to
attract young people to its office furniture factory.
Robots send Billy packing
Even in the days of the GDR, Meyenburger Möbel was an important supplier for Ikea
By Rüdiger Braun
A
robot arm whirls
around gracefully and
uses its suction pads
to pick up a wood-veneer
shelf and place it gently in a
box. The conveyor belt then
moves it on down the line, other robots seal it up, and a different belt takes it on into the
warehouse. There, operating
a forklift, is the first human I
have seen so far.
Anyone visiting the packaging department at Meyenburger Möbel in Meyenburg
(district of Prignitz) would be
forgiven for thinking they'd
walked into a science fiction
movie. „When it comes to automating the packaging process, we're ahead of the
rest,“ says Dietmar Gornig
(58), the company's Managing Director. He explains
that competition in the furniture market is fierce, so the
company can't rest on its laurels and the fact that is has
produced Ikea's world-famous Billy shelves since as
far back as the days of the
GDR. The Baltics, Poland,
the Czech Republic and Romania all want a piece of the
action, so Meyenburger has
to work hard to maintain its
position. „Our automated packaging division is driving
our growth,“ says Gornig.
That growth means that the
company has managed to
hold on to its title of Ikea's
main supplier for its wood-veneer Billy shelves – and that
it has done so while employing 425 permanent staff in
Germany, despite the higher
wages here.
Founded in 1946 as a simple carpentry firm, Meyenburger only entered the
world of series production in
the 60s, when it began making a chest of drawers called Holger. In 1973, the company – along with many others in the GDR – started making products cheaply for capitalist countries. That was
the start of Meyenburger's
Meyenburger
Möbel GmbH
K Product: Self-assembly
furniture
K Location: Meyenburg
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
Pressing wood
for deluxe doors
and dashboards
By Rüdiger Braun
I
A lot of tasks happen automatically at Meyenburger Möbel.
enduring relationship with
Ikea, which today purchases
90 percent of the company's
products. Aside from Billy,
Meyenburger's self-assembly furniture also includes
the Benno TV unit, the Malm
chests of drawers, and the furniture in the Orrberg series.
Meyenburger supplies Ikea
stores in Europe, North America and Asia. Business at furniture factories stagnated during the financial crisis, but
now Meyenburger is back to
investing millions every
year. „We're working on making our wood veneer even
more realistic,“ says Görnig.
The aim is to give it a proper
rustic look and feel. People
these days want a more natural style in their living rooms
– and that will be reflected in
the next Ikea catalogue.
COMPANY PHOTO
First stop for investors in Brandenburg
K In the twelve years since
it was founded, in January
2001, the Brandenburg Economic Development Board
(ZAB) has created an impressive 40,455 jobs in the state.
K The experts at ZAB have
overseen 1,159 projects
involving new businesses
settling here, and have taken
around 3,000 innovation
projects and 620 technological start-ups under their
collective wing.
K Working with the Brandenburg Investment Bank (ILB),
the ZAB team functions like a
one-stop-shop that provides
all the services companies
need for setting up a business
or opening offices here.
K The ZAB team helps potential investors choose a site
and train specialist staff. It
puts companies in contact
with research institutes in the
region and advises them on
funding possibilities.
K The Brandenburg Economic Development Board
offers support to companies
that are already established
here by helping transfer
knowledge from research
institutes to the business. so
info For more information,
contact Gudrun Fahrland
head of ZAB's industry department:
S +49 331 660-3125;
www.zab-brandenburg.de
t is somewhat surprising
to learn that the Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (district
of Barnim) is doing research
on, of all things, building expensive cars. After all, Brandenburg's greenest university is all about fighting for
sustainability, and cars don't
exactly spring to mind in that
regard. But Ulrich Schwarz,
professor for commercial furniture, building parts and timber processing, points out
that sustainability does come
into play in things like side
doors
and
dashboards,
where wood often features.
