Good Perspective for Packaging Machinery - kenyadetails

Other subjects included the growing lack of qualified personnel. He contrasted this with the excellent perspectives for engineers and qualified technical personnel in the mechanical engineering sector and mentioned the recruiting portal talentmaschine.de as an initiative by the VDMA to promote young talents. He concluded his speech with the economic significance of protecting intellectual property and fighting product piracy.

Friedbert Klefenz, Chairman of the Specialist Department for Packaging Technology and President of interpack, then examined the position of German manufacturers of food processing and packaging machines as technology leaders and global market leaders. He underlined this with production numbers and the exports to the largest sales regions and identified important trends within the industry. He also stressed the growing importance of Africa as a market, primarily the Sub-Saharan region. At the end of his speech he commented on the Save Food issue.  

The prognoses for 2014 assume a growth in production of around three per cent for mechanical and plant engineering. With an order span of 5.8 months the German manufacturers are in a good position. Another cause for optimism is the growing demand for exports to EU countries and North America, primarily to the USA. The recovering economy and the trend towards re-industrialisation can be felt more and more in this area. A development which offers great opportunities particularly for German machine manufacturers due to the good reputation of machines and systems “Made in Germany”. In this context he sees the transatlantic free trade agreement TTIP as an opportunity rather than as a threat.
Dr Festge stressed the fact that despite all the turbulences on the global markets, the Euro has proven a stable currency in recent years – and that without the Euro, German mechanical and plant engineering would not be where it is today. At the end of January 2014, over 995,000 women and men worked in mechanical and plant engineering with almost 100,000 new jobs having been created within five years. More new jobs would be desirable, but this is often made difficult by not being able to find suitable employees – specialists with increasingly higher qualifications are needed due to the increasing technical demands within mechanical and plant engineering.

According to a VDMA survey in 2013, 16.7 per cent of employees in the mechanical engineering sector were engineers. 20 years ago it was ten per cent and only seven per cent in 1982. One in two manufacturers want to hire more engineers in the years to come, for successful research and development is a must if the German mechanical and plant engineering sector is to keep the competition at bay and survive on the international market considering the high wages in Germany. The VDMA presents examples for power of innovation and research results from the industry, universities and research facilities at its Technology Lounge in hall 5, stand J38.

Dr Festge emphasised that the lack of new young employees is one of the biggest problems. The recruitment of new talents should therefore already start in schools. The VDMA has set up the recruitment portal talentmaschine.de to get more young people interested in mechanical engineering. On this platform they can learn all about career options and specific opportunities.

The increasing development of manufacturing towards Industry 4.0 underlines that mechanical engineering as one of the pre-eminent high-tech industries needs the best minds to remain competitive in the long run.

Dr Festge went on to explain that growing product piracy is a another great problem. Piracy has caused the German mechanical and plant engineering industry a loss in turnover of 7.9 billion Euro last year – this sum could secure around 38,000 jobs. According to the latest studies, 71 per cent of mechanical engineering companies suffer losses from piracy while the number rises to 83 per cent for the manufacturers of food processing and packaging machines.

But how do the product pirates get their hands on the know-how of German mechanical engineering companies? Direct copying through reverse engineering is the primary source. This is followed by the classic methods of industrial espionage and the analysis of technical documents which manufacturers have to provide in the framework of their duties of disclosure.

Product piracy is not a trivial offence – it jeopardises jobs in Germany and ultimately also the consumers through poor quality. This is why the VDMA calls on the authorities for more resolute action against product pirates and their takers. A cooperation agreement with the Domestic Intelligence Service of the Federal Republic of Germany was signed for this purpose at the Hannover Messe.

Klefenz sees the great interest from exhibitors in the interpack 2014 as a confirmation of the justified optimism in the industry. The entire available trade fair area has already been fully booked for over a year. Furthermore the developments of recent years have demonstrated impressively that more and more customers worldwide place their trust in German machines and systems. Half of all brewery machines, one in three machines for the production of sweets and confectionery, one in three packaging machines as well as one in four meat processing machines were made in Germany. In 2013, the manufacturers of processing and packaging machines achieved a production volume of around 12 billion Euro, exporting more than 85 per cent of all goods manufactured to over 100 countries – an increase of 5.4 per cent over the previous year.

Germany is considered to be the largest manufacturer and exporter of packaging machines worldwide and is clearly ahead of the Italy as the second largest competitor in this segment. More than 80 per cent of the machines manufactured in Germany in 2013 with a value of six billion Euro were exported. The most important sales markets are Europe (44 per cent), Asia (22 per cent) and North America (13 per cent). The US market is currently experiencing a positive development with demand rising by 27 per cent to 600 million Euro in 2013.

Machines for manufacturing sweets are experiencing a worldwide boom thanks to the increasing demand for chocolate, sweets or chewing gum. With a share in the worldwide market of 40 per cent and a volume of 301 million Euro, German mechanical engineering companies are the largest suppliers. The most important individual sales market was Russia with a delivery volume of 53 million Euro. It is followed by the US with 31 million and China with 21 million Euro.

The pharmaceuticals market has also developed favourably, primarily through the increasing spread of generic drugs. The VDMA estimates the worldwide market volume of machines for production and packaging of pharmaceutical products at six to seven billion Euro. In 2013, Germany manufactured machines with a total value of around 1.5 billion Euro, mainly for the sales markets in Europe and North America. The IMS Health market research institute estimates that spending on pharmaceutical products will increase by more than five per cent each year until 2017.

Klefenz gave special attention to the African sales market, primarily the sub-Saharan region. Continuing population growth, increasing urbanisation and a steadily growing middle class expand the demand for food and beverages processed and packaged to modern standards. Between 2002 and 2013, the German industry for food processing and packaging machines nearly tripled its exports to the Sub-Saharan region from 142 million Euro to 393 million Euro. The most important customers are South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya. But Klefenz also points out that Africa as a market requires the participants to have great staying power in order to survive occasional setbacks.

VDMA and UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, signed a cooperation agreement last year. The objective is to set up joint competence centres in developing and newly industrialised countries for training and educating specialist personnel on site to allow optimum use, operation and maintenance of the machines used. The focus is not only on expanding market opportunities but rather on providing development opportunities for the people in those countries while improving their food supplies. A training and service centre in Kenya for training courses about hygiene and handling of food and packaging is currently being planned.