Schwan-STABILO Heroldsberg — Technikum: Process Development Based on People

Abstract

All but one of the plants featured in this book use production islands. Schwan-STABILO’s Technikum plant, which manufactures cosmetic pencils, goes one step further having divided its main plant into five autonomous units. Each of these small plants is a profit center and has responsibility for new product development and production. This somewhat unusual and decentralized approach has several benefits, such as the proximity between production people and new product development engineers. This plant also excels in process development, as it makes its own production machines and has engineers and operators continuously improving them. We now look in detail how the Technikum plant achieves industrial excellence through its “plant-within-a-plant” implementation.

“Our small plants are fully independent and integrated units which incorporate all resources and functions to fulfill a complete value-adding process.”

Dr. Willy Weiß, Director of the NPD center

WHU doctoral student Andreas Enders contributed to this chapter.