Personal & Professional Experiences & Insights

Category: Uncategorized

  • Result of my today’s short „blitz“ visit to our factory – everything exactly as expected

    Hi everybody. Good to see You again here in my blog. This post is going to be a very special one. Believe it or not – this is my first post which I write in my office at our factory in Itatiba. 

    Since almost 5 months I am working at home in our house in Vinhedo and I have come only very rarely to our company during all this time. But this does not at all mean, that I work less or that any of my responsabilities and duties have been neglected. 

    It`s just a different way of doing things for many of us compared to before the outbreak of Covid-19. And I must admit, that I really like it. Anyhow during the last years I have been travelling a lot and due to this I have not been in my office in Itatiba for longer periods. Thus for me and my colleagues actually only little has changed now. But for sure – life and work have changed dramatically for most of our approximately 50 Vulkan do Brasil employees, who also mainly work from their homes since march 18.

    As today is saturday, it is quite normal, that only a handful of our colleagues are working in our factory. Differently to the situation which I found when I joined this beautiful company about 6 years ago, today we are very seldomly running behind “emergencies”. For sure we attend all kinds of urgent customer needs, because we fully support them and contribute to keep their processes and installations running and whenever one of our customers suffers an unplanned breakdown of equipment or misses urgently needed solutions and products, we immediately set up all necessary extraordinary work plans and work 24 hours during 7 days or more, if necessary. But to be true, this is not so often really necessary.

    But this makes self-evidently part of our total commitment to our Brazilian, Latin American and worldwide customers in all kinds of industries like mining, iron & steel, cement & construction materials, sugar & ethanol, bulk materials handling, ports, energy generation and many others more.

    For the execution of our normal customer orders there is practically no more hecticness in our factory. We have several since years reorganized all our internal processes and our factory has become the famous “Swiss clockwork” (I will explain this in more details in a future post here in my blog). All work processes are beeing planned in detail and normally just happen smoothly. This gives us an enormous control of our productivity, efficiencies and quality, which is fundamental for our customers and contributes massively to our high competitivity and attractiveness for them. 

    For these reasons I was not surprised but very pleased to see our whole factory very nicely clean and organized even during this “surprise visit” on a saturday morning with only a few of my colleagues working there.

    On the above foto I am together with my colleague Ze Roberto, Operations Supervisor, who organizes and controls all activities at our factory today. 

    Now the weekend can begin for me and in the afternoon as well for my colleagues, which have been working at our factory today, as well. 

    I wish all of You a very nice day and good first half of this wonderful weekend. See You here again in my blog tomorrow.

  • What Egypt, Mexico and Brazil have in common – a short reflection about the past, present and future of the Brazilian oil & gas industry

    Hello again all my readers here in my blog. Time is running very fast. My sensation is, that since I have started to work at my home office almost 5 months ago, the days and also the weeks have become much shorter than before. The next week day after monday seems to have become friday. Maybe this has to do with the permanent online occupation and the consecutive conferences where I participate almost all day long. But I don´t suffer from this and I do not see it negative at all. In the contrary. My strong feeling is, that my own – but also the ones of many others  – activity and productivity has increased tremendously. I wonder, which type of experiences You have made so far with this. Give us Your respective comments, please.

    The subject for my todays post has come into my mind during my participation in yesterdays excellent webinar ” business context of Oil & Gas in Rio de Janeiro”, which was perfectly organised by Hanno Erwes, Managing Director, and his wonderful team of colaborators of the AHK Rio de Janeiro (https://brasilien.rio.ahk.de/pt/) together with Mrs. Betina Sachsse, Regional Manager Brazil at LAV – Latin American Business Association (https://www.lateinamerikaverein.de/en/) as moderator of the event.

    You already know from statements in my former posts, that I am since quite long a great fan and active participant in many German “Mafia” organisations like the AHKs, VDMA, VDI, GTAI, GIZ, LAV, Afrika Verein and several others because of the great networking opportunities and the easy access to valuable information, which these associations offer for their members and also for participants in their public events.

    In the case of the AHK Rio de Janeiro there is also another motivation for my quite high personal engagement and active contribution. Besides the fact that my management team colleague Elisangela Santos (elisangela.santos@vulkan.com, +55 11 99619 2808) and her sales & engineering team members operate our Vulkan Couplings (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/couplings) sales & engineering office in the center of Rio de Janeiro (Rua Visconde de Inhaúma, 83 – 17 andar, +55 21 3799 4017), I have a very special and affectionate relationship to Rio de Janeiro, “the marvellous city”, since my first weekend there during 1996. And – never forget this ! – I have become a fierce supporter of the carioca soccer club Flamengo !

    With above background mentioned, I am terribly proud and happy, that I have been elected two years ago as one of the Vice Presidents at the AHK Rio de Janeiro and make thus part of this wonderful team.

    During yesterdays webinar Milton Costa, Managing Director of Lectas Consultoria Empresarial, gave a very impressive overview about the future and strong growth of the Brazilian oil & gas industry and the lots of upcoming business opportunities for suppliers. As Milton explained, there are some very dynamic developments happening right now. On one hand the cost  of the pre-salt petroleum which Petrobras is producing at the huge Buzios deep sea oilfield is extremely competitive compared on global scale. On the other hand Petrobras is amidst its divestment process for some of its Brazilian refineries and it looks like the sale of the first two of its Brazilian refineries will happen very soon.

