..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

Issues:

Editorial

Success Factor: Personnel

Sale of EDAG IT Solutions

Everythings different

EDAG: Exhibitions and Shows

Living Knowledge Management 5. FEM conference in Rdesheim am Rhein

Speedy EDAG Staff

EDAG Concept Car Keinath Takes the Key Role in TV Thriller

A Giant in Transit AudiTT XL sculpture flies to China

EDAG Presentation at BMW in Landshut

Innovative Adhesive Bonding in Automobile Production

Contact: Christoph Horvath

Manager Public Relations, Fulda
Tel.:++49 (0) 6 61-60 00-5 70
E-mail: christoph.horvath@edag.de
Graphics/Layout: Karen Eckert
Marketing Department
Tel.:++49 (0) 6 61-60 00-7 54
E-mail: karen.eckert@edag.de

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

Dear members of staff,

At this point, I would like to thank all members of
staff who have supported me and my Board team
throughout the necessary change processes.

As the business year 2006 now draws to its close,

this is the appropriate time to look back on what
we have already achieved, and talk about our
targets for 2007, the year ahead of us.

Together, we have proved that success is possible,

even in difficult market situations and economic
climates provided you have the courage to implement changes and take up new business ideas,
even if these happen to go beyond the bounds of
more traditional paths.

With the backing of a strong, long-term investor,

we set ourselves two central targets for 2006:
1. Re-structuring the company by streamlining
internal structures, and clearly establishing EDAG
and its range of services as the leading partner for
the package development of modules, complete
vehicles and production facilities, through to the
realisation of these.

It is in this spirit that we shall approach the new

business. EDAG is not a stagnating company, but
one which is very much alive; this we have already
proved, and shall continue to do so in the future.
EDAG has a target. Our intention is to be the leading
partner to the mobility industry, also providing our
know how to new fields for us on land, at sea, and
in the air. This is something we will achieve
through our own growth, and if necessary by
means of acquisitions.

2. Improving economic turnarounds

As we can see today, we have succeeded in achieving
both targets!
Despite intense, cut-throat competition and the
ongoing consolidation process within our branch,
we have still managed to assert ourselves to an
exceptional extent on the market. The two
complete development projects for two OEMs
acquired in the middle of the year, along with
numerous production facility development and
construction projects, provide us with positive
feedback to the effect that our customers honour
our reorganisation, and that EDAG is still a soughtafter partner.

My best wishes to all members of staff within the

EDAG Group, and to all customers and suppliers,
for a happy Christmas and a good start to a
successful new year in 2007.

It is particularly gratifying to know that, working

together with you, we have also been able to bring
about a considerable improvement in the difficult
economic situation of the last few years, and that
the companys key figures give evidence of a clear
upwards trend.

Dr. Klaus Blickle

President and CEO

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

Success Factor: Personnel

members of staff would like to move ahead,

though not at any price - family and the private
situation still need to be considered. Implementing
this in a tangible programme will be the challenge
for 2007.

News, situational analysis and strategy. Using

this motto, we will, in future issues, be interviewing members of EDAGs board to find out
more about the work they do in their areas of
responsibility. For this issue, we have been
talking to Dr. Udo Hls, Head of Human
Resources and Legal Affairs, about human
resources development and recruitment at
EDAG.

edag newsletter: After a very lean time, the

market for external engineering services is now
reviving again. The forecasts say that things on the
market for qualified staff will once again become
tight.

edag newsletter: People are a companys

central success factor. This sentence can be found
in the self-portrayals of just about every company.
EDAG uses it, too.

Dr. Hls: This trend can already be observed today.

The so-called age pyramid will heighten this
problem further. In the near future, there will be
fewer and fewer young people available on the
labour market.

Dr. Hls: This sentence holds especially true for

service providers, whose services are naturally
displayed via the staff.

This is why it is so important for a company to hold

on to its existing labour force, to improve their
quality, and create external growth in such a way
that it is bearable. For this reason, apart from
attending to the above-mentioned points of focus,
it is absolutely essential to intensify the advancement
of our own trainees and junior staff, and to cultivate
even stronger relations with universities and colleges.

