»Customers for life – clear goal is to become a service-oriented company«

Interview with Lutz Leonhardt, new Head of Logistics, Assembly and Service

 

NILES-SIMMONS: Hello Lutz, thank you very much for taking the time to talk briefly about yours­elf and your posi­tion in our com­pany. Let’s start in a very clas­si­cal way about yours­elf: What was your career before NILES-SIMMONS?

Leon­hardt: Thank you. I star­ted by stu­dy­ing mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring at Chem­nitz Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­sity, which I com­ple­ted in 1992. My car­rier star­ted as a ser­vice engi­neer at MAN Pla­mag in Plauen, a prin­ting machine manu­fac­tu­rer. After 5 years I chan­ged to the order pro­ces­sing depart­ment and with that the range of duties expan­ded of course – via logi­stics and purcha­sing. Unfort­u­na­tely, I also had to expe­ri­ence an insol­vency, which I hel­ped to handle. This also invol­ved making a lot of peo­ple red­un­dant, which really takes its toll. Espe­ci­ally when you have to fire your clo­sest confidants.
Unfort­u­na­tely, after that there was no attrac­tive offer in the imme­diate vici­nity, so I accepted one from Augs­burg at the com­pany Manroland.

 

NILES-SIMMONS: But that also meant fur­ther away from your family and a com­ple­tely new area of respon­si­bi­lity for you.

Leon­hardt: Yes, that’s both true. My family lives in Sax­ony and my area of respon­si­bi­lity was now in eCom­merce. This sec­tion  was to be fun­da­men­tally rebuilt and I then took on the posi­tion as head of the online shop for spare and wear parts. Since I had­n’t had much to do with online shops until then, I thought about it for a long time – but then accepted because of the very exci­ting position.

 

NILES-SIMMONS: An online shop for repla­ce­ment and clo­sure parts also depends on the pro­ducts and their avai­la­bi­lity. This clo­ses the cir­cle to your pre­vious career.

Leon­hardt: Abso­lut­ely – and these are exactly the topics I also addres­sed. It quickly became appa­rent that, in addi­tion to impro­ving mar­ke­ting and shop func­tions, the avai­la­bi­lity of parts also had to be increased by means of stock­pi­ling. Of course, this also included fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment of the usage pro­per­ties of spare and wear parts in order to stand out from the com­pe­ti­tion, which was also visi­ble in the form of pro­duct piracy.

 NILES-SIMMONS: Were you able to bring back ser­vice business?

Leon­hardt: The tur­no­ver in the online area of the ser­vice was increased from 5 to 15 mil­lion EUR per year. And that was just the begin­ning and the dis­cer­ni­ble poten­tial was huge. The cus­to­mers told us what they nee­ded and we expe­ri­men­ted a lot. Little by little, I built up my own micro­c­osm in the field of eCom­merce. This included our own purcha­sing depart­ment, because it could react fas­ter, our own logi­stics and our own dispo.

 

NILES-SIMMONS: So how did you go from the online world back into the glo­bal sup­ply chain?

Leon­hardt: (laughs) It’s very simple: A new mana­ging direc­tor arri­ved and he said, if it works for the online shop, why can’t I do it for the whole com­pany? I thought about it again for a long time, but in the end I deci­ded to do it because it was once again a nice challenge.

 

NILES-SIMMONS: You have been with NILES-SIMMONS for over a year now. How did the change to Chem­nitz come about?

Leon­hardt: I got an offer from you. The nice thing about this offer was that I am close to my family again. The work in Augs­burg was great, but the family life suf­fe­red a lot. That’s why I deci­ded to go to Chem­nitz and work for NILES-SIMMONS.

 

NILES-SIMMONS: We hope you have been able to settle in well in your three areas of ser­vice, assem­bly and logi­stics. The logi­stics area was not ori­gi­nally inten­ded for you. How did you come to be in charge of all 3 areas?

Lutz Leon­hardt: Based on my pre­vious expe­ri­ence, it was clear to me that for good ser­vice and good assem­bly, you also need good logi­stics – you can no lon­ger sepa­rate it. And for the logi­stics area, NILES-SIMMONS was also loo­king for a new oppor­tu­nity to build up the area at that time. This fit­ted in quite well with the views of the manage­ment and with mine that I should take over the logi­stics area too.

