2 3 3the KRONE Group Pioneering work with TrueNet KRONE India, established in 1989 as a joint venture between the then KRONE AG and the Keonics company, looks back over eleven successful
Trang 12 3 3
the KRONE Group
Pioneering work with TrueNet
KRONE India, established in 1989 as
a joint venture between the then KRONE AG and the Keonics company, looks back over eleven successful years
We distributed the LSA-Plus system in such an effective manner that it is now the standard system in India
As early as at the beginning of the 1990s, we specialised in the manufacture
of certain connection components in the
AccessNET and PremisNET area After
initial successes, such as the orders for distribution boxes in the cities of New Delhi and Mumbai, KRONE India now exports Multicom Plus and High Density MDF world-wide
Our factory at Peenya in southern India has a highly qualified and educated workforce KRONE India abandons the country’s traditional training methods and replaces them with advanced, tailor-made opportunities Teamwork is a particularly important form of organisation for the 120 people who work there
KRONE is particularly successful in the market because our seven distributors in the country co-operate with each other, selling our products throughout the entire country
Starting in January 2001, our new factory will enable us to increase our production capacity tenfold at times of peak load
KRONE India was the company’s first subsidiary to be awarded by Rheinisch-Westfälischer TÜV (German auditors) the ISO 9002 certificate as evidence of the company’s excellence in manu-facturing and distributing systems for voice and data networks
We were also one of the first countries within the KRONE Group to introduce TrueNet in November 1999
38 percent of KRONE India is traded
on Indian stock exchanges today - a clear sign of our success In June 2000, we celebrated our 11th anniversary in the presence of Mr Manfred Schneider
S Sivandan
KRONE India
Cinemascope on the PC
KRONE has a new Internet presence
Creative in London
ISAN group seeking strategies
Small teams in Berlin
New products through innovation days
Dear colleagues,
You were already informed that agreement
was reached for the premature termination of
my work for the company Effective as of the
end of August 2000, I will resign from office as
a member of the management of KRONE GmbH
and take up new challenges outside the
KRO-NE Group
Over the past two years, the company
underwent tremendous change and had to
overcome many problems Through your
personal efforts, you contributed towards the
success in restoring a sound and attractive
revenue basis for the KRONE Group and in
launching new, future-oriented activities I would
like to personally thank you for this and for the
trust which you placed in me in this respect
I am confident that you will successfully
pursue this course - supported by the positive
impetus from our parent company, GenTek - and
continue to develop KRONE’s position in this
highly attractive market environment
Wishing you all the best for you professional
and private future, I remain
Your
( Dr Kay Michel, Managing Director )
Trang 2E 3-2000 / P -2- KRONE R
Running to full capacity
Mr Apel, how is the current production performance and the capacity utilisation rate?
Production performance rose more than
20 percent compared to the first six months
of 1999 Capacity is fully utilised, particularly for automatic assembly lines (3 shifts a day,
5 days a week) However, a significant increase in production is also felt in the field
of manual assembly
Which are the consequences of this?
A high availability of technical facilities and plants as well as qualified staff are indispensable The workforce is responding
to the current challenges in an exemplary manner, and immediately handling new tasks with a great deal of self-initiative
Utilisation rates due to customer demand are anti-cyclic when compared
to the labour market What kind of problems does this cause?
Today’s market demands products at ever-shorter notice New priorities must be set virtually every day Without long-term framework agreements, however, it is difficult to guarantee the availability of raw materials, and that’s our problem
What sort of difficulties arise when
it comes to reforming production processes?
Our task in this field is to motivate the workforce who have to implement and support change The complex requirements
of advanced machinery require an ongoing education and further training effort for staff
Which plans and strategic projects were developed in the International Operations fields, also in co-operation with GenTek?
Co-operation with GenTek is excellent
A uniform costing system was introduced for the production sites during the first half
of the year, improving the flow of information and the working climate in the relations with KRONE representatives world-wide
Wilfried Apel was interviewed by
Dr Bernd Buhmann.