    And there are also already projects for the construction of several smaller, local new refineries in different Brazilian states by new downstream companies. Petrobras has just announced its investment in several completely new huge FPSO platforms, which turns Brazil into the biggest market for FPSO`s worldwide. And Petrobras is also very strongly investing into the massive introduction of digital technologies for its installations and operations. All this will give the development of this industry and many new technologies here in Brazil a strong boost.

    Besides these impressive petroleum related developments, Brazil is also about to become one of the biggest natural gas producers and processors. A whole new industry based on natural gas is about to come into beeing – with the state of Rio de Janeiro as its central point. 

    All this is really exciting and very good news – especially for the state and city of Rio de Janeiro, which have – if for nothing else but the terrible corruption there during the last decades – been completely run down into misery. This gives a lot of new hope for everybody there and in the whole country and also for us as oil & gas industry suppliers. 

    Having mentioned all these good news first, I will share now some deeply negative experiences and facts with the Brazilian oil & gas business as well, because these still – besides just giving the background – have a big influence on what`s happening today in this industry and country.

    During my time as Managing Director of GEA Heat Echangers do Brasil (now Kelvion do Brasil:  https://www.kelvion.com/) in Franco da Rocha, Sao Paulo, during the period 2011-2014, I got deeply introduced to the Brazilian oil & gas industry, technologies and business. We manufactured all types of heat exchangers, but mainly large shell & tube equipments and big aircoolers, of all types of carbon and stainless steel materials for extremely challenging process and ambient temperatures and pressures as well as chemical contact for mainly Petrobras, but within our South America sales expansion project as well for oil & gas, petrochemical and chemical industry customers in Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador  and Colombia.

    These were the “hot” years of oil & gas and Petrobras business for us as suppliers of this type of industry. Within totally crazy, megalomanic investment plans, Petrobas – fiercely enlivened by the Brazilian government, namely by president Lula and his successor Dilma – had started since 2005 respectively 2008 to construct the giant new refineries and petrochemical complexes RNEST (Refinery Abreu and Lima) in the Port of Suape area in the north-east of Brazil, about 45 km from Recife, and in Itaborai, Rio de Janeiro state. 

    For us suppliers this was fantastic business from the beginning – but not until the end. My own company has delivered an estimated 500 million Reais worth scope of delivery of heat exchangers to alone these two construction sites during the 10 years between 2005 and 2015. We proudly made a hell of a job at our factory in Franco da Rocha and delivered equipments according to the worldwide highest specification requirements and quality demands.

    What destroyed completely this beautiful picture was, that from 2014 on very very quickly anti-corruption authorities – led by the judge and recent justice minister Sergio Moro – within the campaign “Lava jato (car wash)” discovered incredibly big corruption scandals and crimes. The involved criminals in politics and industry (Petrobras, but also almost all EPC companies) in industrial scale and with extremely impertinent methods sucked out money of all this business in huge quantities. An estimate of the betrayed money once came to approximately 100 billion USD, which had been channelled to private and fake company bank accounts all over the world. 

    For understanding better, how this could work so largely and for so long, You only need to imagine that only for the two above mentioned – and there were lots of other very big similiar cases – new refinery construction projects in total 33 billion US Dollars had been spent until these projects, with only approximately 70% of the completion of the construction achieved, had been completely stopped until now. The original budget for these two projects had been 7 billion US Dollars. Got the point? 

    And this is exactly what has happened at the same time to thousands of other – mainly infrastructure – projects in Brazil. Most of these completely interrupted since 2015 without any continuation so far. And many of these totally uncomplete installations and works have degraded since then due to the missing protection against the weather and human interferences. What a desaster and what a shame!

    As far as Petrobras has explained, nor the refinery (2 “trains”, each 165 thousand barrels petroleum processing/day) and the petrochemical complex at COMPERJ nor the “2nd train” of the refinery RNEST in Suape (2 “trains”, each 230 thousand barrels petroleum processing/day, “1st train” since its start-up during 2014 just processing 100 thousand barrels petroleum/day) shall be completed and thus will never become operating. Thus the huge amount of money spent there during the investments so far was for the birds. 

    Above mentioned story leads me to the conclusion, that the Brazilians – after the Egyptians (Giza pyramid complex, 2500 years before Christ), the pre-colombian Mexicans (Teotihuacán pyramids, 200 years before Christ) and the Mexican Mayas (Chichen Iza pyramid in Yucatan, 1000 years after Christ) – have become constructors of huge ruins which will become longlasting reminders for the future generations of mankind about the past. 

    Hopefully the Brazilian oil & gas industry and Petrobras, together with the lost of international oil & gas companies, which fortunately have decided and started to come back to Brazil and started new investments in this industry again will find more reasonable and successful ways for doing sustainable business in this wonderful country.

    To close my todays post, I choose this video of the Brazilian top model Gisele Bündchen`s beautiful participation in the opening ceremony for the Rio 2016 Olympics, which excited (before) and frustrated (afterwards) us so much:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edTVaIXmaqk

    I wish You a successful conclusion of all Your todays activities and a great start into the soon beginning new wonderful weekend.