The important thing here is to rid oneself of any

excessively transfiguring ideas concerning this
subject, and to set up tangible programmes instead.
One future target will be even if it does sound
very hackneyed to push and encourage our staff.
In the future, we will need to employ greater
clarity and authority in showing staff what ways
are open to them with regard to their careers,
while at the same time pointing out just what the
price will be, and that the employee will have to
make a decision for him or herself. It will also be
important to offer demanding jobs to employees
who place a strong emphasis on family and private
life. However, for anyone wishing to pursue a toplevel career, a certain amount of experience will be
absolutely essential, and will generally involve
professional situations which will be challenging,
and may well strain private matters. This applies to
EDAG as well as to other companies.

edag newsletter: How high do you rate the

willingness of the staff to continue working for
EDAG ?
Dr. Hls: I am utterly convinced and here I am
also drawing on my experience in other companies
that EDAG is an exceptional company: in the
positive sense of the word. But even top companies
experience hard times, and for us, the last year was
one of these times. Naturally, the image of the
employer has not emerged unscathed, and we
must now work to make ourselves more attractive
to our staff again. Openness, transparency,
interesting projects, reasonable rates of pay, less
bureaucracy, and last but not least corporate
success are all attributes to which we need to pay
heed, and against which management and staff
alike must measure their strength.

The staff survey carried out earlier this year will

help us here. Not only did it contain useful pointers
regarding potential for improvement, it also
provided direct content-related indications: many

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

edag newsletter: Within the branch, EDAG is well

known as the leading partner to the international
automotive industry. On a broader scale, however,
the company is little known to the general public.
Does this make it more difficult to acquire new
staff ?

uncalled for here, seeing as graduates are known

to be strongly influenced by how well a company
is known. We have noted, for instance, that
competitors listed on the stock exchange have a
higher recognition factor here.
edag newsletter: : What significance does the
subject of training have in your personnel work ?

Dr. Hls: Of course, the automobile and aircraft

manufacturers are generally better known, by
virtue of their high profile names and trademarks,
and this means that they have a good chance of
arousing the interest of graduates.

Dr. Hls: Due to the ever-increasing requirements

EDAG has for specialised and highly specialised
staff, it is essential that we train our workforce of
tomorrow ourselves. This is why we will next year
be taking on twice as many trainees and apprentices
as we did in 2006. I am pleased that EDAG, and
particularly our trainees and apprentices, have
been gaining top marks for over 30 years. Just
recently, Thorsten Kiefer received the distinction of
being nominated the best builder of car bodies
and vehicles by the Hessischen Handwerkstag (the
trade commission of the state of Hesse). Five other
apprentices and trainees gained top results in their
final examinations. These results strengthen our
resolve to continue our hard work in the area of
training, keeping to high standards, in terms of
both quality and quantity.

However, graduates are well aware of, and honour

EDAGs offer of allowing new entrants to the job
market to take on responsibility at an early stage,
to become involved in diverse complete development projects, or even gain international experience
at one of our international subsidiaries.
In a recent survey carried out be the renowned
economic journal Wirtschaftswoche, EDAG was
selected as one of the top 100 employers among
students and graduates of technical subjects.
We were pleased at that. I am sure that, at EDAG,
we have attractive personal and technical career
development opportunities. We will place a
greater focus on our offer for long-term technical
and management careers. There are many graduates
who do not yet know that, by joining EDAG, they
could be working not just for practically every
international automobile manufacturer, but also
for the aerospace industry. The development of
EDAGs new rail and shipping fields will open up
more extremely interesting career opportunities.

edag newsletter: Thank you very much for this

interview!