Schwarz is working with the
company Scharnau, which is
based in Werneuchen, to investigate ways of taking the
brittle material that is wood
and shaping it to make parts
that look good and can be dismantled at a later stage.
„Wood isn't isomorphic,“
says Schwarz – which means
that if you bend it in different
directions, it will look different every time, because of
the grain. Schwarz and his
team are working on using a
press to shape veneers in
such a way that the three-dimensional result looks attractive and, when combined
with the adhesive that the
university has developed,
will last a long time. „We put
different types of wood together using a variety of adhesives,“ says Schwarz. Maple
and walnut are apparently
especially well-suited to the
process, in which a press
turns the wood into the desired three-dimensional shape
for the dashboard. The team
uses moisture and heat to
help things along. The next
step involves putting the
workpieces into an environmental chamber and subjecting them to very high and
very low temperatures. „You
can get adhesives that stand
up to any temperature, but
they're mostly too expensive,“ says Schwarz, who explains that the experiments
are about finding a compromise between durability and
profitability. Products that
strike this balance already
exist. Top-of-the-range VWs
and Audis are driving
around with dashboards that
owe their existence to the researchers in Eberswalde.
IN BLACK
AND
WHITE
The paper maker
Andreas Kiesow scrapes up a
few wet fibres from the sieve
with his fingernail. "You
see?" he says, presenting the
white paste. This is paper,
before it has dried and solidified.
As I watch Andreas skilfully
navigate the production line
of the Hamburger Rieger
factory in Spremberg (SpreeNeiße), with all its steep
stairs and complex machinery, I can clearly see that
the 48-year-old from Hoyerswerda in Saxony knows this
process inside out.
As shift foreman, Andreas'
job is to make sure that the
machinery always runs
smoothly. It looks as though
he has done this job forever,
but actually he is fairly new
to the profession. Previously,
he had trained as an agrochemist, installer and industrial
plumber, and had worked on
a coking plant and on roofs.
In 2003 he began his apprenticeship as a "paper maker",
as the job was called back
then, at the company's training centre in Gernsbach,
Baden-Württemberg.
He has been shift foreman
since 2007. "I like the fact
that every day is different. I
never get bored," says Andreas. Earlier, for example, a
hole caused the paper web
to tear apart as it went
through the press where
starch or glue is added to the
paper. When this occurs it is
a matter of swiftly reconnecting the sections - not a
problem for Andreas and his
skilled team. Andreas'
25-year-old son is also now
an employee at Hamburger
Rieger – so we can assume
his father recommended it as
a great place to work! ang
The corrugated base paper produced in the Hamburger Rieger factory is wound onto these huge steel reels.
PHOTOS: DPA; A. PENTSI
Old paper turns into a new leaf
The Hamburger Rieger factory in Spremberg produces paper for cartons and boxes
By Angelika Pentsi
A
large cube topples
clumsily off the end of
the conveyor belt and
is immediately swallowed up
in a thick, viscous whirlpool –
rather like a sugar cube
being stirred into a creamy
coffee by an invisible spoon.
In this case, however, the coffee cup is a huge stainless
steel vat filled with water,
and the cube is not made of
sugar, but of compressed paper and cardboard remnants.
This is the first step in a production cycle at the Hamburger Rieger paper mill in
Spremberg (district of SpreeNeiße). A gigantic reel of paper will eventually emerge
as the end product.
The company settled in
Spremberg in 2005 and
today is part of Hamburger
Containerboard,
whose
main office is in Pitten, Austria. Every year 315,000 tonnes of paper of various quality and for various purposes
is manufactured at the site.
Paper may seem a little oldfashioned today. After all, letters have been replaced by
e-mails – and those are rarely
printed out due to environmental concerns.
