Torsten Ratzmann has been strengthening the egeplast management since 2019 and has since been highly valued not only professionally but also personally. With a good mix of drive and intuition, he introduced a successful new lean strategy with the internal ImPROVe program, on the basis of which egeplast was able to win the coveted category victory for “excellent series production” at the renowned “Factory of the Year” competition last year. A great success and a good reason for an interview with Torsten Ratzmann, egeplast Managing Director for Operations and Innovation.
You joined egeplast in 2019 and have changed a lot since then. What were the first or most important optimization potentials that you saw?
“Through my professional experience in the field of production, I saw optimization potential with a fresh perspective. However, the real challenge was not so much in recognizing optimization potential, but rather in taking the employees along in such a way that they also support the need for change. Methods and expertise can be read up on and learned more or less easily. But convincing an employee to leave behind old work processes, perhaps lived for years or decades, and to embark on new paths is the real core of such a project.”
“I think that in the beginning there must be a certain sensitivity for the basic problem. You also have to be prepared to pick up the team accordingly. Last but not least, you have to be able to build on good managers who also go along with this path.
In the past, lean or automation was often associated with job cuts, which in my opinion is one of the biggest mistakes that was made in the early stages of implementation. Because it’s not about cutting jobs. Instead, good lean management gives employees structures, methods, processes, etc. with which they can work better, faster and easier. The moment the team recognizes this, each individual pulls better to get more out of the company in the quintessence with the same means, also the same number of employees. This allows everyone to work better, hopefully even easier, and at the same time increase output. That is my basic understanding and my goal when it comes to lean and I have apparently successfully conveyed it to the team.”
Is that also the reason why egeplast received the Factory of the Year award in your opinion?
“That was certainly an important factor. I have said it often and I would like to emphasize it again: This prize cannot be won by a single person, it only works if a complete team works well together, inspires each other and together has the discipline to drive change. I am fortunate to be able to say: I have found a team that was not only willing to embrace new things, but also to consistently maintain changes in the long term. This was driven forward to a significant extent by Dr.-Ing. Isabell Fiebig, Dr.-Ing. Tobias Hallmann and Michael Büser.”
What significance did the participation in the Factory of the Year competition have in the daily work? Or in other words: How present was the goal of the category-winning?
“I am convinced that a common goal motivates and drives people. That is why we integrated a category victory at the Factory of the Year into our strategy early on and defined it as a concrete goal. We had this clear and transparently communicated goal, which can be specifically determined by the key figures defined for the competition, permanently in mind. This gave us, in a way, the basis on which we achieved a corresponding optimization in many areas.
Also by repeatedly looking at and evaluating the key figures for the competition, we were able to achieve improvements for the company in many points. Specifically, I mean processes, procedures or also topics such as a good understanding of our production and products. Last but not least, this also includes the fact that the employees in production have developed a new kind of mindfulness for these points.”
You make it sound plausible and simple. Was it? Can you name the biggest hurdle?
“Would it be easy, everyone could do it! Especially since we as medium-sized companies are confronted with certain restrictions in terms of resources, was one of the big questions for us: How do we set up this topic in parallel with normal day-to-day business. Sto create capacities, or correctly rather ‘free up’, was certainly one of the right and important decisions, but the implementation was all the more challenging. The fact that we succeeded in this first fundamental step was but in my opinion the basis for the overall success. In return, our size then helped us in a way also again. Because as a medium-sized company you also have advantages, such as shorter or faster decision-making processes, but in our case also a more personal way of working, a very good cohesion and in the end then a consistent working towards a common goal.”
Congratulations again on the award. What’s next?
“Let me put it this way: The concept of taking a certain metric as a strategic brand has certainly worked for us. Therefore, I see us continuing to maintain this idea of success. Which trophy we are aiming for next has not yet been decided, but I certainly have a few in mind. It is important to me to find a competition that also goes hand in hand with the next level of professionalization for us. By that I mean that we will not only participate somewhere with the goal of an award, but the final goal should always be a further development of the company. In any case, I am very optimistic about the future and I am quite sure that the company egeplast will continue to win prizes if it participates in competitions. ”