In addition to this, we will be targeting efforts at

increasing the extent of EDAGs fame among
graduates; false modesty would be absolutely

Information
Top exam results (very good and good)
Melanie Weber (draughtswoman), Fulda
Johannes Weber (draughtsman), Fulda
Stefanie Storch (office clerk), Fulda
Mirko Spiegel (precision mechanic), Fulda
Thomas Neuhauser (draughtsman), Sindelfingen

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

Sale of EDAG IT Solutions

Acquisition of first external project with GHU, the
nationwide tyre trading group.
Anyone who develops complete vehicles and
production facilities for the international automotive
industry needs to be able to depend on a worldwide
IT network and perfect IT service. For its worldwide
development business, EDAG has thus not just set
up an internationally linked computer centre, but

Unternehmens-Partnerschaften AG (GHU) with

comprehensive support in setting up and hosting
IT solutions. At the beginning of November, Bernd
J. Hoffmann, Managing Director of GHU AG, and
EDAG IT Sales Manager, Thomas Heumller, gave
the official starting signal for the long-term
co-operation between the two Fulda companies.

also has a software development team of its own,

and qualified personnel on the service hotline, who
even have special know how in the field of the SAP
business software. Demand- and service-oriented
solutions are always to the fore, in order to provide
the 4,000 internal customers within the EDAG
Group with the assistance they need to carry out
their day-to-day work.

EDAG will be responsible for the introduction of the

SAP business software and its long-term support for
the tyre wholesaler operating throughout Germany.
As one of the few companies officially certified by
SAP, EDAG, as a Customer Competence Centre
is authorised to provide support for external users
of the business software.
For the hosting of the software, too, GHU will be
using the capacity of EDAGs global computer centre.

What could be more obvious than to offer this

tried and tested international expertise in IT infrastructures and applications to the external market,
thought the team around Markus Diegelmann,

With our IT services, we are primarily approaching

medium-sized companies, is how Markus
Diegelmann explains the sales concept. Where
necessary, we make our global IT infrastructure
available to our customers in a hosting model, or
create their own IT infrastructures for them. From
partial solutions to complete offers, whatever the

EDAGs Head of IT.

The business idea and sales offensive started in the
middle of the year have recently paid off, with the
acquisition of the first major project.

customer wishes.

The EDAG IT team is to supply the Fulda company

"Gesellschaft
fr
Handelseffizienz
und

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

Sabine Koch

Branch secretary in Sindelfingen since September 2006

Everythings Different
The first days of a branch secretary in
Sindelfingen

Graw, our controller, a really pleasant colleague,

will be leaving for Australia in December. And even
if colleagues are not going to live on a different
continent, they are still always travelling within
Germany. Travel planning has turned out to be one
of the central tasks of an EDAG secretary.

Which company are you going to? asked

colleagues and friends at my old company. EDAG
in Sindelfingen, a provider of development services
and constructor of manufacturing plants that
works for DaimlerChrysler, Porsche, Airbus and
co., I answered irritably. And what do they do?
Make mirrors? No. They do everything, from
designing vehicles and production plants through
to low-volume production. Oh right, they sell
know how. OK, so that says it all: the company
produces nothing, so it is nothing. Nevertheless, I
still went ahead and started my new job as branch
secretary, gaining my first impressions. For me, the
following rules emerged: First of all, everyone uses
the familiar du form, when speaking to each
other; if there is anyone who doesnt, then you
dont ask the reasons why. Secondly, you can save
yourself a great deal of work if you know who to
ask about things.

Colleagues humour can make a new member of

staff feel much happier. Christoph Horvath allayed
my fears about not being able to find him in the
Fulda office by explaining, You just go in, listen
for a moment or two, and as soon as you hear a
loud male voice, follow the sound of that voice,
and youll find my office straight away. It worked,
too.
Dr. Klaus Blickle is not often seen in Sindelfingen,
usually only in the Internet. I had barely set foot in
Fulda, when I saw him dash by. I didnt want to
stop him, the people who work for EDAG are
always frantically busy, with plenty to do; I expect
that this applies to the executive board, too.
My first two weeks were spent in Sindelfingen,
Fulda, Rsselsheim and Ingolstadt. One thing is
certain: if Fulda has the most beautiful scenery, it is
also the most hectic of the four offices. One other
thing: in Fulda, there are fleet managers. It has not
yet been decided who exactly will be in the crew,
but if there is to be a Captain Kirk, then Im
switching to Fulda

The staff survey, which can be read in the Internet,

provides food for thought. The fact that I am a
secretary and not an engineer has also turned out
to have its advantages. In Sindelfingen, people
come up to the desk for a few hasty words, Hi.
My name is ., I just wanted to say hello, even
though Ill be in South Africa tomorrow. Stephan

EDAG: Exhibitions and Shows

International Show in Geneva in March.

