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LISSMAC invests at its Bad Wurzach headquarters

Juli 26, 2022

The Bad Wurzach-based mechanical engineering company LISSMAC has recently been given a new management team. Already this year, this starts with significant investments. After almost 22 years as managing director, Klaus Kiefer went into well-deserved retirement at the end of April. The company has developed very successfully with him at the helm. The product range was expanded, new industries and markets were opened up, companies were acquired and subsidiaries were established worldwide.
When Klaus Kiefer took over the management of the company, which was originally founded in Aitrach in 1979, in August 2000, LISSMAC was still a company of a size where everyone knew everyone else. Today, the company has just under 400 employees.

Now a dual leadership
This growth is also the reason why Klaus Kiefer is being followed by a dual leadership. Dr. Hinrich Dohrmann, who has already been responsible for the technical area as managing director since October 1, 2020, and Daniel Keller, who took over the management of sales and the commercial area at the turn of the year, now lead the fortunes at LISSMAC.
Dohrmann holds a doctorate in mechanical engineering and, after more than 25 professional years, also looks back on many years of international expertise. Keller, who grew up in Unterzeil, is a sales professional with many years of experience; he knows LISSMAC from the ground up.

A huge investment program
Together, they have set themselves a huge program until the company's 44th anniversary in 2023. This began back in May with the groundbreaking ceremony in the so-called cold hall, which will house a new truck scale, new transformers and new hazardous goods storage facilities, in addition to a "drive-over long goods storage facility" for over 600 tons of material. Construction of a new parking lot will soon begin on the company's premises in Gewerbepark West, where LISSMAC has been at home since 1993.
Once the cold storage hall is finished, the construction of a canopy measuring approximately 15 by 70 meters for the existing logistics hall will follow. The final stage of the investments, for which the company says it is investing "several million euros", is the construction of a sheet metal production hall with an area of around 1,400 square meters, including a tower around 15 meters high, in which around 2,500 tons of steel can be stored.

Commitment to Bad Wurzach
"The package of measures in the form of a comprehensive operational realignment serves to optimize the production process," explains Hinrich Dohrmann. LISSMAC is thus also committing itself to Bad Wurzach, he emphasizes: "The location will be expanded and strengthened in the areas of logistics and manufacturing."
The shareholders, these are besides the company founder Siegfried Gebhart and his family also the family of the other company founder Eberhard Schulz, unanimously support this investment package in view of the good business situation and the long-term, sustainable growth. "The corona pandemic briefly caused some unrest in the market in 2020," Daniel Keller looks back, "but in 2021 we had the best sales in the company's history so far, and our order books are still full."

New patents on a regular basis
According to Keller, the production of machines for building construction and civil engineering, such as cranes, lifting platforms or floor saws, account for around half of sales. The remainder is generated primarily in the area of metal processing machines for deburring sheet metal as well as manual and automated handling technology, with a focus on automotive construction. LISSMAC is a very innovative company, the managing directors proudly emphasize. New patents are registered on a regular basis.
At the moment, there is again unrest on the market due to the Ukraine war, but this has not yet had an actual effect on incoming orders. "What we are noticing, of course, are in some cases significantly higher prices for energy, steel and electrical parts," says Dohrmann. In view of the discussions about energy costs and consumption, LISSMAC is currently also examining its own supply. "We want to implement the results of this analysis before the end of the year," explains Dohrmann.

"Juggling" the supply chains
There are a few hiccups in the supply chains. "Juggling is the order of the day here and there, but we are still running at full capacity," emphasizes Dohrmann. According to him, this is possible because LISSMAC successfully switched to a "multi-track material supply, in part increasingly from Germany" for the required materials during the first Corona peak phase.
The loss of Ukraine and Russia as sales markets, on the other hand, does not worry LISSMAC. "The share of these countries in our total sales was less than one percent," Keller said. However, the company did give up its sales location in Russia, which was not established until 2021, because of the Russian war of aggression.

Represented in four countries
As a result, LISSMAC now still operates internationally in France, the United Arab Emirates and the USA, in addition to its headquarters in Bad Wurzach and an assembly site in Beckum, Westphalia. "Our growth opportunities are greatest in Western Europe and the United States," say the managing directors.
In the United States, where LISSMAC has a plant with 20 employees near Albany in New York State, there is a large market for deburring technology in particular, they say. However, LISSMAC still makes about three quarters of its sales in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

High training rate
The strengthening and expansion of the Bad Wurzach site is constantly accompanied by the acquisition of suitable personnel. Like almost all companies in the region, LISSMAC is always on the lookout for qualified technical personnel and trainees. About every tenth permanent employee of the company is in apprenticeship - "and almost always we take over our apprentices", emphasizes Dohrmann. However, he regrets that the number of applicants for the technical professions in particular is low. The question that remains to be answered is what LISSMAC actually means. The company's website clarifies this. "LISSMAC" is an artificial word made up of the first letters of the Latin words Lignum (German: Holz), Saxum (Fels), Serra (Säge) and Machina (machine).

Excerpt from: Schwäbische Zeitung, edition of 15.06.2022