Keller Lufttechnik: Frank (left) and Horst Keller
“The transformation process in the automotive industry and the pandemic also pose challenges for our company. With the use of short-time working, cost-cutting measures and, above all, innovative ideas, we have so far managed to lead Keller Lufttechnik very successfully through this difficult time. We don’t want to lose any employees – they are the key to future success. “
EGO Group: Dirk Schallock
“A good start to the year, unprecedented declines in the second quarter – and a few months later far higher than planned: 2020 was the purest rollercoaster in terms of sales development. After temporary closings and short-time work in some plants in the first quarter, we had record sales from September and production was running at full capacity again worldwide. At the moment it looks like we are one of the companies that survived the first year with Covid-19 economically reasonably unscathed. “
Progress-Werk Oberkirch AG: Carlo Lazzarini
“We are a global group. The cost pressure in the automotive supplier industry forces us to place each order in the plant that is most competitive for the specific order. Unfortunately, the competitiveness of Germany as an industrial location has declined significantly in recent years, which has led to a disproportionate increase in the order volume at our plant in the Czech Republic. Therefore we have to adapt the capacities in Oberkirch to the declining sales volume for the plant. “
AMF: Johannes Maier
“Already two years ago, with a view to the transformation, we started to position ourselves more crisis-proof and more flexible. That helped us in 2020. Nonetheless, we have a 20 percent drop in sales, which is a very large number that we hadn’t planned for. We were able to keep the permanent workforce, but we had to reduce the number of temporary workers and temporary workers. “
Schuler AG: Domenico Iacovelli
“We have committed our workforce worldwide to a challenging year 2021. As everywhere in mechanical and plant engineering with its long order cycles, the corona-related setbacks in incoming orders in 2020 will cause some gaps in sales in the new year. On the other hand, we are increasingly benefiting from the fact that we bring innovative, customer-oriented products with a high proportion of digitization onto the market. 2021 will no doubt be difficult. From 2022 the course will be back to growth. “
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