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“Agility is an absolute prerequisite for
an organization to be successful in

digitalization.”

Georg Stausberg. CEO

“We are building the bridges between

data and material ows and between Mr Stausberg, do you remember taking your first that are meanwhile being marketed or are currently
be trialled as prototypes. When putting together and
the virtual and real worlds.” steps into the new Digital Age? organizing the project team, we also tested new
Jochen Adler. CTO This was more of a creeping process than a forms of collaboration, which have proven to be
conscious step. It started with me using the Internet
effective and are now being rolled out in other
and e-mail – first on PCs, then on mobile divisions of the company.
En-route to becoming end-devices. Meanwhile, digital technology has Can you elaborate a little on these new forms of
invaded every aspect of our lives, be this in our
homes or in our modern cars. About four years ago,
collaboration?
a digital trendsetter the latter resulted in our company starting to consider The speed and dynamism of the development of processes. T
how we could create additional customer bene-fits
digital products and solutions is breath-taking. Agility

using artificial intelligence. And automobiles are
thinking and
organization to be successful here. Our project group
today increasingly differentiating themselves from is therefore an absolute prerequisite for an units, innov
Talking to Georg Stausberg, CEO, and each other more by means of digital assistance has been able to organize itself and – without any reality and

systems than through classical transmission or
clear hierarchies – only had to interact with a
Jochen Adler, CTO chassis technology. We want to become the textile functional steering committee. It was important that What can you

Oerlikon?
we also had representatives from China and India,
machine construction trendsetter for technologies of
this kind. two of our most important markets, on board. To this I would say
How does a manmade fiber systems world market leader with end, we were able to include local aspects early on. and producti
fibers, nonw
currently more than 3,000 employees successfully undergo digital What have you done to successfully achieve this in Departmental boundaries also have to disappear our pledge i
transformation? This first and foremost requires an economically solid collaboration with colleagues and customers? when developing digital products. The Development, hardware. We
Even in economically difficult times, we had the
foundation and numerous digital change modules such as IT, Customer Services and Operations departments of the syste
organizational adaptability, agility and the qualifying of employees. courage to invest in the future. Following detailed can only develop multifunctionally-interesting digital with digital
Georga Stausberg, CEO, and Jochen Adler, CTO describe the exciting strategy discussions within the management team, solutions if they work together. our mission
we decided to set up an international project group
path the Oerlikon Manmade Fibers segment is embarking on to create two years ago. In discussions with research promote the
new digital products and services with superlative customer benefits. Mr Adler, you have been our CTO since 2017. What
institutes, companies from various sectors, in-house have you done to master digital trans-formation? we are deplo
experts and numerous customers, the group Very much in line with our ‘We drive the markets’ newly-integr
developed concrete ideas and analyses on which maxim, we are once again ramping up the speed. specializes
digital products and solutions could be interesting for This means that we have established and expanded transport, p
our customers and what customer benefits could be digital pacemakers on the basis of our product and end product
generated with these. The result is numerous ideas service portfolio and tried-and-tested innovation this with ou
May/June 2019