At the very beginning of the new year, EDAG will

be exhibiting at a number of international shows.
The first we will be exhibiting at will be the most
important automobile exhibition of all, the Detroit
Motor Show in January 2007. In February there will
then be the Car Symposium in Bochum, before the
world premiere of EDAGs latest concept car at the

As part of its university marketing programme,

EDAG will have a stand of its own at the company
contact market at the University of Applied
Sciences in Hamburg, where we hope to secure
connections with students of vehicle technology.

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

Living Knowledge Management

5. FEM conference in Rdesheim am Rhein

On two days, the FEM specialists took the

opportunity to demonstrate their specific processes
and methods, illustrating these with examples from
their day-to-day work. In order to be able to attend
this exchange of experience, the participants
volunteered to give up a day of their own time.
The personal exchange of information, particularly
between the automotive and aerospace fields, is a
valuable experience, emphasised Matthias
Gaubatz, Head of the CAE team in Rsselsheim,
and organiser of the 2006 FEM conference.
Additionally, our meetings help to ensure that we
have all managed to stay together as one big
family. Knowing each other personally means
that the way we work together on a day-to-day
basis is far less complicated.
This living knowledge management has already
borne fruit. Computing staff from the aerospace
sector (EDAG SIGMA in Hamburg) are already
supporting colleagues from EDAGs automotive

Knowledge management is vital for technically

oriented companies, as it permits access to the
results of technological progress, and thus,
ultimately, secures the competitiveness of the
staffs know how.
The 103 FEM (Finite Element Method) specialists
from EDAG and EDAG-SIGMA demonstrated the
fact that efficient knowledge management does
not automatically call for complex and expensive
database solutions at this years FEM conference
held in Rdesheim at the beginning of November.
The meeting was first called into being 5 years
ago, on the initiative of the staff from the
FEM/Product Development department, and is
held every year, with either Fulda, Rsselsheim,
Mnchen, Wolfsburg, Hamburg, Ingolstadt or
Sindelfingen (i.e. where the majority of computing
specialists are at home) taking turns to host it.

branch, and vice-versa.

An initiative which should not just be repeated, but
also imitated by others.

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

Speedy EDAG Staff

teams, such as Opel, who finally won, and

sub-contractors. EDAGs hobby drivers were up
against stiff competition, as among the 210
drivers, there were even a number of racing pros.
Thanks to their driving skills and box technique,
took the 10th place from a total of 20.
Our congratulations go to the team, and we hope
that they will be back at the starting line for EDAG
next year, where they might hopefully repeat their
greatest success so far: In 2005, they took second
place.

It is a well known fact that EDAGs staff are able to

develop motor vehicles perfectly and in the shortest
possible time. That they are also in a position to
move quickly on four wheels was amply proved by
the 11 colleagues who took part in the go-cart
race which has been hosted by PS:Design since
1999. The challenge: In one night, the EDAG
racing team was to complete 666 laps of the gocart track in Limburg (almost 1,000 km) in as short
a time as possible. The opponents were OEM

EDAG Concept Car Keinath Takes the Key

Role in TV Thriller

company, and will have a central role in the 90minute film. The plot: A mysterious hit-and-run
accident on the motorway, the search for the car
of the future, an investigator who finds that the
interests of her insurance and those of the
automotive industry clash with each other all the
classical ingredients for an exciting, entertaining
TV film.
As well as the Erlknig designed by EDAG
the film will also feature well known German
actors and actresses, such as Silke Bodenbender,
Henry Hbchen, Axel Milberg, Felix Eitner and
Michael Brandner. The film equipment crew were
so taken with the EDAG concept cars that they are
now looking into the possibility of using our
Cinema 7D in a different film, by means of computer
technology.
As yet, the date of the TV premiere of the two
EDAG studies has not been disclosed.
We will keep you informed as to the date of the
showing of the Erlknig.

