HANDLING

In 2008 Carl Stahl Kromer GmbH managed to increase its turnover by 7.5 per cent to EUR 5.4 million – 30 percent of which generated by doing business with the automotive industry. “Despite the tough times in the US automotive industry the United States was our strongest market with a growth rate of ten percent”, said Wolfgang Funk, Director Carl Stahl Kromer GmbH. In his opinion, the success of the businesses bases upon the superior quality of its balancers and fetchers, holding welding guns of up to 150kg and saws in slaughterhouses of up to 95kg which can be handled easily. The strongest balancers are designed to carry weights of even up to 400kg.
Kromer and four additional vendors from Japan, Italy, India and the US supply 80 percent of the world market. In 2008 the University of Esslingen compared products of three weight classes (4kg, 14kg and 85kg) in a tough 15 categories review. The products had to compete e.g. on precision of elevating, endurance, availability of spare parts and delivery times.
The result: Kromer scored 93.4 out of 100 points and finished the review on the leading position, leaving the competitors far behind. Funk commented: “We might be twice as expensive as the Indians and 25 percent more expensive than the Japanese, but our products last five times as long as the devices of our best competitor.”
Apparently Fiat recognised that huge advantage which enabled the breakthrough of Carl Stahl Kromer in Italy. The company generates 45 percent of its revenue in Germany and 13 percent in the US, followed by France, Austria, Brazil, the UK and of late Italy. Sixty percent of the 50.000 tools are balancers. The left forty percent are fetchers, mostly carrying drills, turnscrews and further tools from one to ten kilograms in assembly lines making them easily accessible for mechanics.
Wolfgang Funk estimates a world market share of 35 percent for Carl Stahl Cromer. The company is solely producing its devices in Freiburg, Germany employing 27 staff with a huge in-house production depth. Survey and the feedback from the market, praising the quality of the devices, demonstrate the success of this strategy. In 2008 Funk bought a new machining centre for EUR 300,000, invested EUR 200,000 in new tools and spent EUR 100,000 on the advancement of the company’s fetchers which will enter the market in the second term of 2009.
“Outsourcing the production to a low-costs country would cause a negative impact on the quality of our products”, said Funk, stressing his commitment to his German employees “who help us pro-actively to improve our products and who are open for change and innovation”. Consequently he estimates a six percent growth rate for 2009 – including strong earnings.


www.kromer-balancer.de

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