By the way, I have alre­ady sett­led in very well. I have met and I am still mee­ting many great peo­ple who are open to what I want to change. Col­le­agues who are also wil­ling and open to new goals and it’s great to see how col­le­agues are pul­ling along. We can only achieve change tog­e­ther and ever­yone can con­tri­bute with their ideas and experience.

I like the »we« fee­ling and the heart and soul that is evi­dent ever­y­where. You can feel the team spi­rit very well and I abso­lut­ely feel like a team player.

 

NILES-SIMMONS: What has alre­ady chan­ged since you took over the areas of ser­vice, assem­bly and logistics?

Leon­hardt: It was par­ti­cu­larly important to me that my col­le­agues notice that some­thing is chan­ging for the bet­ter. That is always important for moti­va­tion when you address new things, that some­thing hap­pens as soon as pos­si­ble. In addi­tion to regu­lar mee­tings and adapted pro­ces­ses, I think we have also mana­ged to adapt the mind­set I men­tio­ned. Away from »it’s always been like this« to »how can we help the cus­to­mer quickly, effi­ci­ently and on a long term basis«.

We have alre­ady imple­men­ted various mea­su­res regar­ding order and cle­an­li­ness in the assem­bly and logi­stics areas. We are also inves­t­ing in pre­mi­ses and equip­ment to improve pro­ces­ses and working con­di­ti­ons. For exam­ple, the the sec­tion for the assem­bly of tur­ning-mil­ling units  was com­ple­tely refur­bis­hed in order to  fur­ther ensure very high com­po­nent qua­lity and to pro­vide employees with a plea­sant working environment.

And this is to con­ti­nue. Among other things, we will improve the office situa­tion for our Ser­vice Solu­ti­ons team in the near future too.

Of course, we still have to adapt our pro­ces­ses to the needs of our cus­to­mers and that will cer­tainly take some time, but we are on a really good way.

 

NILES-SIMMONS: Since you have alre­ady men­tio­ned the out­look, what is your goal for the future at NILES-SIMMONS? What would you like to achieve or make happen?

Leon­hardt: I think the big­gest chall­enge will be to main­tain the cur­rent focus and com­mit­ment over the coming months and years and to con­ti­nue to deve­lop. The clear goal is to become a ser­vice-ori­en­ted com­pany – »Cus­to­mers for life« – and to streng­then and shape this idea among the employees in my team and in all other teams of the company.

As machi­nes become more and more inter­ch­an­geable, ser­vice beco­mes more and more important to stand out, to dif­fe­ren­tiate and of course to streng­then cus­to­mer loyalty.

Through regu­lar cus­to­mer visits, we reco­gnize the great poten­tial. Our cus­to­mers are asking more inten­si­vely for various ser­vices and we are recor­ding a con­stant increase in our ser­vice reve­nues. I am very gra­teful that the manage­ment shares these ideas and sup­ports the neces­sary changes.

We also want to drive for­ward digi­tal busi­ness models in ser­vice and deve­lop new ones, whe­ther pre­dic­tive main­ten­ance or con­di­tion monitoring.

We would also like to fur­ther improve ser­vice avai­la­bi­lity and respon­si­ve­ness accor­ding to 24/7.

The topic of employee trai­ning is also par­ti­cu­larly close to my heart. We will dis­tri­bute the know-how of our employees among seve­ral heads through con­ti­nuous trai­ning in order to move away from sin­gle sources and to offer our employees the oppor­tu­nity for fur­ther deve­lo­p­ment. Of course, this is a leng­thy and dif­fi­cult pro­cess, but there is no alternative.

Over­all, howe­ver, we have alre­ady been able to achieve a lot, which is also con­firmed by our cus­to­mers. The chan­ges have been very posi­tively recei­ved and that is the best and most important feed­back. »Cus­to­mers for life”.

 

NILES-SIMMONS: Thank you very much Lutz for the short insight into your career and your new func­tion at NILES-SMMONS. We wish you con­tin­ued suc­cess and fun with the upco­ming tasks and chan­ges and look for­ward to an exci­ting col­la­bo­ra­tion. Thank you very much.