Edag Newsletter 05 2006 e

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

Issues:

» Editorial

» Success Factor: Personnel

» Sale of EDAG IT Solutions

» Everything’s different

» EDAG: Exhibitions and Shows

» Living Knowledge Management – 5. FEM conference in Rüdesheim am Rhein

» Speedy EDAG Staff

» EDAG Concept Car Keinath Takes the Key Role in TV Thriller

» A Giant in Transit – AudiTT XL sculpture flies to China

» EDAG Presentation at BMW in Landshut

» Innovative Adhesive Bonding in Automobile Production

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Contact: Christoph HorvathManager Public Relations, Fulda

Tel.:++49 (0) 6 61-60 00-5 70

E-mail: [email protected]

Graphics/Layout: Karen Eckert

Marketing Department

Tel.:++49 (0) 6 61-60 00-7 54

E-mail: [email protected]


Dear members of staff,

As the business year 2006 now draws to its close,this is the appropriate time to look back on whatwe have already achieved, and talk about our targets for 2007, the year ahead of us.

With the backing of a strong, long-term investor,we set ourselves two central targets for 2006:

1. Re-structuring the company by streamlininginternal structures, and clearly establishing EDAGand its range of services as the leading partner forthe package development of modules, completevehicles and production facilities, through to therealisation of these.

2. Improving economic turnarounds

As we can see today, we have succeeded in achievingboth targets!

Despite intense, cut-throat competition and theongoing consolidation process within our branch,we have still managed to assert ourselves to anexceptional extent on the market. The two complete development projects for two OEMsacquired in the middle of the year, along withnumerous production facility development andconstruction projects, provide us with positivefeedback to the effect that our customers honourour reorganisation, and that EDAG is still a sought-after partner.

It is particularly gratifying to know that, workingtogether with you, we have also been able to bringabout a considerable improvement in the difficulteconomic situation of the last few years, and thatthe company’s key figures give evidence of a clearupwards trend.

At this point, I would like to thank all members ofstaff who have supported me and my Board teamthroughout the necessary change processes.

Together, we have proved that success is possible,even in difficult market situations and economicclimates – provided you have the courage to imple-ment changes and take up new business ideas,even if these happen to go beyond the bounds ofmore traditional paths.

It is in this spirit that we shall approach the newbusiness. EDAG is not a stagnating company, butone which is very much alive; this we have alreadyproved, and shall continue to do so in the future.EDAG has a target. Our intention is to be the leadingpartner to the mobility industry, also providing ourknow how to new fields for us on land, at sea, andin the air. This is something we will achievethrough our own growth, and if necessary bymeans of acquisitions.

My best wishes to all members of staff within theEDAG Group, and to all customers and suppliers,for a happy Christmas and a good start to a successful new year in 2007.

Dr. Klaus Blickle

President and CEO

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Success Factor: Personnel

News, situational analysis and strategy. Usingthis motto, we will, in future issues, be inter-viewing members of EDAG’s board to find outmore about the work they do in their areas ofresponsibility. For this issue, we have beentalking to Dr. Udo Hüls, Head of HumanResources and Legal Affairs, about humanresources development and recruitment atEDAG.

edag newsletter: “People are a company’scentral success factor”. This sentence can be foundin the self-portrayals of just about every company.EDAG uses it, too.

Dr. Hüls: This sentence holds especially true forservice providers, whose services are naturally “displayed” via the staff.

The important thing here is to rid oneself of anyexcessively “transfiguring” ideas concerning thissubject, and to set up tangible programmes instead.One future target will be – even if it does soundvery hackneyed – to push and encourage our staff.In the future, we will need to employ greater clarity and authority in showing staff what waysare open to them with regard to their careers,while at the same time pointing out just what theprice will be, and that the employee will have tomake a decision for him or herself. It will also beimportant to offer demanding jobs to employeeswho place a strong emphasis on family and privatelife. However, for anyone wishing to pursue a top-level career, a certain amount of experience will beabsolutely essential, and will generally involve professional situations which will be challenging,and may well strain private matters. This applies toEDAG as well as to other companies.