Plant manager Antje Römer is not worried: „We are
market leaders and have customers all over the world,“
she smiles. The paper that
the company produces is destined neither for office printers nor for newspapers –
both difficult markets. Hamburger Rieger produces gypsum board paper, in particular corrugated base paper. Römer explains that this paper
is in demand precisely because of the internet, as it is
used to package goods offered online. When books are
ordered on Amazon, for
example, each individual
item is sent to the customer's
home in its own folding box,
unlike before when large
quantities would be packaged together and sent to
bookshops. Paper products
are also found in abundance
in supermarkets, for example in four-packs of yoghurt,
crates for melons, and shop
floor advertising materials.
The paper made at Hamburger consists of three layers. Römer picks up a cardboard sample and points out
the brown, solid base layer,
the protective layer and the
smooth top layer that gives
the paper a nice shine. The
raw material that makes up
the Spremberg paper comes
from households, supermarkets and department stores
that generally lie within 300
km of the factory site. „We
process 100 percent used paper,“ says Römer, adding
that as the recycling process
can be repeated up to seven
times, the company's own
cardboard often ends up
back at the plant. Recently
the machines here began
being powered by a substitute fuel power plant in the
surrounding area.
The process involved in turning the compressed cubes
into a finished roll of paper is
lengthy, but it is a production
process that has remained
Hamburger Rieger
GmbH & Co. KG
Papierfabrik Spremberg
K Product: Corrugated base
paper and gypsum board
paper
K Location: Spremberg
(district of Spree-Neiße)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
fundamentally unchanged
for the last 2,000 years. It all
begins in a noisy hall, where
the cubes of paper are dissolved in large vats of water.
This removes any foreign bodies – ranging from paperclips to stones and even
wheel rims. The leftover substance is a clean mixture of
water and fibres, which then
flows into a machine and is
sprayed onto a rolling sieve.
Here, water contained in the
pulp slurry drains away, leaving behind a web of fibres.
This substance is then stabilised in the press with starch
and glue, drained further,
put through a final drying
process, smoothened, and
then rolled up on a steel reel.
Römer is confident that paper will always be in demand. She is a qualified engineer herself and has been managing the factory for three
years. She is also the only woman in Europe to occupy
such a position in this sector.
„We are the right company
for anyone who is looking for
secure employment,“ she
says. Currently, 26 of the company's 450 employees are
trainees in areas such as paper engineering, paper technology and mechatronics.
Greetings from Falkensee
Herlitz PBS produces office supplies and organises distribution in the Havelland
By Stephan Henke
S
everal small lights glow
on the warehouse shelf
in front of Maika Janitza, and
numbers flash beside them.
She walks briskly over to
each light, takes out the number of paint boxes, erasers or
pencils shown on the display,
and puts them into a box.
This warehouse system is called „pick by light“. „On average, the order pickers process 600 orders per hour –
and the really good ones manage as many as 900 orders,“
says Jürgen Wittor, warehouse manager at E-Com Logistik, a subsidiary of Herlitz
PBS AG. PBS stands for „Pa-
Herlitz PBS AG
K Product: Paper, office
supplies, stationery, logistics
K Location: Falkensee
(district of Havelland)
K 2012 turnover:
not specified
Herlitz's building in Falkensee
pier-, Büro- und Schreibwaren“ – that is, paper, office
supplies and stationery.
The company moved into
this high bay warehouse in
Falkensee in 1994. It cost 350
million
deutschmarks
(around € 175 million). Herlitz organises its entire distribution from this base. Thomas Radke from the management board explains that the
company decided to relocate
to Falkensee because „the
town is in a good strategic location and even has its own
PHOTO: GÜNTHER GLÖCKNER
railway station“. Herlitz also
produces stationery items
such as greetings cards and
spiral notepads in Falkensee.
Manufacturing of the latter
involves cutting lengths of paper from extremely heavy
rolls, printing lines or squares on the paper, punching
holes in it, and fitting a spiral
wire through the holes. The
factory produces 50 spiral notepads per minute – and ten
million per year – using a
fully automated process. The
firm's entire administration
department moved from the
head office in northern Berlin
to Falkensee at the beginning of the year. This means
that 550 people now work at
the Brandenburg location.
