A trip through the former East Germany

A few years ago I was invited to a press tour by Bosch Rexroth, headquartered in Germany. I spent nearly a week with editors from four other US publications in a VW minivan driving across Germany. We had been invited to visit the Hannover Fair and tour of several manufacturing plants scattered across Germany. Bosch Rexroth conducted the event to bring us up to date on the merger between Mannesmann Rexroth and Bosch Automation Technologies. Naturally, we toured some of their manufacturing plants, but we also visited other facilities of some of their customers.
The Volkswagen headquarters and manufacturing plant in Wolfsburg employs 50,000 people. And even though some last-minute security issues kept us from touring the actual manufacturing areas, we were, nonetheless, presented with some interesting facts and figures. We also spent some time in their visitor’s center, which is designed as a theme park.
We also visited Koenig & Bauer AG, a manufacturer of printing machines in Wurzburg. We all are aware of how far computers and telecommunications have advanced over the last ten years. But I was completely unaware of how much the performance of printing has improved in the same time frame. Most of this is attributed to the electric direct drives that now power these machines. These new machines use a continuous web of paper that shoots through the machine at an astounding 12 m/sec (27 mph) while maintaining a printing resolution of 0.050 mm.
But what really blew me away was what I learned at EMAG Mfg. GmbH, in Salach, in the former East Germany. Some of the manufacturing methods they used were completely new to me, but the big news was their boost in productivity. Manfred Hekeler, the marketing communications manager, proudly informed us that the average turnaround to produce a typical vertical machining center was about five weeks. Then he mentioned that this was a dramatic improvement in productivity over what it had been prior to the reunification of Germany. How dramatic? Previously, it took five years to put out a machine! And he said that was pretty good; citizens generally had to wait 12 years for a new car. Needless to say, once your new car arrived, you went out to order its replacement the very next day.
Mr. Hekeler explained that under the old system of working for the government, there was no competition, so there was little incentive to improve productivity or quality. But it wasn’t EMAG’s fault. Their suppliers worked for the government too, so it was not uncommon to wait months for parts that should've been available in a few days. Nonetheless, once EMAG entered the free market, company officials quickly realized that in order to survive, they would have to upgrade their operations to world-class standards — and fast. They did, and my hat goes off to them. Their success is as much a tribute to their resourcefulness as it is to the value of the free-enterprise system.