The staff survey carried out earlier this year willhelp us here. Not only did it contain useful pointersregarding potential for improvement, it also provided direct content-related indications: many

members of staff would like to move ahead,though not at any price - family and the privatesituation still need to be considered. Implementingthis in a tangible programme will be the challengefor 2007.

edag newsletter: After a very lean time, the market for external engineering services is nowreviving again. The forecasts say that things on themarket for qualified staff will once again becometight.

Dr. Hüls: This trend can already be observed today.The so-called “age pyramid will heighten this problem further. In the near future, there will befewer and fewer young people available on thelabour market.

This is why it is so important for a company to holdon to its existing labour force, to improve theirquality, and create external growth in such a waythat it is “bearable”. For this reason, apart fromattending to the above-mentioned points of focus,it is absolutely essential to intensify the advancementof our own trainees and junior staff, and to cultivateeven stronger relations with universities and colleges.

edag newsletter: How high do you rate the willingness of the staff to continue working forEDAG ?

Dr. Hüls: I am utterly convinced – and here I amalso drawing on my experience in other companies– that EDAG is an exceptional company: in thepositive sense of the word. But even top companiesexperience hard times, and for us, the last year wasone of these times. Naturally, the image of theemployer has not emerged unscathed, and wemust now work to make ourselves “more attractive”to our staff again. Openness, transparency, interesting projects, reasonable rates of pay, lessbureaucracy, and last but not least corporate success are all attributes to which we need to payheed, and against which management and staffalike must measure their strength.

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edag newsletter: Within the branch, EDAG is wellknown as the leading partner to the internationalautomotive industry. On a broader scale, however,the company is little known to the general public.Does this make it more difficult to acquire newstaff ?

Dr. Hüls: Of course, the automobile and aircraftmanufacturers are generally better known, by virtue of their high profile names and trademarks,and this means that they have a good chance ofarousing the interest of graduates.

However, graduates are well aware of, and honourEDAG’s offer of allowing new entrants to the jobmarket to take on responsibility at an early stage,to become involved in diverse complete develop-ment projects, or even gain international experienceat one of our international subsidiaries.

In a recent survey carried out be the renownedeconomic journal “Wirtschaftswoche”, EDAG wasselected as one of the top 100 employers amongstudents and graduates of technical subjects.

We were pleased at that. I am sure that, at EDAG,we have attractive personal and technical careerdevelopment opportunities. We will place agreater focus on our offer for long-term technicaland management careers. There are many graduateswho do not yet know that, by joining EDAG, theycould be working not just for practically everyinternational automobile manufacturer, but alsofor the aerospace industry. The development ofEDAG’s new rail and shipping fields will open upmore extremely interesting career opportunities.

In addition to this, we will be targeting efforts atincreasing the extent of EDAG’s fame among graduates; “false modesty” would be absolutely

uncalled for here, seeing as graduates are knownto be strongly influenced by how well a companyis known. We have noted, for instance, that competitors listed on the stock exchange have ahigher recognition factor here.

edag newsletter: : What significance does thesubject of training have in your personnel work ?

Dr. Hüls: Due to the ever-increasing requirementsEDAG has for specialised and highly specialisedstaff, it is essential that we train our workforce oftomorrow ourselves. This is why we will next yearbe taking on twice as many trainees and apprenticesas we did in 2006. I am pleased that EDAG, andparticularly our trainees and apprentices, havebeen gaining top marks for over 30 years. Justrecently, Thorsten Kiefer received the distinction ofbeing nominated the best builder of car bodiesand vehicles by the Hessischen Handwerkstag (thetrade commission of the state of Hesse). Five otherapprentices and trainees gained top results in theirfinal examinations. These results strengthen ourresolve to continue our hard work in the area oftraining, keeping to high standards, in terms ofboth quality and quantity.

edag newsletter: Thank you very much for this

interview!