    Let`s meet here again in my blog for my tomorrows post.

  • Short report about when Vulkan do Brasil invented it`s BRAIN

    Good morning all You faithful readers of my daily posts here in my blog. First at all I need to congratulate all of us because You are just about to read my 50th (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) – that`s exactly the number of exclamation marks which I have put here – consecutive daily post. Be true with me, did anybody of You read all of these? If yes, which one did You like (or hate) the most? Any other comments for me, before I start to write and publish the next 50 of my daily posts? Maybe we should organise a virtual “Readers Meeting” for the day of my post number 100 ?

    Today I would like to share with You the story about how we at Vulkan do Brasil have invented our BRAIN about two and a half years ago. 
    As I already have explained to You in my post number 10 on June 27 (https://klausfhepp.blogspot.com/2020/06/what-pride-5th-birthday-of-our.html), we had created successfully our brazilian DPPA (Development of Products, Processes and Applications) department at our wonderful company Vulkan do Brasil (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/brazil) at the beginning of 2015. 
    And since its birth, our DPPA has been constantly and in a very efficient, disciplined and productive way – following very strictly our internal standard process, which we had determined and implemented especially for our DPPA right at the beginning – working upon the development of new products, processes and applications.
    The reason for doing this and for doing this exactly in the way as we were doing it from the very beginning on has often been revised and adjusted, but never been questionned by us. It makes full sence and delivers us wonderful results, as You can see by the examples of the several beautiful state-of-the-art products and technologies, which we have been successfully launching for our customers in the different industries in Brazil, Latin America and worldwide during the last 5 years. 
    But about three years ago we slowly but continuously started to have some doubts with respect to the ability of our organisation, to focus openly and in an agile style on totally new technologies, processes and application ideas. When we – at the beginning mainly my colleagues Josias Leal, Development & Engineering Director (josias.leal@vulkan.com, +55 11 98571 2107), Marcel Moraes, Development Manager (marcel.moraes@vulkan.com, +55 11 97335 3872) and myself – started to participate in public events about new technologies and cultures, we detected a major weakness of our organisation.
    The focus of our whole organisation, means company, on new technologies was concentrated in our development department. But the colleagues in our DPPA were following strictly our standard development process and were practically totally focussed on the project management for the new products upon which they were working. This made them unable to spent time and energy for looking at totally other subjects like completely new technologies and this also kept them totally away from going outside our company for participation in interesting events and for doing networking with other technology developpers, suppliers of new technologies and so an. 
    Josias, Marcel and I came to the frustrating conclusion, that we had locked ourselfes unconsciously in a cage and our immediate conclusion was, that we needed to brake this cage open. 
    This was the birthday of our BRAIN group, as we called it. The idea came clear during a brainstorming session, to which we had invited several other colleagues and where we discussed this situation and possible solutions very openly and constructively.
    And the results of our brainstorming were overwhelming. Like so often in life it is just the question of a right moment, a right idea, of a right spark and the knot, which until then seemed so hard to open, opens almost without force and the new idea and concept presents itself almost autonomously by itself. 
    Once again this showed us, that the best and most sustainable solutions are always the most simple and self-evident ones.
    This brainstorming session day became the first day of our freshly founded interdisciplinary BRAIN group at Vulkan do Brasil, which has strongly and impressively developped since then and continues as an integral and important part of our company since then.
    I hope, I have called Your attention and curiosity for this subject and invention and that You will look up my future posts, where I will share some more insights and experiences about our Vulkan do Brasil BRAIN group with You.
    In a few minutes my todays almost endless series of participation in international conferences with Vulkan do Brasil colleagues, colleagues from some other worldwide Vulkan Group subsidiaries and several external business partners and friends will start and I need to prepare a pot of my beloved Indian Tchai tea quickly.
    Enjoy the beautiful day and have lots of success with all Your todays activities. See You back here again in my blog tomorrow. 
     

  • It makes a hell of fun to belong to the German “Mafia”

    Hi everybody. I am terribly sorry for beeing quite late with my today`s post here in my blog, but this was just because of my participation in various consecutive international fone and online conferences during all the morning. And this leads me directly to the subject which I have chosen for sharing with You today.