Personal brief:
Mr Wilfried Apel joined KRONE
in 1971 as a me-thods engineer As
a “genuine” Berli-ner, he can look back over an almost 30-year career during which he was also technical director
of operating equipment design and tool construction before becoming head of production for various sectors Since 1994, he has been director of the production and logistics division He is married and has one son.
Lost without PC and Internet
Networking via intranet, the Internet and
new media has changed work at KRONE
Employees have faster access to
information “But this also
means”, notes Mr Erhard
Lipinski, the company IT
manager, “that people have
to organise themselves
more and that they must be
more flexible, accept more
responsibility and make
decisions independently”
Take, for example,
development: the PC is used there as a
time-saving and cost-saving tool for
designers The PC reduces the error
frequency when designing samples and
patterns, when making prototypes and
when calculating production and machine
control programs
Mr Uwe Hanelt, sales engineer, handles
almost all of his communications via the PC:
“Our customers are located on the other
side of the globe Personal organisation via
Outlook and e-mail enables me to
communicate with them in a simple, quick
and cost-effective manner In this way, many
problems can be settled directly in Berlin
Trusting the PC, however, is also risky
Mr Ekkehard Schenk from the accounts-payable unit describes his greatest concern:
“Without IT, there would be no information, evaluation or posting - a hardware or software strike brings the entire information system to a halt.” Mr Michael Schlüter
(In-ternational Innovation / Ma-nagement Connectivity) confirms this rising flood of information: “Too much information can be a burden for creativity, all the more so
if people are unable to evaluate and reasonably use information with the help of the PC and the Intranet / Internet.”
Lipinski is certain: “The future will bring global networking, and hence world-wide internal and external communications with advanced information and communication technology.”
Technology will become more complex
on the one hand, but easier to use on the other Data and voice will grow together to form a single technical medium Computer Telephony Integration (CIT) is the name of
a system which will soon link telephone and computer At KRONE, e-commerce will play
an important role in the future A team has already been set up for this new task
Sascha Ersel
Contacts for the north
The marketing campaign “Connectivity
for the New Millennium” is designed to
develop KRONE’s market presence in the
Baltic states, in Scandinavia and the
Bene-lux countries For six months, Mr Andreas
Baitz, sales engineer for the Nordic
countries in the EMEA profit centre, has
been demonstrating our solutions to major
network operators in co-operation with our
agents and the subsidiary, KRONE Norway
The aim is to replace the traditional
LSA-PLUS connection system (particularly the 2
series) with new connection equipment
“We are determined not to respond to the
market, but to drive the market instead in
order to stand out against competitors and copiers”, stresses Andreas Baitz
“Customers are eager to have made-to-measure applications, and that’s where our opportunities are.”
Mr Baitz has abs strips with him, the LSA-PLUS NT product series and the HIGHBAND series; these are the three pillars on which the campaign is based First success has already been achieved; together with Latvian network operator LatTelecom, the use of HIGHBAND for xDSL applications is currently undergoing field testing HIGH-BAND modules are already installed in the field for Tampere Telecom, a network operator belonging to the Finnet group Telia from Sweden and Sonera from Finland also showed keen interest on condition that the HIGHBAND module is modified to withstand the outdoor temperatures prevailing in the far north Flexibility and prompt response
to customer requirements are needed here
LSA-PLUS NT is the focal point of interest
in the Benelux countries In Belgium, for instance, work is underway on integrating
NT modules into Alcatel PABX systems The biggest success so far was recorded in the Netherlands: shipments of NT-modules to the Dutch telecom, KPN, for specially adapted coaxial cable distributors started this year in June
Further demonstrations in Scandinavia are scheduled for this autumn One of the aims is to have HIGHBAND modules and their accessories included in the framework agreements with network operators for the
Working in the future at KRONE
The editorial team
Dr Bernd Buhmann has been head of
corporate communications since January
2000 He holds a doctorate in media sciences
and previously headed the media and PR
division of Berlin Tourismus Marketing GmbH
Mr Buhmann’s responsibilities include external
communications, media contacts, the Internet
relaunch of the KRONE Group, KRONE.COM
and the production of a new image brochure
Volker Röseler has been working for the
company since 1979 He started in the
development department and has been
working there in the optical-fibre technology
unit since 1983 Since 1993, he has been
product manager with a focus on optical-fibre
technology and closures Mr Röseler is a
member of the works council and is the works
council’s delegate to the editorial team in his
capacity as spokesman for PR work cd
Germany
Europe
Trang 3KRONE R E 3-2000 / P
-3-a 51 percent sh-3-are in GenTek which he -3-also he-3-ads
as Chairman of the Board Deputy Chairman is
Mr Paul Meister who is also a member of KRONE’s Supervisory Board, as well as Mr Richard Russell, President and Chief Executive Officer of GenTek.
