What long-term goals is J. Schneider prusuing in order to secure and further expand its role as a “hidden champione” in the future?

Ben Huber: Industry in Germany is currently undergoing a transformation – international competitive pressure is increasing.  To secure the future of the company, we must actively shape this change with our innovative strength. Fortunately, we have already established ourselves in many attractive future markets with our products and technologies.

In which technologies or markets does the company see the greatest opportunities for growth in the next five to ten years? How do you see this for your business areas?

Torsten Ruf: There are several. The energy transition, grid stabilisation and the associated electrification are important issues, and not only in Germany. Transformers, such as those we are already developing and building today, are extremely important both for feeding energy generated by wind and photovoltaics into the grid and for upgrading the grids. However, the development of e-mobility on the railways is also progressing rapidly, creating a market that also requires transformers.

Michael Schweiger: In addition, safety technology is becoming increasingly important. Protecting systems and data from voltage fluctuations will be one of the major challenges of the future. To this end, we develop and manufacture uninterruptible power supplies, for example, which are used worldwide and are essentially safe power supplies made in Offenburg. The development of materials and their coating, to name another example, also poses ever new challenges for power supplies. Keeping up with these developments and being part of them is the key to success. 

Johannes Anti: At the Electric Drive Service Centre, development is shifting from the repair and maintenance of DC motors to the development of modern drive concepts. High demands on robustness, reliability and, above all, energy efficiency require the use of new drive concepts that are implemented with electronically controlled motors. Our team has a good mix of long-standing, experienced employees and young, newly trained specialists. It is immensely important to stay on the ball with good training and further education.

How does the company intend to respond to the growing demand in the renewable energy sector, particularly for wind power and photovoltaic systems?

Marco Geiler: Due to our excellent sales performance in recent years, we have steadily expanded our production capacities. As we are now reaching our limits in terms of space, we are currently looking intensively into further expansion opportunities. We are currently in the concept planning stage for a new service centre to make room for capacity expansion in transformer construction.

However, finding additional employees is even more important at the moment. We have advertised a large number of vacancies. Skilled workers in electrical engineering or mechanics, as well as semi-skilled workers, are very welcome at our company. What is important here is motivation, the ability to integrate and enjoyment of work. And last but not least, we are looking for trainees every year. They are our future! Only with them will we be able to master the challenges of the future. It is also important to offer them prospects after their training. Our retention rate is well over 90%. In order to become even more attractive to this target group, we are continuing to improve the quality of our training and regularly invest in a modern training environment.

After training, we offer additional development opportunities in the form of further training and trainee programmes. Many of our managers were trained at J. Schneider. Because one thing is clear: only with well-trained and motivated employees can we achieve our goals for the future.