    Since my arrival in Mexico for my first job there as Managing Director of ElringKlinger at it`s plant in Toluca in June 2003, I have made huge experience and I have become a very active networker with all German associations and organisations which exist in the different countries, like the AHK`s, IHK`s, VDMA, VDI, GIZ, Lateinamerika Verein, Afrikaverein and several others. 
    I always found it extremely helpful and beautiful, to get to know with people from other German and any other international companies, which are also doing business and making experience with all kinds of situations and challenges, which You typically can find as a stranger in the different countries, where I have been moving and doing buisiness for the different companies, for which I have been working so far as General Manager. 
    In general it is very nice and important, to built a wide network of personal and professional contacts to reliable and experienced professionals from all kinds of businesses, industries and  companies. And as a foreigner in a far away country nothing is easier than this. It just depends on You. 
    My strategy for getting my network extended and to make active use of it, have always been the same. Wherever and whenever this makes sence, I join the German – and also other international or local national – associations with the company for which I am working. I start to make new contacts, to present myself to all people, which I find nice and/or interesting and I start to participate actively in all events which I find interesting for me and/or my company. 
    But this is not a 1-man show. I always very quickly invite and introduce my management team colleagues and friends from other companies, so that they can independently of me – but for sure sometimes also together with me – participate in events and activities there and create and extend their own contact and friendship networks.
    And we also very often invite the associations to participate – and support us – during own or joint inhouse activities and/or public events, at different locations including our company and the offices of the associations.
    I will give You some insights into more detailed experiences which we have made with this kind of activities during future posts. 
    But I have also learned some basic “rules” for becoming successful with this kind of activities:
    First of all You need to participate actively and openly in such events and activities of professional associations. Only to become a member, to participate rarely in their events and activities and to always sit or stand together and talk with the same few people which You already know there does not lead You to any gains. 
    And You must be open for “give & take” and not just try, to take information and support from the others. Really nicely working networks can only grow if all people involved contribute to all others expectations, needs and requests. There is definitely no space for pure egoists in such modern, open, colaborative networks.
    I think this was a good enough opening of this very interesting and important subject and I will come back to several more detailed examples and success cases in my future posts.
    Before jumping out, I will just recommend You this Canned Heat song from my hippie times a couple of decades ago, which describes quice nicely what I have tried to describe above:
    Have a great day and lots of success with whatever You will still be doing today. 

  • Covid-19, GdB per capita, classes A,B,C, D and E, ABIMAQ & the Brazilian industry – a truly challenging situation for all of us

    Good morning all You readers of my posts. For today I have decided to share some information with You, which describes the quite dramatic recent health and economic development in our country Brazil and in general in our greater region Latin America, which concerns all of us deeply. 

     As per the revelations of independent research institutes, the Brazilian GDP per capita will be 6.7% lower at the end of this year than at the end of 2019, which represents the strongest reduction since 1940, when this measurement was introduced for the first time. And with 32.200 Reais/capita it will be the same value as at the end of 2008 !
    For the period 2011 – 2020 the reduction of the Brazilian GDP/capita is beeing forecasted to become 8.2%, which leads to the frustrating conclusion that “the country has entered a roller coaster” and that “what was gained during the former period 2001 – 2015 has been lost again”. Just one more of the so many already “lost decades” for Brazil and the Brazilians.
    Almost four million Brazilian famillies will find themselfes retroceded during 2020 in the social pyramid – which in Brazil consists of the five classes A, B, C, D and E – means they will be mainly moved back from class B to class C and from class C to class D. Thus great part of the “new Brazilian middle class” will disappear soon again. Imagine what this concretely means for so many people and for the whole economy. 
    Figures about the distribution of the Brazilian population over the social pyramid from 2019 were:
    Classe A+B (“Rich and upper middle class”; average familly income above 8.159 Reais/month): 15% of the population or 30 million people
    Class C (“New middle class”; average familly income between 1.892 Reais/month and 8.159 Reais/month): 55% of the population or 115 million people 
    Class D+E (“Lower classes”; average familly  income below 1.892 Reais/month): 30% of the population or 63 million people
    Another shocking situation is, that Latin America together with the Caribbean – after Europe – has become the 2nd most affected region by Covid-19 with since it`s outbreak 200.000 dead and almost 5 million infected people. And three fourth of these just in the two giant countries and major economies Mexico and Brazil. 
    But we cannot simply ignore all these negative things and much less throw our towels away. In the contrary. With this dramatic situation and development clearly stating, we must increase our efforts – within all our means and areas of responsability – and look for counter measures, for improvements and solutions for all these problems.
    This was exactly the common understanding of all participants during the “Virtual Members Meeting” of ABIMAQ, the Brazilian Machinery Builders Association (http://www.abimaq.org.br/site.aspx/abimaq-en), to which our company Vulkan do Brasil (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/brazil) – the same as more than 1500 other brazilian machinery and equipment manufacturing companies – is associated since many years and in which I participated yesterday together with my management team colleagues Elisangela Santos (elisangela.santos@vulkan.com), Marketing Director and Sales Director of our marine division Vulkan Couplings (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/couplings) and Tiago Bedani (tiago.bedani@vulkan.com), Sales Director of our industrial division Vulkan Drive Tech (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/drivetech). 
    Actually our company Vulkan do Brasil so far participates actively in the “Sectorial Chambers” CSCM (Cement and Mining), CSTM (Mechanical Power transmission), CSENO (Naval, Offshore and Onshore) and CSDS (Defense, Armed Forces). 
    We are very proud, that our management team member Elisangela Santas has just a few weeks ago been elected as one of the Vice Presidents for the CSENO, where she already has been participating very actively and representing our marine division Vulkan Couplings since a couple of years. 
    As the Executive President of ABIMAQ José Velloso explained yesterday during our members meeting, several associated companies since the very beginning of the Covid-19 crisis in Brazil have successfully started to built respirator equipments for the hospitals, to manufacture desinfection cabins, purification systems, protection masks and many other important items. And almost all associated companies have immediately implemented all kinds of protection measures in their facilities in order to combat the spread of the desease.
    In our case we have been very stringent at our factory in Itatiba with a very sophisticated and extensive protection program and thank God we have not suffered any constraints for our operations and business processes since this crisis has started here in Brazil about 5 months ago. 
    We watch the development of the general situation very closely and carefully and we do all necessary adjustments immediately. The protection of our employees, customers and business are top priorities for us. Because this country and it`s economy must continue! Too many people – in our case alone more than 200 famillies and lots of further people – depend on our continuity and success. 
    With all the endless challenges and setbacks during the last years, many of the Brazilian manufacturers of machinery and equipments have learned their lessons. As we got know during yesterday`s ABIMAQ event, the number of associated companies, which are exporting their products to foreign countries, has increased from 15% only during 2010 to meanwhile more than 50% today. Imagine the efficiency and competitivity increase which this signifies.
    This reflects our own strategy during the last 5 years where we started successfully the commercialisation of our products (all types of couplings, brakes, backstops, mounts and many others for all kinds of typical mechanical power transmission applications like in the mining, steel, ciment, sugar, paper, oil & gas and many more industries)  all over Latin America, including the opening of our sales & engineering offices in Mexico and Colombia, and our global sales expansion in close cooperation with our colleagues of the Vulkan Group`s worldwide subsidiaries and factories on practically all continents. 
    As the English say – “diamonds are made unde pressure”, which refers to the formation process of diamonds inside the earth, which are – the same as coal – made out of carbon, but under much higher pressure and temperatures.
    Our company has just completed 45 proud years of history in Brazil and we have successfully overcome during all these years all the constant challenges, with which this as beautiful as suffering country has almost always been confronted. This makes us totally convinced, that we will also overcome successfully – together with our employees, customers, suppliers, service providers, neighbors, friends and fellow citizens – the current challenges incl. the terrible Covid-19 crisis.
    I wish You a great and successful day and hope to see You again here in my blog for my tomorrow`s post. 

