Geba Kunststofftechnick, Ennigerloh, Germany

Two generations of compounders in the Gnegeler family, owners of Geba Kunststofftechnick (Ennigerloh, Germany), see their future following customers around the world.

In doing so, the husband and wife co-owner team (Liane and Jochem Gnegeler) and son Sven, a managing director, have expanded their horizons and opened plants around the globe to serve automotive and electronics customers with engineering compounds.

Jochem Gnegeler is a trained mason but his passion to tinker with all things mechanical led him to compounding. He and his wife started from scratch, concentrating only on engineering compounds. His wife handles the business end while he oversees technology. The operation, which started in 1986 in Ennigerloh, Germany, has since expanded with plants in Ahlen, Germany; St. Veit an der Glan, Austria; one in Valencia, Spain; and a soon-to-open plant in the Mexico City area.

“We have made it our policy to follow our customers when they move,” says Liane Gnegeler. The Austrian operation, which officially opened late last year, targets markets of Geba’s customers outsourcing to Eastern Europe.

Why select Austria and not move directly to Eastern Europe? Customers in this region are primarily Tier One and Two transplants serving the growing automotive market sprouting up in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Hungary. Jochem Gnegeler says the Austrian county of Carinthia on the border to several Eastern European countries provides the right kind of infrastructure, good roads for quick transportation, the ease of dealing with public officials in his own language, as well as an area hungry for industrial investments.

“The assistance we received from the development agency in Klagenfurt, Austria was enough to convince us that we made the right decision,” Gnegeler says. “Our building permit was completed in six days, which included the weekend. When we indicated we were having problems finding adequate housing to rent for our staff, the mayor of St. Veit took an afternoon off to accompany us to find apartment space.”

When the compounder family decided in 1997 to follow its Tier One automotive lighting supplier Heller to Spain, son Sven, then 23, volunteered to handle opening the new Spanish branch. He says he wanted a challenge as well as to prove himself; he didn’t want people one day to say he was just being handed the operation from his parents or, to use a witty phrase from Hollywood’s golden era, “The son also rises.”

It was a gutsy call for a young person to make, especially one with only a smattering of school Spanish to support him in his first dealings. But Sven Gnegeler handled the negotiations, oversaw the plant building and development, and helped grow the business to where it today produces a turnover of €6 million with its staff of 22, running four Leistritz compounding extruders.

Sven Gnegeler has hired some Spanish nationals who went to Germany as “guest workers,” learned the local language, and become proficient compounder operators before moving back to their home country. Sven Gnegler says about a quarter of the Spanish staff now speaks German.

Jochem Gnegeler, an avid sailor, originally imagined that locating the Gebaplant on the coast of the Mediterranean would be an ideal location to combine work with pleasure. So far his sailboat has spent more time docked in Valencia than at sea because he finds too little time to be away from the office.

Last year the company saw sales of about €25 million and Geba reinvests 15% of its sales in new technologies such as cryogenic grinding (February 2007 MPW, p. 39), plants, and buildings. Why the jump across the Atlantic to Mexico? Again customer proximity in the NAFTA markets was the deciding factor. “Whenever our customers move into other regions to establish new branches, we follow them if we possibly can,” says Liane Gnegeler.

Robert Colvin • [email protected]