The company employed
1,000 people at the start of
the 1990s, but after it filed for
bankruptcy in 2002 and was
taken over by its competitor
Pelikan in 2010, Radke believes that the company is now
back on track.
„We have had double-digit
growth rates for the past two
years in segments where we
want to be strong in the future,“ he says. This mainly includes brand-name goods,
such as my.pen style pens,
which have won several design awards, as well as folders and schoolbags. Radke
says that the company's strategy involves „focusing more
on products for end consumers“.
Herlitz is also planning to
expand its logistics division.
Along with stationery, its logistics subsidiary E-Com Logistik also stores flowers and
beer crates for other companies in its high bay warehouse, which is 40 metres
high, 70 metres wide, and
120 metres long. „Our aim is
to attract other companies to
Falkensee and to manage
their logistics for them in a
kind of logistics park,“
Radke explains. However, paper, office supplies and stationery continue to make up an
important part of the business. Herlitz and Pelikan products currently occupy 90
percent of the space in the
warehouse.
Very fine nibs, crafted by hand
Exclusivity is the defining feature of Cleo pens from Prignitz
By Gerald Dietz
I
t takes quite some time to
fill the boxes for transporting parts around the Cleo
Schreibgeräte plant in Bad
Wilsnack (district of Prignitz). Over 20 different
parts, including casing,
screw mechanisms, push buttons and decorative rings,
are lined up on a board and
packed into boxes, which
move from one department
to the next. These are the pieces of the puzzle that make
up a Cleo fountain pen.
„We still do a relatively
large amount of our work by
hand,“ says Junior Director
Mathias Weiß. The familyrun business from Prignitz
successfully combines the
small-scale production of exclusive pens with series production of tens of thousands
of the same types of pen. Moreover, the company has an
unusually
high
vertical
range of manufacture for a
firm of its size, as it makes almost all of the parts itself. In
general, it sources only pen-
Nimble fingers are needed to make a Cleo pen.
cil lead and coil springs externally, and regards itself as a
manufactory. Cleo produces
seven different series of foun-
PHOTO: DPA
tain pens, ballpoint pens, gel
pens and propelling pencils.
In terms of image, the products can easily compete
with those by other premium
manufacturers such as Montblanc.
One of its fountain pens
has a gold nib, for example.
The previous pope Benedict
XVI used Cleo fountain
pens, while former German
presidents Walter Scheel and
Johannes Rau were said to
be fond of the products from
Prignitz, although Weiß doesn't know whether or not
Rau used a Cleo fountain pen
to sign new laws.
Cleo can look back on almost 70 years of making
high-quality
pens.
Production began in 1945,
shortly after the end of the Second World War. At that
time, the company employed
six people to make wooden
fountain pens using very basic tools and working with leftover materials. The staff jokingly compared themselves
to the ancient Egyptians. The
first collection was duly christened „Cleopatra“, and the
company came to be named
Cleo. During the GDR era,
Cleo also enjoyed internatio-
Cleo
Schreibgeräte GmbH
K Product: Pens
K Location: Bad Wilsnack
K 2012 turnover:
€ 2.5 million
nal renown. The Skribent
technical pen was a popular
export item.
When the two directors
Wolfgang Weiß and Peter
Winter took over the company after Reunification,
they were able to build on solid foundations. The company exports 80 percent of its
products, mainly to the United States, Russia and southeast Asia.
The ILB investment bank
provided Cleo with a total of
€ 1.37 million in funding, allowing the company to go
ahead with investments of almost € 5 million.
Packing a punch
The Panther Group develops complete packaging solutions in Wustermark
T
he Wepoba cardboard
factory in Wustermark (district of Havelland) does not produce items
that are destined for stockrooms. If the 160-metre long
facility is going to get set up
for production, it must be
very clear who the customer
for the end product is. „After
all, there are many kinds of
corrugated cardboard,“ says
Carin
Hilmer-Brenzinger,
Managing Director of Panther Packaging GmbH & Co.