  • What Michael Jackson, the great German philosopher Kant and my bodyguard Luis Traúzola have in common

    Hi everybody, a new week has just started for all of us. Hope You are also full of energy from the wonderful weekend behind us. Today I will give You some insights into different subjects which are very important for me as a person but also in my function as President of our wonderful company Vulkan do Brasil (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/brazil). But please fasten Your seatbelts. This post is going to be a rough ride.

    Since my start as Managing Director of Schwarzkopf & Henkels famous “La Toja” cosmetics plant in La Coruña, Galicia, Spain, exactly 20 years ago and from then on during all my other positions as Managing Director, CEO and President of totally different German companies in Mexico and Brazil, I have made a fundamental experience. 
    In such general management positions very often “bullets fly” through the air like flies and You do good, to protect Yourself well and arrange some experienced bodyguards for You. What I mean is, that in such positions one of Your highest responsabilities and permanent challenges is, to earn money with what You and the company, for which You are responsible, do. The profitability and – necessarily – the growth of Your company and its business are an absolute must for the whole management team. Otherwise Your activity there becomes questionable and You live under permanent danger. 
    For me in all the general management positions, which I had so far for Henkel, ElringKlinger, BOS, Oystar, GEA and Vulkan, it is extremely important to have a trustful highly motivated team of excelent managers for all main function like finance/admin, operations, engineering, HR, supply chain management and the different sales divisions and regions. Because You as a General Manager are only as good as the team which supports You. When I see weak companies, I almost always find weak General Managers and/or weak management teams there. 
    With the above said about the importance of the profitability of the company, it becomes almost self explanatory, that You as General Manager need a very good and trustful finance manager. Because he is the guy, who will prepare and explain all the numbers to You and Your bosses. If he was weak, automatically the numbers were weak and Your position became weak. That`s roughly and simply, what I have – painfully – learned during the last 20 years in all types of industries and countries.
    And for this reason and background I can proudly say, that with our Vice President Admin/Finance Luis Traúzola I have a wonderful bodyguard who protects me and warns me, when I move into dangerous zones. Luis and I work very closely and absolutely trustful together since my first day – September 17, 2014 – at our company in Itatiba, Sao Paulo. 
    For me Luis is definitely one of the best finance managers, which I have ever met during all my career. Besides beeing extremely skilled, its his very analytical and honest attitude, with which he attends all subjects. Luis is neutral and apolitical through and through. He`s the kind of person, whom You would hand over a suitcase with 1 million US Dollars for hiding for You for 15 years. 
    But what the hell, does this all have to do with Kant? OK – let`s ask wikipedia for help:

    Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Kant’s comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and aesthetics have made him one of the most influential figures in the history of  western philosophy. 

    In his doctrine of transcendental idealism, Kant argued that space and time are mere “forms of intuition” which structure all experience, and therefore that while “things-in-themselves” exist and contribute to experience, they are nonetheless distinct from the objects of experience. From this it follows that the objects of experience are mere “appearances”, and that the nature of things as they are in themselves is consequently unknowable to us.  In an attempt to counter the skepticism he found in the writings of philosopher David Hume, he wrote the Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787), one of his most well-known works. In it, he developed his theory of experience to answer the question of whether synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, which would in turn make it possible to determine the limits of metaphysical inquiry. Kant drew a parallel to the Copernican revolution in his proposal that the objects of the senses must conform to our spatial and temporal forms of intuition, and that we can consequently have a priori cognition of the objects of the senses.