The telecommunications business, represented principally by the KRONE group, is a cornerstone of the holding which is increasingly gaining importance thanks to good performance and positive industry trends In this field, GenTek’s senior management became interested in telecommunications through its affiliation with Prestolite Wire, another company controlled by
Mr Montrone Prestolite Wire specializes in the development, manufacture and distribution of copper and fiber-optic cable systems for the telecommunications and automotive industries.
Recently, it was announced that GenTek will acquire Prestolite Digital Communications, the division producing cable systems for telecommunication applications, and integrate it with the KRONE group.
GenTek, a technology-driven manufacturer of telecom equipment and other products, was established in April 1999 It originally belonged to the General Chemical Group, which has a 100-year corporate history GenTek was spun off in order
to allow the company’s management to focus
on the activities of General Chemical’s faster
growing segments and to ensure maximum
operational flexibility.
GenTek’s business focuses on three primary
sectors: telecommunications, industrial
manufacturing and performance chemicals The
holding has its corporate headquarters in
Hampton, New Hampshire (near Boston - we
reported in our Quick View Christmas edition last
year), USA.
Mr Paul Montrone who recently visited
KRO-NE GmbH (we reported in our last edition) holds
GenTek – structure and activities
News!
Following a six-month term, the highly
motivated participants in the seminar on
“project-oriented and team-based
leadership” made their final demonstration to
management, the 1st and 2nd management
levels and the works council of KRONE GmbH
The Human Resources Department has
been offering this seminar since 1996 within
the scope of its strategic promotion
programme for young executives It aims at
preparing participants for new challenges
resulting from changed organization, customer
and production structures They develop a
clear view of leadership Participants master
the changes in their own fields of responsibility
on the basis of a project The seminar
strengthens the ability to question things, to
work in teams and to develop solutions The
results of the seminar are used for future
planning by the different departments
The training seminar on “Leadership
-leading - coaching” is based on the experience
previously gained and addresses executives of
the 2nd and 3d management levels, as well as
project and technical leaders The training is
aimed at enabling people to re-design their
leadership role, to get to know the
organization and the people living in it in an
experience-oriented manner, and to develop
trust and openness
The experience-oriented training is carried
out in group of 10 to 12 members and focuses
on handling their personal experience from
everyday life at KRONE This seminar will once
again take place in September because of
strong interest therein A new,
experience-oriented seminar which took place for the first
time in June was titled “Fit for change” On
the basis of “Guiding - leading - coaching”, a
comparable target group is given the
opportunity to take up challenges which
strengthen their personal capacities and hence
make them “fit” to successfully shape
organizational change In order to handle their
tasks, participants need a great deal of
creativity, ideas, the ability to think and act in
networks, as well as the courage and
determination to accept new situations
Participants successfully solve problems, for example, getting a free three-course dinner for twelve people and to have this publicised
in the local press This seminar aims at handling situations which require people to abandon customary forms of thinking
KRONE’s future executives need this new way
of thinking and acting The crucial concept of all three seminars is to generate synergies and networks This means that participants come from different hierarchies and departments
This creates interfaces which enable people
to widen their line of vision Candidates for the seminars are proposed by Human Resources after consultation with the heads
New careers for young executives
Personal - News
■ Mr Manfred Schneider was elected
member of the Supervisory Board of the Business and Economy Promotion Council
at the request of the Society of the Company Associations of Berlin/ Brandenburg, as well as the Berlin Senate
■ Ms Andrea Freitag, Mr Dirk Beckmann (product manager PremisNET) and Mr Jochen Bendixen, Mr Andreas Hochstädt and Mr Carsten Preßler (area
sales manager) are new colleagues at the Berlin location
■ Mr Thomas Glockemann is the new head
of the AccessNET components and systems
department
■ Corporate Communications in Berlin has
its first webmaster: Mr Thomas Schulte.