KG, which actually has three
plants here in Wustermark.
Every application requires
a different type of cardboard.
„The composition depends
on the product that needs to
be packaged,“ explains Hilmer-Brenzinger. Packets of
crisps, for example, need a
double-walled carton made
of two corrugated layers
glued between the linerboards – a stable product that
can withstand even heavy impacts. Relatively thin containerboard, on the other hand,
is adequate for beer, as the
bottles themselves ensure a
measure of stability.
In a small room next to the
production hall, packaging
developer Tim Karnstedt designs new models on a computer. Careful scrutiny, a
click, and the plotter in the adjacent room is already punching the required pattern
into the cardboard. Karnstedt
separates out the shapes and
assembles the model, a box
for wine bottles. „Perfect,“
he says with satisfaction.
There are numerous potential combinations. There is
thin paper and thick, there is
grey paper and white, and
there is paper that gets printed on right next door at the
Panther Print company. Hilmer-Brenzinger
explains
that the firm offers customers
the ideal covering for their
products – and in-store advertising, too. Panther Display,
which moved to Wustermark
Panther Packaging
GmbH & Co. KG
K Product: Corrugated
cardboard
K Location: Wustermark
(district of Havelland)
K 2012 turnover:
(not specified)
The Wepoba cardboard factory in Wustermark makes the right packaging for every product.
from Großbeeren (district of
Teltow-Fläming) in 2008, produces cardboard displays for
product presentation. Here,
Production Manager Holm
Eschke oversees the highly
automated production process from a monitor in the control room, as linerboard and
corrugated layers are glued
together at a rate of up to 400
metres per minute. The diecutting takes place last, with
simple cuts for packaging cartons and complicated patterns for advertising displays. Scraps are transported
to Panther's paper factory at
its headquarters in Tornesch,
north of Hamburg, where
they are processed into new
paper.
The Panther Group's history reaches back 111 years.
Today, with a total of 1,020 employees and turnover of € 318
million, the company is
among Germany's top ten manufacturers of corrugated
cardboard. Products are delivered from Wustermark to
clients in a radius of approximately 250 km. But many customers are located very close
by – the company has numerous clients from Berlin's food
and beverage industry, for instance. Some of these business relationships were established decades ago. In 1968,
Panther bought the Wepoba
cardboard factory in Berlin.
When it outgrew its facilities
in the district of Spandau in
2004, it moved operations to
the nearby Havelland district.
COMPANY PHOTO
Heart of glass
Fielmann's company's production is located in Rathenow
By Anne Voß
F
irst, a careful visual
check. Yes, the frame is
straight. Next, a laser device
is used to check the lenses.
Optician Gina Schönfeld
knows what to look for during the final inspection of a
pair of glasses from Fielmann: „Colour coating,
alignment, polish, tension –
everything has to be just
right.“
Every day, Schönfeld (23)
and her colleagues check several thousand pairs of glasses at Rathenower Optische
Werke GmbH in Rathenow
Each pair of glasses is checked before being shipped
PHOTO: ANNE VOSS
out.
(district
of
Havelland),
where all the strands of the
Fielmann group converge.
„This is the heart of the company,“ says Managing Director Michael Ferley. Grinding lenses, manufacturing
frames, assembling glasses
and delivering to customers
are all part of the story in this
town, which has long been
known as the „Stadt der Optik“ (“city of optics“). Glasses have been made here
since 1801, when Johann
Heinrich August Duncker
took out a patent on a grinding machine that he had invented. And thus began the
history of industrial eyeglass
production. Today, Fielmann
produces sophisticated, delicate eyewear and other optical instruments from glass as
thick as ashtrays.
