The tranquil town of Zarrentin on the shore of Lake Schallsee is what you would call a small place. But small is not the word for the number of companies that have settled here since German reunification. They include VARIOVAC PS SystemPack GmbH, a company of respectable size with 280 employees and 65 billion Euro annual turnover. The company manufactures packaging solutions, exporting 85 percent of their machines for food products and 15 percent for medical devices (sterile goods) to 65 countries on all continents. The largest buyer markets are in the USA and Germany, other European countries, Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America.
Always with the potential of keeping the customers satisfied. This is very important for CEO Jörg Reimer. “Thinking differently. Developing differently.” is his motto. Feeling differently too. Values are really important to him: respect, acceptance, together with an honest, open-minded approach. Gladly with a smile and a wink.
The 62-year-old learnt his job from scratch, “As a child, I loved playing with Lego. I was thrilled when Lego Technic came out: it meant I could develop things myself. It just fascinated me to puzzle things out, do the calculations and give it a try. Unwittingly, this was the path I would follow later on.” His apprenticeship as an aircraft mechanic was followed by a degree in mechanical engineering, which quickly led him into an impressive career. His role as CEO and partner means that Jörg Reimer travels quite a lot. And he still loves taking machines apart and putting them back together again. “A right-handed thread goes round to the right – that’s easy to remember”, he laughs, while admitting at the same time that there’s a lot more electronics involved nowadays. An unchanging basic principle with customised adaptations allows for packaging that can be shaped by pressure and heat. Depending on the contents, the atmosphere is replaced, in other words, air is expelled and replaced by vacuum or inert gas. Whether food or medical products, the machines from Zarrentin are responsible for perfect packaging all over the world.
Quality control on site
“Three or four times a year, I like to go with a machine to do the installation work for one of our customers. I like to see how it is then integrated in the production process. You don’t get such valuable experience otherwise”, says the mechanical engineering specialist. Then he explains what he means by valuable experience. “For example, when it comes to packing sausages, Asians working at a production machine achieve 175 pieces per minute. Europeans still manage around 100, compared to 70 in the Caribbean. Different motion sequences thus determine how many workers are needed at a machine to achieve the required target. You won’t find this in a textbook.”
Actually taking hold of the tools is also a kind of quality control for Jörg Reimer. “I can see whether the design is fit-for-purpose or whether there are any difficulties.” Customers and users thus play a major role in what and how things are made in Zarrentin, rather than just coming from the development departments. “This principle has propelled us right to the front on a global scale. It shows why thinking differently and developing differently is so fundamentally important!”
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
The engineering sector in Germany still has a great innovative spirit. “But we need to make huge great effort to make sure we don’t get overtaken. In other words, “made in Germany” is still an effective argument in Asia or North and South America. But there are already signs that others aren’t sleepwalking developments either. The car industry is a prime example. China no longer has any reason to hide.”
Jörg Reimer perceives a certain change in the engineering sector, with a trend to smaller machines. The number of specific features will increase, he is quite sure about that. “Two or three smaller machines are replacing the usual flagship. This really is a trend, and it’s a trend for simplicity.” This is the ultimate sophistication, as Leonardo da Vinci once said. VARIOVAC also has a slogan for this insight: Simpler. Faster. Better.
Around 20 percent of VARIOVAC’s employees are engineers. Their focus is on customising existing standards or platforms. “Design to order” is the way forward for special engineering. Developing special components is part of everyday business. “Every day our aim is to build and design machines that are customised. They must be as simple as possible to use.” Sensors are only deployed to a limited extent. The food industry requires meticulous cleaning processes. Complicated machines would need too much cleaning.
Jörg Reimer would like to implement scientific findings. “It would be great if Schwerin had a corresponding university. Wismar is already a bit too far away from us here in the far west of the state.” A research approach would really help with packaging materials, for example. “Having students on board would boost our potential.”
Limiting factor: staff shortage
The Hidden Champions on the shore of Lake Schallsee have plans for future expansion, as is the case every five years. They certainly have the space available – one advantage of this particular location. Staff issues are the limiting factor, says the VARIOVAC boss. “We hire characters, we train skills”, he says, describing one strategy for counteracting the shortage of qualified and skilled workers. The other consists in digitalisation and using AI. “This offers huge potential also for smaller companies like ours. It’s a case of interconnecting our sales, design and production workflows, with the aim of releasing 30 to 40 percent of the workforce for other tasks. We see this as a chance, but don’t have the capacities at present to put it into effect.”
It remains a race against time. “By 2030, we want to have a workforce of 420 to 450 employees generating 100 million Euro in annual turnover”, says Jörg Reimer looking ahead. The company has just completed a shipment building. Other construction plans and a completely new road layout are already on the table. The CEO states not without pride that their machinery is among the most advanced in Germany. No machine is more than five years old. “But additional staff would let us produce and sell more.”
VARIOVAC PS SystemPack GmbH thus exemplifies the engineering sector, which comes second only to food production in terms of turnover and employees in the manufacturing industry in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Taken together, both sectors generate about 4.3 billion Euro in turnover and employ 10,000 workers, according to statistics provided by Schwerin Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
The Chamber confirms that the whole sector is being impacted by the global trend towards sophisticated special machines, offering positive chances for development in the long term in view of the technological know-how. Many companies are following the spirit of the times and specialising in future industries such as renewable energies, bioengineering and medical technology together with microsystems technology.
VARIOVAC PS SystemPack GmbH
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