    Everything clear and everybody fine until here? Let`s continue…..

    Kant believed that reason is also the source of morality, and that aesthetics arise from a faculty of disinterested judgment. Kant’s views continue to have a major influence on contemporary philosophy, especially the fields of epistemology, ethics, political theory, and post-modern aesthetics. 

    He attempted to explain the relationship between reason and human experience and to move beyond what he believed to be the failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He wanted to put an end to what he saw as an era of futile and speculative theories of human experience, while resisting the skepticism of thinkers such as Hume. He regarded himself as showing the way past the impasse between rationalists and empiricists, and is widely held to have synthesized both traditions in his thought.

    Kant was an exponent of the idea that perpetual peace could be secured through universal democracy and international cooperation, and that perhaps this could be the culminating stage of world history. The nature of Kant’s religious ideas continues to be the subject of philosophical dispute, with viewpoints ranging from the impression that he was an initial advocate of atheism who at some point developed an ontological argument for God, to more critical treatments epitomized by Schopenhauer, who criticized the imperative form of Kantian ethics as “theological morals” and the “Mosaic Decalogue in disguise”, and Nietzsche, who claimed that Kant had “theologian blood” and was merely a sophisticated apologist for traditional Christian faith. 

    Done. We`re through and have all understood now, what and why makes Kant so important even still nowadays. How many readers did I loose because of this intellectual excursion ????? 

    I needed to do this to remove the erroneous impression from the brains of some of my readers, who think, that I was just one more nuts guy, who listens to “kitschy”(?) romantic samba music, loves a soccer team and drinks endlessly beer. All this is true, but – as You could see now – it is not the whole and only truth about my life, interests and occupations. 

    But let me come back to Your question. What do Kant and his theories have to do with my bodyguard and VP Admin/Finance Vulkan do Brasil management team colleague Luis Traúzola? Well – my point is, that Luis – in the strictest sence of Kant`s “categoric imperative” – is one of the most honorable and ethical persons, which I so far have had the pleasure to encounter in my life and career. Luis is not only always very correct and just with what he is doing. He is also an extremely ethical person and he definitely shares with me my deep refusal of any lies, liars and falseness. To have a finance manager like Luis in Your team is equal to having contracted a strong D & O (Directors and Officers) insurance. 

    No doubt, the success of the complete restructuring and turnaround of our – upon my arrival there – almost broken company during the last 6 years goes to a great part on Luis` account. Without his support and protection, I would never have dared to dip knowingly our company so deeply into the red zone during my first 2 years as President as part of our reinvention of this company. Which finally worked fantastically. Now Vulkan do Brasil is up again since more than 2 years and growing continuously because – and this was another lesson learned for me – our customers like strong partners in which they can trust. 

    Here`s – as a present to Luis – one of the music plays, which he most likes:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y

    Did You like my today`s post? Did You become interested in knowing more about Kant? I am very curious now, to find out how many of You will continue this stony way and read my next daily posts in this blog.

    I wish all of You a very good start in the new week and lots of fun and success!

  • Heidelberg and it`s bridge function for my second job as tourist guide

    Good morning everybody. The second half of this wonderful weekend has just started. Let`s enjoy it ! Yesterday I introduced You to my affection for Raça Negra`s romantic samba music and today I will take You to the beautiful romantic German city of Heidelberg. 