The goal is to fulfil all customer requests as quickly as
possible. That's why all 670
Fielmann branches in Germany as well as in Austria,
Switzerland, Poland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands
are connected via computer
to Rathenow. „If a customer
down in Constance wants a
pair of glasses with purple
lenses and neon yellow frames, we get the request within a few minutes,“ says Ferley. And then the employees
here get right to work. Fielmann employs 1,000 people
in Rathenow. „Generally we
need one day for an order,“
states Ferley.
Despite the cutting-edge
technology, the optics field
still demands a high level of
craftsmanship.
Conveyor
belts transport the freshly
ground lenses and frames in
little white boxes into the assembly hall, where the individual parts are screwed together by hand.
The company sells up to seven million pairs of glasses a
year, all of them manufactured in Rathenow. Half of all
German spectacle-wearers
are Fielmann customers. Before any one of them can put
on a new pair, Schönfeld and
her colleagues check it thoroughly in a final quality control step. Then that pair of
glasses travels by conveyor
belt through the 23,000 m²
production hall to the shipping area. „From there, finished products are sent out in
all directions at 8 p.m.,“ says
Ferley. That means the customers can pick up their new
glasses the very next morning.
A lot to be proud of
Minister Christoffers: Brandenburg's status as a thriving industrial location should be cultivated
POTSDAM |
Brandenburg's
Economics Minister Ralf
Christoffers (The Left Party)
expects the government's
Pro Industrie action plan to
advance the state's industrial
credentials.
for development?
Christoffers: There is good potential in the chemicals
sector, in metal production
and processing, in the food industry, in machine construction and in transportation. Almost all sectors offer
good opportunities for expansion. In the past 20 years
there has been a clear improvement in the industrial basis here. That is why Brandenburg is no longer one of the
structurally weakest regions
in the European Union. We
have a lot to be proud of.
of the themes of the Pro Industrie action plan. For example,
business developers at the
Brandenburg Economic Development Board are working with the University of
Potsdam. We want companies to know what specialists
are available to them right
here in Brandenburg.
with Saxony, has developed
into the state's biggest industrial area. Around 4,300 jobs
have been created there, and
that number is set to reach
5,000 by 2017. Or take transportation: the region is
home to pretty much all the
large manufacturers of rail
vehicles, to car makers, and
to engine systems producers.
We also have many mediumsized suppliers to these industries. All this adds up to a
strong industrial foundation
that needs a much higher public profile.
MAZ: While the rest of the
world is talking about bits
and bytes, Brandenburg is rediscovering industry – the soThe media barely acknowledcalled „old economy“. Is
ges Brandenburg as an indusBrandenburg turning its
trial powerhouse, focusing
back on the modern world?
instead on Saxony and SaRalf Christoffers: No, quite
xony-Anhalt. What are the
the contrary! We are shaping
reasons for that?
the modern world. It is absoChristoffers: Brandenburg
lutely necessary to
That sounds good, has experienced several
Industrial production is loud
talk about bits and
but
it
also
means
structural
upheavals
in
its
deand stinky.
"In the past
bytes, but it is just
that Brandenburg velopment. As a result, some
How do
20 years
as important to fuse
will receive less fun- industrial sites have disapyou inthese new technoloding from Brussels. peared or are much smaller
tend
there has
gies with industrial
Won't
that
be
a
prothan
they
were
20
or
30
years
been a clear blem?
practice. In Gerago.
many we are still in improvement Christoffers:
Of
the fortunate posicourse we will feel Which sites are you referring
in the
tion of deriving althe financial cuts. to?
industrial
most a quarter of
But that is why we Christoffers: The chemicals
basis here" are focusing on a industry in Premnitz has
our gross value added from industry.
few key areas and shrunk, for example. But
using those to drive develop- there have been many posiAs you say, still. These days, ment.
tive developments, too. The
around three quarters of emSchwarze Pumpe industrial
ployees in Germany work in Which areas are those?
estate, for instance, which is
the service sector. Around 20 Christoffers: Well, one prio- in Spremberg in the south of
years ago that figure was still rity is improving the competi- Brandenburg on the border
below 60 percent. Does it tiveness of small and memake any sense to resist this dium-sized enterprises in parmodern trend?