The second business is the industrial manufacturing business This division produces industrial components for various markets, including the automotive and appliance and electronic industries, and provides component testing services to other manufacturing companies, principally in the automotive industry The third business is the manufacture and distribution of performance chemical products This division’s diverse product portfolio serves customers in many industries, including pharmaceutical and personal care, environmen-tal services, technology and chemical processing Including the acquisition of Prestolite Digital Communications, GenTek operates over 90 manufacturing and production facilities located
in the US, Canada, Australia, Austria, China, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Ireland and Germany GenTek employs a workforce of around 10,500 world-wide, and recorded total sales of over US$ 1.3 billion.
cd, Matt Murphy (GenTek)
Rejoice, users
An experience like in the cinema: 16:9 broadscreen format Contents like a library:
more than 150 pages of information
Access: the world of KRONE A globe with
a graphic 3D effect so realistic that one believes it will leave the website - this
is what users experience when they access the re-launched www.krone com homepage
After months of planning, collecting material and implementing, KRONE now offers the up-to-date and attractive Internet presence which one can expect of a telecommunications company
Besides the web page of the KRONE Group, corporate communications has completely re-designed the KRONE Germany and additionally the EMEA presence Our partner in implementing these pages was the Plenum New Media firm which a newspaper recently rated as one of the 20 most creative agencies Apart from a new concept and new contents, many sub-items were given a much larger content The graphic layout and the possibility to access even the fifth sub-level
by a mouse click are brand new features
The new web-master enables us to update, improve and amend contents at any time The next steps to come in-clude the presen-tation of a large portion of our pro-ducts from the digital library, as well as integration of an e-commerce solution ape
■ The Ministry of Communications, Information Tech-nology and Arts has honoured
KRO-NE Australia This award is given to companies with outstanding achievements in the IT sector
■ KRONE France won a LambdaNET contract for optical-fibre, copper and coaxial cables for First Mark’s transport network with a contract volume of around DM 1.8 million
Germany
Trang 4E 3-2000 / P -4- KRONE R
Junior on the top
The monthly profit of
JUNI-OR KRONE rose 274% When the 1999 annual accounts were presented, it became clear that the junior company has become
an important service company which recorded revenue of some DM 4,000
for product sales and DM 14,600 for
services Sales increased because the
KRO-NE GmbH departments recognised the fact
that JUNIOR KRONE is a cost-effective
supplier (DM 18 to 25 per hour)
The market for products already on offer
for some time such as the “Berlin clock”
-is saturated, whilst new products - such as
“Roll a 6” - turned out to be best-sellers 16
games were sold within four months The
enormous demand could be satisfied only
in part, because the top priority of the
trainees is “Education counts more than the
Junior Company” Sebastian Lehmann
Our closure production at Gladbeck was
shut down at the end of June This
unfortunately meant that many colleagues
lost their jobs because the new owner of
the production facilities at Gladbeck is not
planning any further production activities
there
KRONE will nevertheless continue
to offer closures because they are
an inseparable part of a
complete supplier’s
product range
Closures are
the connecting
elements for
now on be offered from the RXS/Corning
Cable product range as shrinkage or
mechanical closures bearing the KRONE
logo
Shrinkage closures, which are almost exclusively used for copper cables, as well
as mechanical closures protect and cover the wires once splicing has been completed
The physical and chemical properties of the material must be comparable to
those of the cable sheath
Mechanical closures are used in copper networks primarily for high-pair (several thousand pairs) cable connections and branches They are increasingly used in optical-fibre networks which are becoming more and more dominant as this application forbids the use of shrinkage closures because of the high temperature exposure due to the gas flame during the shrinking process
