INDUSTRY NEWS
is, fast – in the thin-sheet sector, but also for quickly reaching their limits with thicker stainless steel and aluminium, and having edge-quality problems. “Brightline Fiber” is now changing all that. With one and the same laser, and no elaborate resetting, you can now cut aluminium and stainless steel up to 25 millimetres thick without a problem. And ‘without a problem’ here primarily means: with an edge quality that would hitherto have required an entirely different machine. It’s not the greatest analogy, perhaps, but imagine you once had to choose between driving an Aston Martin or a Leyland truck – well today, with “Brightline Fiber”, you have both in one. We have learnt to always think long-term – more in terms of generations than of the next day’s share prices.
Ladies and gentlemen,
“Brightline Fiber“ is only one of the many innovations with which, every year, we endeavour to maintain our market lead. All of that is only possible because the company’s corporate culture is supported by two pillars (both closely associated with each other). One pillar is the
fact that we are a family-owned company. We have learnt to always think long-term – more in terms of generations than of the next day’s share prices. That gives us stability, and perhaps it also gives us a clearer idea of what is required for lasting success. And it is the reason for the second pillar of our corporate culture: as an owner family, we have the luxury of keeping most of Trumpf’s profits within the company, rather than paying them out in dividends. That enables our firm to spend between 8 and 10 percent of its turnover each year c Over 1,300 of our 10,000 employees work in R&D. I don’t know of many companies that can afford to do that. Basically, all of this corresponds to a very simple logic, a very simple cycle: Thinking long-term is the basis for having the competitive edge. That is a prerequisite for success in the market and for satisfied customers – and that, again, is the basis of lasting, long-term success. I’m aware that, during and after the 2008 recession, there was a great deal of international interest shown in the Mittelstand model of German SMEs – small and medium-sized
enterprises. Yet the success of many of those companies rests on precisely what I’ve just described to you, no doubt a whole series of “additional conditions” need to be fulfilled for that model to be properly effective. Close cooperation, for instance, within a network of customers, suppliers, and universities – that is an especially striking feature of our company’s home region. But also, and above all, the fact
that innovation also requires what could be termed a “fascination for engineering” – a fascination for creating and for shaping technology. I’m very pleased to notice that, here in Great Britain, this idea is regaining popularity. In the German press, a board member from British industry was quoted a few days ago as saying: “We have to ensure that our brightest minds don’t land up automatically in the finance industry.” Whether absolutely everyone in the finance industry is as bright as all that is, of course, another matter! ... But joking aside, I have to tell you that in the future, we Europeans (and I do hope you won’t mind me briefly including England under that designation)
www.internationalmetaltube.com
– we Europeans are going to have to make more of an effort in this regard than we have so far. In China, about 600,000 engineers graduate from universities every year – over here, our graduates amount to a fraction of that. It’s my deep conviction that if we in the so-called “Old World” still want to maintain our prosperity for a further five, ten or twenty years, we need to be ever more aware of the importance of innovation, of technological leadership – of everything that constitutes our present-day competitive edge over our rivals from the dynamic, emerging regions of the world. But today I’d like to take this opportunity of encouraging you to keep on promoting this joy in technology and innovation. Please help to spark the enthusiasm of young people, in particular, for technology and technical professions.
If we all succeed in doing that together, I think we have a very good chance of being able to meet up here again in 10 years’ time for the 50th anniversary of TGB and say to ourselves: “Yes, this region is still the world’s greatest center of technology.”
IMT April/May 2014 27
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