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InformationTop exam results (“very good” and “good”)

Melanie Weber (draughtswoman), Fulda

Johannes Weber (draughtsman), Fulda

Stefanie Storch (office clerk), Fulda

Mirko Spiegel (precision mechanic), Fulda

Thomas Neuhauser (draughtsman), Sindelfingen


Sale of EDAG IT Solutions

Acquisition of first external project with GHU, the

nationwide tyre trading group.

Anyone who develops complete vehicles and

production facilities for the international automotive

industry needs to be able to depend on a worldwide

IT network and perfect IT service. For its worldwide

development business, EDAG has thus not just set

up an internationally linked computer centre, but

also has a software development team of its own,

and qualified personnel on the service hotline, who

even have special know how in the field of the SAP

business software. Demand- and service-oriented

solutions are always to the fore, in order to provide

the 4,000 internal customers within the EDAG

Group with the assistance they need to carry out

their day-to-day work.

What could be more obvious than to offer this

tried and tested international expertise in IT infra-

structures and applications to the external market,

thought the team around Markus Diegelmann,

EDAG’s Head of IT.

The business idea and sales offensive started in the

middle of the year have recently paid off, with the

acquisition of the first major project.

The EDAG IT team is to supply the Fulda company

"Gesellschaft für Handelseffizienz und

Unternehmens-Partnerschaften AG” (GHU) with

comprehensive support in setting up and hosting

IT solutions. At the beginning of November, Bernd

J. Hoffmann, Managing Director of GHU AG, and

EDAG IT Sales Manager, Thomas Heumüller, gave

the official starting signal for the long-term

co-operation between the two Fulda companies.

EDAG will be responsible for the introduction of the

SAP business software and its long-term support for

the tyre wholesaler operating throughout Germany.

As one of the few companies officially certified by

SAP, EDAG, as a “Customer Competence Centre”

is authorised to provide support for external users

of the business software.

For the hosting of the software, too, GHU will be

using the capacity of EDAG’s global computer centre.

“With our IT services, we are primarily approaching

medium-sized companies,” is how Markus

Diegelmann explains the sales concept. “Where

necessary, we make our global IT infrastructure

available to our customers in a hosting model, or

create their own IT infrastructures for them. From

partial solutions to complete offers, whatever the

customer wishes.”

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Everything’s DifferentThe first days of a branch secretary inSindelfingen

“Which company are you going to?” asked colleagues and friends at my old company. “EDAGin Sindelfingen, a provider of development servicesand constructor of manufacturing plants thatworks for DaimlerChrysler, Porsche, Airbus andco.,” I answered irritably. “And what do they do?Make mirrors?” “No. They do everything, fromdesigning vehicles and production plants throughto low-volume production.” “Oh right, they sellknow how.” OK, so that says it all: the companyproduces nothing, so it is nothing. Nevertheless, Istill went ahead and started my new job as branchsecretary, gaining my first impressions. For me, thefollowing rules emerged: First of all, everyone usesthe familiar “du” form, when speaking to eachother; if there is anyone who doesn’t, then youdon’t ask the reasons why. Secondly, you can saveyourself a great deal of work if you know who toask about things.

The staff survey, which can be read in the Internet,provides food for thought. The fact that I am asecretary and not an engineer has also turned outto have its advantages. In Sindelfingen, peoplecome up to the desk for a few hasty words, “Hi.My name is …., I just wanted to say hello, eventhough I’ll be in South Africa tomorrow.” Stephan

Graw, our controller, a really pleasant colleague,will be leaving for Australia in December. And evenif colleagues are not going to live on a differentcontinent, they are still always travelling withinGermany. Travel planning has turned out to be oneof the central tasks of an EDAG secretary.

Colleagues’ humour can make a new member ofstaff feel much happier. Christoph Horvath allayedmy fears about not being able to find him in theFulda office by explaining, “You just go in, listenfor a moment or two, and as soon as you hear aloud male voice, follow the sound of that voice,and you’ll find my office straight away.” It worked,too.

Dr. Klaus Blickle is not often seen in Sindelfingen,usually only in the Internet. I had barely set foot inFulda, when I saw him dash by. I didn’t want tostop him, the people who work for EDAG arealways frantically busy, with plenty to do; I expectthat this applies to the executive board, too.

