Which of your qualities are of particular help to you in your work as quality manager?
Well, it takes a good imagination, an ability to analyse, precision and some talent for organisation. You also need to be communicative and able to work in a team, otherwise you can’t keep such a comprehensive quality management manual up to date, for example. That’s only possible when the continuous exchange of information actually works.

Describe a typical day in the laboratory?
Our customers come to us with very different demands. For us that means that we aren’t just standing by the laboratory apparatus and weighing, analysing and calculating. Rather, we’re collaborating with the customer to come up with actual solutions to problems. And in so doing it often happens that we offer solutions to customers who didn’t even know themselves what they needed. But that’s only because we’re always looking for an even better solution. That’s what we are: conscious of quality based on experience.

How would you describe your company’s special quality?
We understand our customer’s requirements and work out individual solutions for them. And we subject all the developed methods to our own series of tests: I call that “being clever through testing”. Our methods are mature and the related processes are well described. This ensures that our developments can be permanently reproduced to a consistent quality. We look for the optimum process combinations and have a large portfolio of ideas at our disposal. And above all, we have a trained workforce with all the necessary skills. They don’t just know the machines inside out, they also have many, many years of experience with our customers’ raw products and know our customers’ requirements. In addition, our machinery is always state-of-the-art technologically, and the energy efficiency of our systems is being continuously optimised.

What are the greatest challenges in your laboratory?
Of course, I have the most fun when we can work together with the customer’s contact partner, who like us is an expert in his product and is just as passionate about his product as we are. I can work with such customers on an equal footing, and can develop while focussing fully on the target. This often gives rise to business relationships that endure for many years, because both parties appreciate each other’s work and solutions. So that there are no misunderstandings: We work equally hard on behalf of all our customers. From a technical point of view, changes to the grain size distribution and pourability in order to obtain a greater bulk weight are for example both challenging and very important to our customers. That’s because this demands great flexibility. We work out specifications for future production for all plastics such as PE, PA and PU, but also for salts, waxes, melts and other raw material groups. The analysis of powders is an art in itself – but one of which we have excellent knowledge. It becomes particularly interesting when we have to adhere to food and pharmaceutical standards. That’s because this is very much about purity, certification and documentation. We invest a great deal of care here, and sometimes also need some months for the necessary preparation. Strong-smelling powders and sticky or impure source materials also pose a great challenge. We say no to unsafe materials. For everything else, we are the people to come to.

Would you tell us what you’re currently working on?
Hmm, we’re very discreet about that because for our customers, confidentiality is just as important as quality. In general terms however, I can say that one customer needs a precisely defined fine grain yield and a result for their raw material. For that he has worked out a so-called powder curve that we are supposed to realise 1:1 with our method possibilities. We are currently working on these test runs and analyses.