Gelnhausen. People and technical challenges – Andreas Schön likes both. The co-partner of KUKT Kautschuk und Kunststoff Technologie attaches great importance to visiting customers. “I would like to know where the customer’s problem is, and how we can help them,” he says. Perhaps this curiosity from Schön explains the direction of the company. The rubber company in Hesse employs just 25 people. And yet one tackles the future topics of the industry here.
Gloves for clean rooms in the pharmaceutical industry
“In the future, rubber parts will no longer have to be stupid,” explains Schön. “We have to make them intelligent.” To prove it, he takes a beige glove off the shelf. “These gloves are used in the clean rooms of the pharmaceutical industry.” The Gelnhauser have integrated sensors, so-called RFID sensors, into the material. “These signal the laboratory staff when the gloves need to be replaced because they no longer meet the demanding safety regulations.”
To clarify: The company boss does not speak of Industry 4.0. “I would call it artificial intelligence,” says Schön. He knows that many experts understand this to be something else. And yet the glove is a remarkable innovation. An example of how KUKT finds solutions for customers and in many cases is one step ahead.
Employees who are passionate about rubber
Company boss Schön is a talent for communication, a human catcher – warm, open, always with a smile on his face. These properties should help him to find employees for his company who are passionate about rubber.
Like Markus Lyncker, for example. The 54-year-old trained as an industrial mechanic and later trained as an industrial clerk. “I worked at Goodyear Dunlop in Hanau,” says the motorcycle fan. For the company he traveled through Europe, from race track to race track. Lyncker is just as involved in KUKT sales today. “You can make a difference here without having to go through long bureaucratic paths.”
The head of the company wants to bring his company into the digital age
Lyncker likes to find solutions. For example, when a customer calls and is annoyed by the quality of another supplier. The 54-year-old then looks for other materials or new geometries. “You almost always get a better solution,” he says. With this curiosity he approaches every challenge. As proof, company boss Schön takes a bright yellow roller from the company’s meeting room. It was developed for the lime spreader of an agricultural machinery manufacturer. “This roller is packed with sensors so that the exact amount of lime required is spread on the field,” explains Schön.
Schön and Lyncker have no hierarchies. They share the same passion. You want to bring your rubber company into the digital age. “We put our money into new ideas and new products,” reports Schön.
That makes the work of production manager Matthias Ziegler interesting. At first he didn’t have much in mind with technology. After dropping out of his studies, he wanted to earn money and worked at KUKT. “Working in industry is much more fun for me than studying dry theory all day.” His superiors made him an offer: first complete an apprenticeship as a process mechanic and then quickly add a qualification as a technician.
This is how the love for the material arose: Ziegler cannot do anything with the prejudice that rubber is black, dirty and heavy. “The material is super exciting,” says the 30-year-old with a sympathetic laugh. “We live technology here.”
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Rubber industry
In the Corona year, too, she invested a lot of money in innovation.
- 600 The companies invested millions of euros in research.
- 43 Percent of the companies increased their R&D expenditures.
- 11 Percent of companies invested less than in the previous year.
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