WESSLING - Quality of Life

Wessling Innovation Award Granted in Lyon

Altenberge. This year’s WESSLING Innovation Award for the best employees’ ideas was presented at WESSLING’s branch.

The international jury of the Altenberge-based company decided on five innovations altogether that stood out the competition. The ideas were as varied as the company’s service portfolio, providing a constant improvement of quality, safety, health and environmental protection. The award ceremony took place at the annual Company Meeting of the international WESSLING management. Beside the award money, the winners were also invited to a sightseeing tour of France’s third-largest city and enjoy Lyon’s culinary delights. The company’s owner Dr. Erwin Weßling congratulated the winners on their success: “Innovations are the motivation for our – and our customers’ - future corporate success. Particularly our customers are a source of inspiration and motivating force because of our close cooperation.”

Engineers René Bison and Christopher Teichmann, in cooperation with the German Federal Institute for Material Research and the Federal Environmental Office, had developed a testing method for candle emissions. One of their developments was among others the construction of a test chamber for candles at the Altenberge laboratories. WESSLING thus developed a test standard that is going to be part of the RAL-quality candle testing. Importers and producers will benefit from this validated method and availability of a safety test.

Certified food chemist Christina Schnell and the Head of WESSLING Moscow, Vyacheslav Shumrikov, developed a customised solution for export products to Russia by making use of WESSLING’s international presence. The export of food to Russia demands a certification according to GOST-R or technical regulations. The customer can address WESSLING Germany and will then be provided with consultancy and support in logistic dealings. Communication is done in Russian, English, or German. The certification is performed by WESSLING Russia in close cooperation with the local certification offices and authorities.

French chemist Audrey Goutagnieux, Head of Laboratory in Lyon, succeeded in achieving a technical innovation for water sample preparation. From now on water samples can be prepared six times faster than the traditional method to be examined for the biodegradability of ingredients. All locations between Budapest, Lyon, Krakow and Altenberge will profit from this process improvement.

Another technical improvement has already been executed by Eva Schröder and Oliver Teeken from the Altenberge branch. The use of an intermediate pressure regulator at gas supply stations made it possible to replace the usual 200 bar gas cylinders by 300 bar cylinders. This innovation has lead to less cylinder exchange, storage, and delivery costs.

Gisela Telgmann, Head of Accounts, as well as Doris Thier were awarded for their optimisation of operational and management procedures and information flow based on new software.

The Wessling Group has made innovation management a cornerstone of their policy to generate beneficial development for products, services, organisational structures and processes. Innovations have made the company internationally successful on the market since its foundation in 1983 and, as a family-owned company, an exception in the business. In 2009 the company was awarded the innovation award for improved processes at increasing efficiency in biogas facilities (Innovationspreis Münsterland für Prozessverbesserungen zur Effektivitätssteigerungen in Biogasanlagen). With the Wessling Innovation Award, including a total prize money of 10,000 Euros, the company annually awards the best ideas of its 1,000 employees at its European branches.