After the EDAG concept car Keinath GT/C was

presented to the public for the first time ever at the
Geneva Show in February 2001, it will be celebrating
a second premier next year namely as the secret
lead in the TV thriller Erlknig currently being
made for the ZDF channel by Colonia Media, a
subsidiary of Bavaria Film GmbH. It is to play the
role of the new model of a fictive automobile

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

A Giant in Transit

An unusual task for the EDAG project team and

AudiTT XL sculpture flies to China

not just because of the dimensions involved to

handle with the logistics professionals DHL.

After a stop-over at Munich Airport, the XL sculpture

The only means of transport capable of conveying

made by EDAG (weighing in at 10 tonnes, and

the huge freight in one piece was the massive

measuring over 10 metres long and 3 metres high)

AN124 transport machine of Ruslan International.

and originally exhibited at the Brandenburg Gate,

On 30th October 2006, the valuable freight left

has now been flown to China for promotional

the Frankfurt-Hahn airport, bound for China. Once

purposes. The giant Audi TT will be set up at

it has reached its destination, EDAGs tried and

Chinas largest automotive exhibition close to

tested project team will supervise the setting up of

Peking, where it will provide the automobile

what is probably the largest automobile in the

manufacturer from Ingolstadt with an advertise-

world.

ment which cannot be overlooked.

the opening of the event, Sepp Neuhusler, EDAG

EDAG Presentation at BMW in Landshut

Key-Account Manager, placed a strong emphasis

Our company is the first tier 1 supplier to have

on the central, unique selling point of EDAG

been given the opportunity to personally introduce

namely the inter-linking of product and production

itself as a supplier, by giving a presentation at the

in development through to plant construction.

BMW production site in Landshut. The presentation

Further talks covering the fields of Product

was held on 13th November 2006. In addition to

Development, Plant Engineering und the safe-

the presentation, there was a technical exhibition,

guarding of developments by EDAGs Polymeric

and a series of talks was delivered, all aimed at

Service rounded off EDAGs comprehensive

conveying to BMW the complex spectrum of services

supplier presentation.

we can offer our customers. In his presentation at

..............edag....newsletter....No.5...2006.....

precise and low-cost integration of the application

into the production lines of the manufacturers. A
team of FFT and EDAG employees took up the
challenge and developed the prototype of an

Innovative Adhesive Bonding in Automobile

Production
Any German who hears the name tesa, will

automated solution, which was successfully tested

in the body of a passenger vehicle in July 2006.
The team was supported by SRD, a company from
Enger in North Rhine Westphalia, who are specialists
for labelling technology.

automatically think of adhesives mainly of the

sticky tape which can be found in practically every
household or office in the country.
What just about nobody knows is that acos a
subsidiary of tesa also offers products for the
automotive industry. Their product range includes
an item similar to fabric tape, which has been used
for some time as a lower-priced alternative to the
rubber plugs previously used to close the mounting
holes and paint drainage holes in the car body. It is

A cooperation agreement was entered into by all

the project partners in June 2006, to lay the
foundations for the joint production-ready
development and marketing of the product.
Tesas innovative product range, coupled with FFTs
manufacturing technology has already aroused
great interest among a number of automobile

extremely important that all holes are perfectly

sealed after the car body has been built and then
painted, as this provides long-term protection from
corrosion.
For the adhesive bands available as stamped parts,
there was previously no automated process for the

manufacturers, as the newly developed solutions

offer the promise of new savings potential in
vehicle production.

Editorial deadline: 30. January 2007

The next issue of edag newsletter will appear on
15. February 2007.

10