    As already mentioned in earlier posts here in my blog, I have been born in Kaiserslautern, Germany, and grown up in the middle of nowhere in a minuscular village in the palatinate forest. At the sweet age of 14 my familly moved to the close by – just on the other side of the river Rhine – city of Mannheim, where I lived until the completion of my secondary school. After my military service – which at that time still was obligatory – I studied and lived for 5 years in the city of Karlsruhe, which is also not far from Mannheim. 
    I have always liked very much Mannheim, which since hundreds of years has been a very open and  open minded city, with a lot of historical and cultural importance and history. Thanks to the lots of US GI`s which had been stationed in the military barracks of Mannheim, Jazz and Rock`n Roll music came to this city in the 50`s and 60`s and the Americans introduced us Germans to their way of live and let us make first experience with lots of so far for Germans totally unknown products like milk ice cream, peanuts butter, blue jeans and cowboy boots, which I bought on my fifteenth birthday in a shop specialised on US customers in Mannheim. 
    But the city which I really admire since long, is Heidelberg. Actually my sister introduced me to it, when she studied pharmacy there. Since then, means since the mid 70s, I have endlessly visited Heidelberg, alone, with familly members or with friends and colleagues and I continue to do so.
    And that`s exactly what I wanted to share with You today. As I have been living at so many different places in Germany, Spain, Mexico and Brazil and working for so many different – all German – companies so far, I could call myself with a certain right in my second profession a tourist guide. 
    This is just due to the fact, that since I started to work outside, far away, of Germany, I have never lost my identification and connection with this beautiful country and – in the good and in the bad – its people, its history and its culture. Whenever I visit Germany for professional reasons and the situation allows, I invite colleagues and/or friends from the country where I live to accompany me and take them to some nice and interesting places in Germany. 
    For me it has always been important, to transmit not only professional and technical experiences and know how from Germany to where I live and work, but also to introduce my colleagues, friends and colaborators at least a little bit to Germany and the German culture and history. And so far my experience with doing so was very nice. Who would not love to travel to far away different places together with an experienced tourist guide?
    And – by the way – I practice the same with the lots of business and private visitors, which I receive since I left Germany in June 1996, at all the different places where I have been living in Brazil, Spain, Mexico and – since meanwhile 11 years again – in Brazil. For me it is extremely important, to transmit to my colleagues, bosses and friends from Germany a little bit of the culture, history and way of living at the places and in the countries where we operate our factories and do our business. They must be confronted with the good and the bad of what surrounds us and very often determines our professional activities there. 
    Like I always tell colleagues, when they visit me for the first time at our companies. “We are the bosses inside our company. Here we can – always respecting all existing laws and rules – determine what we want and install the company culture of our choice. But when we leave the doors of our companies, our company culture and rules are for the birds, because then the culture and the rules of the country and the places where we are, dominate.” 
    Some people have difficulties to understand this. But its a fact and there is no way out. We have to recognize and to respect and honor this. And that`s exactly what I have always identified and accepted as my particular responsability and highest challenge. In the most cases of my jobs as Managing Director, CEO, President of local subsidiaries of German companies – no matter the type of industry and business, no matter the size of these, no matter whether familly held or publicly listed – in different countries, I have been the only German amidst all our company`s employees. 
    Thus my biggest – and at the same time the one which I most like – challenge has been, to bridge between the two (or more) different countries and cultures. And every bridge has two bridge heads. There is no bridge with only one head.This means, in a bridge function You need to interconnect to both sides, not just to one only. And that`s what exactly has become my speciality during the last 30 years. I love to cross bridges in both directions. Every place, country, culture where I have been living and with which I had the pleasure to get familiar, has enriched me and my life and has changed me. Life for me is like a tree. There is no holding point where all processes stop. Development goes further constantly. Life flows like a river. That`s what I find so beautiful. Every new day brings us new experiences and learnings. But for sure – good and bad ones. Like the Brazilians say so descriptively “Every coin has two sides”. If You want one, You automatically need to accept the other one as well. 
    This leads me to share with You my liking for Salvador Dali`s surrealistic famous painting “The Persistence of Memory”, from 1931:
    And as I have been talking so much about Germany today, I feel oblidged to share with You one of my favorite German rock songs, which has in the meantime already become a classical. The band`s name was BAP and they sang their songs in the local German dialect “Kölsch” of the city of Cologne, where they were from:
    I hope my friends and former colleagues in Düsseldorf are not angry with me now, because of the quite wellknown rivalry between these two nearby cities. I swear that I will share some positive experiences with You in one my future posts about my years in Düsseldorf, when I was working at Henkel. 
    See You here again tomorrow! Enjoy the beautiful sunday.

  • Raça Negra, Stefan Zweig and my almost 25 years old initiation to live and living in Brazil

    Hi all You faithful followers of my blog and readers of my posts. I just came back to live again after last nights wonderful party with our neighbors. For sure we stayed in the open garden area of their wonderful house and kept enough distance to each other, so that no risk for virus propagation existed. But despite these limitations the party was great. 

