"Operational staff must see digital technologies as partners": Interview with Bernd Hausler (ifm)

The following interview excerpt from the Operations1 podcast is about the connection between digital progress and an innovative corporate culture that never loses sight of the individual. The core of the interview excerpt is the question of how the role of the operational employee will change in the coming years in the face of advancing digitalization and how companies can best respond to this. You can listen to the full interview in the Future Proof Operations podcast.

Bernd, Industry 4.0 has been the topic par excellence in the manufacturing industry over the last few decades. Is that still the case, or have we moved on to something completely different in the meantime?

The slogan "Industry 4.0" is of course a very powerful marketing claim. In concrete terms, it primarily means digital optimization. And behind this stands for ifm the continuation of a digital journey that we successfully started years ago by means of lean management. However, to ensure that we can continue to hold our own in international competition in the future, we need imaginative digital tools. This is especially true in the competition with Eastern European countries and with Asia. Creative solutions are needed to achieve their cost-effectiveness in the future as well. That's why Industry 4.0 is more relevant to me personally today than ever before.

In 2020, you were honored by the "Factory of the Year" awards, which is one of the most prestigious industry competitions in Europe, in the category of securing locations through digitalization. What does this award mean to you and why are you particularly proud of it?

First of all, it was incredibly valuable to have our own daily business evaluated by the Kearney audit team from the outside. This external perspective is incredibly important and helpful, because it opens up horizons in a way that an internal perspective never can. In addition, it was very important for us to receive feedback that we are optimally positioned for the future. And last but not least, it was of course a very enriching experience for our employees to see that their work was valued by an impartial institution and to have it reflected to them that we are all working together on the right issues. If you want to continuously improve the corporate culture, I don't think it's enough to only give appreciative feedback internally. The perspective of appreciation from the outside is also an important basis for satisfaction.

What are these "right issues," as you call them, that you are working on?

First and foremost, working with Lean as the basis for continuous improvement of technical processes and as the foundation of the digital factory. In addition, we are pursuing the goal of remaining competitive with our sister groups in the ifm Group. This is especially important because we want to guarantee our employees at the headquarters here in Tettnang a secure job in the future as well.

Based on this, let's take a closer look at the worker, using ifm as an example: What role do they currently play and what role will they play in the next 10 years in digitized production?

First of all, it is important to say something about the corporate culture, because the role of the frontline worker is based on this: The pillar of the corporate culture at ifm is, on the one hand, that we offer our employees the opportunity to identify with the company in the best possible way and, on the other hand, that we offer them great creative freedom.

How can we imagine this in practice?

The corporate culture of the ifm family essentially lives from uniform standards worldwide. This means, for example, that no matter in which of our plants our employees are, the environment always looks visually the same, recognizable by our workbenches, which are orange and black. This means that there is no feeling of foreignness at all, because people feel directly at home at all locations and can dock on to familiar things. Another characteristic of our "orange blood," as I call it, is that each of our employees is supported in his or her personal development and is given the feeling of being a valuable and irreplaceable member of the company. For example, if you start as a production employee, enjoy your job and want to develop further, you can work your way up to the development department. Creativity and the joy of innovation are therefore very important to us. These opportunities for further development are unique in this form and make working at ifm so special. As far as the role of the worker is concerned, in my experience it is very important that the human being always remains in focus. For me, he was and is the center of production. That's why the digital factory doesn't put him in the background, but rather supports him with the analysis of important data and contexts for decisions.