ticular. Another priority is inChristoffers: I don't wish to novation. Tremendous innomake any speculations about vation processes are taking
percentages. Brandenburg is place in industry at the moan industrial location and we ment. We want to help shape
want to keep cultivating its those. In order to do that we
industrial capacities – as well have to ensure compaas its potential in other areas. nies have adequate
Social and economic develop- numbers of skilments often follow in the led personnel.
wake of industrial value crea- Our strategy
tion processes. So industrial here is to enpolicy is not something that courage coobelongs in the past. It is peration bethighly relevant for the pre- ween busisent day and for the future.
nesses and
universiThe state government has ties. That
launched its Pro Industrie ac- is one
tion plan with the goal of creating a solid industrial basis in
Pro Industrie action plan to invigorate Brandenburg's industrial sector
Brandenburg by 2020. What
K Brandenburg's around
K With its Pro Industrie acnies good facilities and infrawill that basis be exactly?
1,200 industrial enterprises
tion plan, agreed in 2012, the
structure and helping them tap
Christoffers: The important
employed almost 100,000
state government aims to
into international markets. The
thing for me is that we genepeople in 2012. That is a clear
generate more growth and
specialist personnel required by
rate growth in our existing inmake Brandenburg's industrial
increase on the figure for 2010,
industrial firms are to be traidustries as well as attracting
enterprises more competitive.
when 1,100 Brandenburg
ned here in the state and also
company relocations. This apK The objective of the action
industrial firms employed
attracted to the region from
plies to small and medium-siplan is to create a „competitive
around 91,500 people.
elsewhere, so it is important to
zed enterprises as well, of
industrial basis in Brandenburg
K Despite this positive trend,
effectively market Brandenburg
course. We will support the
the Economics Ministry consiby 2020“. Brandenburg's indusas an industrial location. Anotexpansion efforts of existing
trial operations are to become
ders that Brandenburg still has
her goal is to set up effective
operations as part of our clusmore modern and ecological.
too few industrial operations
networks of companies with
ter strategy.
and that the sector's real net
K Five central areas of action
other firms and with research
are defined in the action plan.
output ratio is not yet adeinstitutions to ease the transfer
What sectors do you think
quate.
These include offering compaof knowledge, for example.
have the greatest potential
to sell it to the public and how
will you encourage people living close to industrial sites
to accept the more negatives
sides of industry?
Christoffers: The presence of
industry always impacts on
people's lives in some way.
But modern industry is completely different to the classic
idea we have of smoking
chimneys, etc. Much has
changed. What we require is
a general public acceptance
that we need and want industrial development. It provides an important foundation
for our social and economic
wellbeing.
Interview: Ute Sommer
Economics
Minister Ralf
Christoffers
PHOTO: DPA
K The „cluster policy“ of
Brandenburg's state government is designed to support
such networks of industrial
companies, business partners
and research institutions. The
approach involves focusing
economic policy measures on
specific key sectors.
K In industry these special
sectors include metal, transportation, chemicals, optics and
energy, which Brandenburg will
develop in part with the
neighbouring state of Berlin. so
Foto: Fotolia
(Alexander
Raths) GmbH
Foto: AneCom
AeroTest
Gutes Geld für gute Ideen
Wir fördern die Brandenburger Wirtschaft.
Wer in Brandenburg mit Mut und Können etwas unternehmen möchte, den
unterstützen wir umfassend. Wir bieten Ihnen nicht nur Fördermittel und
Finanzierungen zu attraktiven Konditionen, sondern auch unser ganzes Wissen
und die Erfahrung von mehr als 20 Jahren Wirtschaftsförderung. Wir sind die
Förderbank Brandenburgs. Nehmen Sie Kontakt mit uns auf.
www.ilb.de

Industry in Brandenburg 2013

Transcription

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