Parallel to these two closure types, we will offer our mechanical ECCON® closures, particularly for optical-fibre applications
The new owner of the plant will act as an OEM supplier [Official End Manufacture] of the necessary parts which will then be completed to marketable closures under KRONE’s control This is currently already done for a bulk order by TELMEX in Mexico
In Berlin, 3000 ECCON®-SMPC 1-OF closures will be assembled and completed
Future orders of this type can be handled in
In July, the first of a regular series of innovation days was held in Berlin Mr Axel Kahsnitz reported on the situation of markets, on strategies and visions for the profit centre Germany Mr Ulrich Winkler explained the use of an innovation map for selecting and shaping ideas or integration
in the existing “ENP” (introduction of new products) development process
Thereafter, teams with around twelve members each from all areas of the factory
in Berlin were set up for the AccessNET (copper), PremisNET (copper) and Fiber Optic
areas These teams are to convene for furt-her meetings and are expected to present work results This pool is to help evaluate and find product ideas Market prospects, customer benefits and implementation are discussed at the same time
The results will be presented to and discussed in a larger circle at quarterly innovation meetings
A strategy check was carried out already
in 1999 during a two-day innovation meeting As a result of this, a strategy room was set up in the future factory last autumn based on the KRONE UK model and supported by KRONE UK This room is
divided into the AccessNET, PremisNET,
Fiber Optic and Services areas and serves
as a methodological aid for the strategic orientation of the next four years
uw
Think tank for new products
Strategies for Access NET
■KRONE UK is to equip the cor-porate headquar-ters of Glaxo SmithKline where 3,000 people are located with the largest TrueNet installation world-wide so far The order value to-tals around DM
10 million
Closures for Mexico
News!
Masterhead
KRONE Report
Information for the staff
Publihed by:
KRONE GmbH,
Corporate Communication
Beeskowdamm 3-11
D – 14167 Berlin, Germany
Fon: +49-30-84 53 1701
Fax: +49-30-84 53 1355
krone.report@krone.com
Redaktion:
Arne Petersen, Internal Communications,
and the editorial team
International Sales AccessNET (ISAN) was
founded in 1999 and is headed by Heinz Treudler, who in turn is supported by Colin Oakey However, in reality, every person within the KRONE Group, who participates in the sale of
AccessNET solutions, is by right, part of ISAN.
The role of the function is part strategic, and part operational support As an international function ISAN relies heavily on the commitment and ongoing support of its regional co-ordinators who are: Bill Mills (America), Dave Anderson (Asia Pacific), Uwe Hanelt (EMEA), Werner Grimm (Germany), Mike Parker and Mike Williams (UK) From a corporate sales standpoint ISAN contributes to strategic issues such as: Product Migration, Key Account Management, integration of Automatic Cross-connection systems and Cable & Wire Activities The objective of which is to position KRONE more effectively in the Global Market place, along with
a more comprehensive portfolio of AccessNET
solutions
From an operational position ISAN provides a platform, and forum for discussion, for the Inter-national KRONE community This extends itself
to harnessing the collective competence and expertise of KRONE in a focussed manner, thus ensuring that customer focus is maintained at all times - the credo of ISAN is to ‘Think Global, but
to Act Focal’!
ISAN as a working group meets on a ‘need
to meet’ basis to discuss issues of importance The most recent meeting was held in the UK during June of this year Participants were the co-ordinators mentioned above, representatives from Marketing and Product Management,
KRO-NE GmbH, Berlin, and a number of guest speakers from British Telecom, and Con-X Cor-poration Meetings are structured so as to maintain a balance of content, with tangible result being the main priority
The next ISAN meeting will be held in Sep-tember of this year The main topic of discussion will be the strategic and tactical approach for dealing with the management of Global Key
Germany
■ KRONE Indonesia and
PT Telkom agreed upon a concerted education pro-gram in the first instance for one year KRONE will equip eight trainee center with the necessary technics
News!