My first two weeks were spent in Sindelfingen,Fulda, Rüsselsheim and Ingolstadt. One thing iscertain: if Fulda has the most beautiful scenery, it isalso the most hectic of the four offices. One otherthing: in Fulda, there are fleet managers. It has notyet been decided who exactly will be in the crew,but if there is to be a Captain Kirk, then I’m switching to Fulda

Sabine KochBranch secretary in Sindelfingen since September 2006

EDAG: Exhibitions and Shows

At the very beginning of the new year, EDAG willbe exhibiting at a number of international shows.The first we will be exhibiting at will be the mostimportant automobile exhibition of all, the DetroitMotor Show in January 2007. In February there willthen be the Car Symposium in Bochum, before theworld premiere of EDAG’s latest concept car at the

International Show in Geneva in March.

As part of its university marketing programme,EDAG will have a stand of its own at the companycontact market at the University of AppliedSciences in Hamburg, where we hope to secureconnections with students of vehicle technology.


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Living Knowledge Management

5. FEM conference in Rüdesheim am Rhein

Knowledge management is vital for technically

oriented companies, as it permits access to the

results of technological progress, and thus,

ultimately, secures the competitiveness of the

staff’s know how.

The 103 FEM (Finite Element Method) specialists

from EDAG and EDAG-SIGMA demonstrated the

fact that efficient knowledge management does

not automatically call for complex and expensive

database solutions at this year’s FEM conference

held in Rüdesheim at the beginning of November.

The meeting was first called into being 5 years

ago, on the initiative of the staff from the

“FEM/Product Development” department, and is

held every year, with either Fulda, Rüsselsheim,

München, Wolfsburg, Hamburg, Ingolstadt or

Sindelfingen (i.e. where the majority of computing

specialists are at home) taking turns to host it.

On two days, the FEM specialists took the

opportunity to demonstrate their specific processes

and methods, illustrating these with examples from

their day-to-day work. In order to be able to attend

this exchange of experience, the participants

volunteered to give up a day of their own time.

“The personal exchange of information, particularly

between the automotive and aerospace fields, is a

valuable experience,” emphasised Matthias

Gaubatz, Head of the CAE team in Rüsselsheim,

and organiser of the 2006 FEM conference.

“Additionally, our meetings help to ensure that we

have all managed to stay together as one big

“family”. Knowing each other personally means

that the way we work together on a day-to-day

basis is far less complicated.”

This living knowledge management has already

borne fruit. Computing staff from the aerospace

sector (EDAG SIGMA in Hamburg) are already

supporting colleagues from EDAG’s automotive

branch, and vice-versa.

An initiative which should not just be repeated, but

also imitated by others.


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Speedy EDAG Staff

It is a well known fact that EDAG’s staff are able todevelop motor vehicles perfectly and in the shortestpossible time. That they are also in a position tomove quickly on four wheels was amply proved bythe 11 colleagues who took part in the go-cartrace which has been hosted by PS:Design since1999. The challenge: In one night, the EDAGracing team was to complete 666 laps of the go-cart track in Limburg (almost 1,000 km) in as shorta time as possible. The opponents were OEM

teams, such as Opel, who finally won, and sub-contractors. EDAG’s hobby drivers were upagainst stiff competition, as among the 210drivers, there were even a number of racing pros.Thanks to their driving skills and box technique,took the 10th place from a total of 20. Our congratulations go to the team, and we hopethat they will be back at the starting line for EDAGnext year, where they might hopefully repeat theirgreatest success so far: In 2005, they took secondplace.

