22 October 2008
Mechanical Engineering Award for Schunk
Entrepreneur Heinz-Dieter Schunk received the third German Mechanical Engineering Award.
The executive partner of the clamping and gripping technology specialist Schunk GmbH & Co. KG, Heinz-Dieter Schunk, received the German Mechanical Engineering Award at the 3rd German Mechanical Engineering Summit recently. The distinction was handed out by the business newspaper Produktion. A jury of experts from business and science thus acknowledged the life’s work of the family entrepreneur from Swabia.
Under H.-D. Schunk’s management, a small garage operation grew into an international innovations foundry with 1,800 employees. Precision products from Schunk are used in numerous industries to optimize quality and efficiency. Schunk attributes his success to his work maxim: “If you consistently come first in terms of quality and service, you can also aim a little higher in terms of price.”
Schunk is the third winner of this award, following Prof. Dr.-Ing. E.H. Berthold Leibinger of Trumpf and Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Dieter Kress vom Mapal of Dr. Kress in having the honour bestowed.
He is known as a staunch defender of “location Germany.” Over the past two years, his company has invested around €10 million in expanding production at the Brackenheim-Hausen location. At the head office in Lauffen am Neckar, the company intends to expand capacity by about a third with an expenditure of some €20 million. Site expansions are planned in Mengen, as well.
“By concentrating on our locations in Germany, we remain flexible and are therefore able to meet market requirements with technological developments within the company within a minimum time frame,” says Schunk.
The significance of family entrepreneurship is demonstrated at Schunk GmbH by the fact that the children of Heinz-Dieter Schunk, Kristina and Hendrik, have both assumed management duties at the company. Internal training is important to the award-winning executive also; the portion of the Schunk GmbH workforce represented by trainees reportedly stands at 12%.
For further information:
Schunk GmbH & Co. KG
Lauffen/Neckar, Germany
www.schunk.com
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