EDAG Concept Car Keinath Takes the KeyRole in TV Thriller

After the EDAG concept car “Keinath GT/C” waspresented to the public for the first time ever at theGeneva Show in February 2001, it will be celebratinga second premier next year – namely as the secretlead in the TV thriller “Erlkönig” currently beingmade for the ZDF channel by Colonia Media, asubsidiary of Bavaria Film GmbH. It is to play therole of the new model of a fictive automobile

company, and will have a central role in the 90-minute film. The plot: A mysterious hit-and-runaccident on the motorway, the search for the carof the future, an investigator who finds that theinterests of her insurance and those of the automotive industry clash with each other – all theclassical ingredients for an exciting, entertainingTV film.As well as the “Erlkönig” – designed by EDAG –the film will also feature well known Germanactors and actresses, such as Silke Bodenbender,Henry Hübchen, Axel Milberg, Felix Eitner andMichael Brandner. The film equipment crew wereso taken with the EDAG concept cars that they arenow looking into the possibility of using ourCinema 7D in a different film, by means of computertechnology.As yet, the date of the TV premiere of the twoEDAG studies has not been disclosed.We will keep you informed as to the date of theshowing of the “Erlkönig”.


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A Giant in Transit

AudiTT XL sculpture flies to China

After a stop-over at Munich Airport, the XL sculpture

made by EDAG (weighing in at 10 tonnes, and

measuring over 10 metres long and 3 metres high)

and originally exhibited at the Brandenburg Gate,

has now been flown to China for promotional

purposes. The giant Audi TT will be set up at

China’s largest automotive exhibition close to

Peking, where it will provide the automobile

manufacturer from Ingolstadt with an advertise-

ment which cannot be overlooked.

An unusual task for the EDAG project team – and

not just because of the dimensions involved – to

handle with the logistics professionals DHL.

The only means of transport capable of conveying

the huge freight in one piece was the massive

AN124 transport machine of Ruslan International.

On 30th October 2006, the valuable freight left

the Frankfurt-Hahn airport, bound for China. Once

it has reached its destination, EDAG’s tried and

tested project team will supervise the setting up of

what is probably the largest automobile in the

world.

EDAG Presentation at BMW in Landshut

Our company is the first tier 1 supplier to have

been given the opportunity to personally introduce

itself as a supplier, by giving a presentation at the

BMW production site in Landshut. The presentation

was held on 13th November 2006. In addition to

the presentation, there was a technical exhibition,

and a series of talks was delivered, all aimed at

conveying to BMW the complex spectrum of services

we can offer our customers. In his presentation at

the opening of the event, Sepp Neuhäusler, EDAG

Key-Account Manager, placed a strong emphasis

on the central, unique selling point of EDAG –

namely the inter-linking of product and production

in development through to plant construction.

Further talks covering the fields of Product

Development, Plant Engineering und the safe-

guarding of developments by EDAG’s Polymeric

Service rounded off EDAG’s comprehensive

supplier presentation.


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Innovative Adhesive Bonding in Automobile

Production

Any German who hears the name “tesa”, will

automatically think of adhesives – mainly of the

sticky tape which can be found in practically every

household or office in the country.

What just about nobody knows is that acos – a

subsidiary of tesa – also offers products for the

automotive industry. Their product range includes

an item similar to fabric tape, which has been used

for some time as a lower-priced alternative to the

rubber plugs previously used to close the mounting

holes and paint drainage holes in the car body. It is

extremely important that all holes are perfectly

sealed after the car body has been built and then

painted, as this provides long-term protection from

corrosion.

For the adhesive bands available as stamped parts,

there was previously no automated process for the

precise and low-cost integration of the application

into the production lines of the manufacturers. A

team of FFT and EDAG employees took up the

challenge and developed the prototype of an

automated solution, which was successfully tested

in the body of a passenger vehicle in July 2006.

The team was supported by SRD, a company from

Enger in North Rhine Westphalia, who are specialists

for labelling technology.

A cooperation agreement was entered into by all

the project partners in June 2006, to lay the

foundations for the joint production-ready

development and marketing of the product.

Tesa’s innovative product range, coupled with FFT’s

manufacturing technology has already aroused

great interest among a number of automobile

manufacturers, as the newly developed solutions

offer the promise of new savings potential in

vehicle production.

Editorial deadline: 30. January 2007

The next issue of edag newsletter will appear on

15. February 2007.

Documents

Edag Newsletter 05 2006 e