    Actually there were two reasons for me to be happy last night. First of all my team at our factory in Itatiba, Sao Paulo – most of the involved colleagues working at their home offices since 4 months – closed the month and we all were very proud and satisfied about the once again very good result. Both in terms of order intake and net sales the month July 2020 was above our original expectations. 
    Thanks to all our wonderful customers, who continue to trust us and our capability, to deliver premium quality products to them exactly within the contractually agreed upon delivery times. The fact, that our business grows even during such complicated times like now shows clearly, that we have gained a recognized high attractivity and competitivity for our customers in Brazil, Latin America and on all other continents, where our Vulkan Group colleagues commercialise our products successfully. 
    The second reason for our party last night was the “live” online show of my favorite samba music band Raça Negra. This band started playing cover songs of other Brazilian musicians in Sao Caetano, Sao Paulo, from 1983 on and became quite famous in this region there during these early years. In 1991 their first album with own compositions was launched publicly – including the initial charts hit “Caroline” – and from this moment on Raça Negra became quite quickly very popular all over Brazil. 
    In the following years they published 11 further albums until 2000 and created the very successful romantic samba “pagode” music style. The song “É tarde demais” made it into the Guiness Book of Records as the song which was most played in the radio stations during one day. Actually this song was played 600 times on brazilian radio stations during July 20, 1995. In the second half of the 90s Raça Negra had its greatest success and  attracted 1.5 million fans during a show in Sao Paulo and 700 thousand fans during a show in the US. 
    The band changed its composition several times during the last 3 decades and the only original band member which continues until today is its leader Luis Carlos. During the last years he appears in live shows together with other famous brazilian samba musicians and Raça Negra still has a very large fan base which very often includes familly members of the different generations. I doubt that You could find a single Brazilian who does not know Raça Negra and who can`t sing at least a few lines of one of their very popular songs like “Cheia de Manias”, “Quando te encontrei”, “É tarde demais”, “Caroline”, “Estou mal”, and many others. 
    For me personally, the music of Raça Negra – the same as my beloved carioca soccer club Flamengo – makes deeply part of my experiences, emotional feelings and development in this wonderful country since I came here for the first time in June 1996. Ten years after the desastrous military dictatorship period, which mislead Brazil between 1964 and 1985, the country had successfully restored democracy, just overcome the terrible hyper inflation and everybody in Brazil and in the outside world had the strong impression, that now Brazil – after “lost” decades –  had found the right track for growth and prosperity. And everybody was convinced, that Brazil with its huge size of land and population and its immense richness of all kinds of valuable resources and opportunities would soon become one of the globally leading economies and countries. 
    Within all this development and situations Henkel, the company for which I had been working at that time, decided to extend its business and market participation in Brazil and to launch a massive capital investment for the extension of its chemical plant (later-on this became part of Cognis and today it belongs to BASF) in Jacarei, Sao Paulo.  That`s the background for my engagement in Brazil and moval to this wonderfully crazy country. I will give You more insights in how I got started on this in one of my future posts in this blog.
    Now, for sure You can question, what makes the sence in this strong admiration of such a popular “kitschy” (?) samba music group over decades. But that`s definitely not the way we here in this country are programmed and how we live our lives. Emotions make an important and constant part of our live here. This – definitely diffent than in Europe, the USA and in great parts of Asia – is the same for people of all ages, ancestries and sociological and economical classes. I doubt that You could for long withstand all kinds of challenges which we here in this (wonderful) part of the world face every bloody day of our life and need to overcome. Only with our cold brain`s work this would not function for long. 
    As my great friend Hanno Erwes, Managing Director of the German-Brazilian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK) in Rio de Janeiro (https://brasilien.rio.ahk.de/pt/), to which Vulkan do Brasil is associated and where I have been actively participating in many events and projects since about 10 years – right now as Vice President, told me once: “Every morning when I wake up, I come to 10 strong reasons, why I should make my suitcase and leave quickly this country, but after breakfast I always find at least 10 good reasons, why I should not make my suitcase but continue to stay here.” I can only fully agree with Hanno. This reflects very nicely our joint situation, even more nowadays for wellknown health, economical and political reasons. But no doubt – I will, together with my lovely familly and our fantastic company Vulkan do Brasil (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/brazil) stay and continue my life and job here. 
    Before I finish my today`s post, I definitely need to give You three (!) important recommendations:
    Here is one of my (many) favorite Raça Negra songs: the quality of the video is not very good, but this is a cut from one of the Raça Negra shows at the end of the 90s in Sao Paulo:
    And here is a quite recent one with one of Raça Negra`s undoubtedly greates hits “Cheia de mania”:
    And – if this also interests You – here the recommendation of a meanwhile very famous and often cited book from the wellknown German Austrian novelist, playwright, journalist and biographer Stefan Zweig (1881 – 1942) who emigrated from Hitlerian Germany during 1940 and ended up in Petropolis, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil: “Brazil, Land of the Future” (Original title> “Brasilien. Ein Land der Zukunft. Bermann-Fischer, Stockholm 1941).

    Now lunch time has come for me and this is the right moment for wishing You a nice weekend , wherever You live and are, and to hopefully meet again with You here in my blog tomorrow. 

  • From Rio de Janeiro to Shanghai – My first experiences with China

    Good morning all You readers of my posts and followers of my blog. Today I will give You some insights in my first experiences as traveller to China and doing business there. 

    My first travel to China goes back to Abril 2014. After an extremely tense, exciting but also exhausting negotiation period of several months and a final full deal closing week at a hotel in Rio de Janeiro, I brought home to our company the biggest contract, which my company had ever negociated with a single customer until then since the start of its brazilian operations about 40 years earlier. The net contract value was about 80 million Reais. 
    This was during my last year as Managing Director of GEA Heat Exchangers do Brasil (now Kelvion:  https://www.kelvion.com/br/) at Franco da Rocha, Sao Paulo. We gained the contract for the construction and delivery of practically all shell & tube heat exchangers for the two deep sea oil platforms P75 and P77 for Petrobras. Our customer was a Brazilian oil & gas EPC (Engineering Procurement and Construction) company in Rio de Janeiro. 
    After the final approval of the GEA HX board in Düsseldorf, Germany, for my contract signature and my to return to Sao Paulo after the wonderful contract signature party together with several colleagues and representants of the customers at Rio de Janeiro, I started to get quite nervous and sweating. 
    The contract had been negociated so tightly, that not a single flaw during the execution of this huge contract could be admitted. Failure was definitely not an option for us. The profit margin of this contract was very low, but anyhow this contract was extremely important for us and the big challenge for all of us was now, to find quickly smart and secure solutions for the reduction of our manufacturing costs.
    One of the cost reduction potentials for us was to find better purchase offers for all the raw materials which we needed for the construction of the in total 60 big heat exchangers. 
    Together with our Purchasing Manager – I will present him in a future post –  I decided, to fly immediately to China for checking personally out some very attractive offers from chinese suppliers for seamless stainless steel tubes and forgings, which made a great part of the material costs for the heat exchangers. Our negotiations were about the purchase of materials for several million US Dollars. All but “peanuts” business!
    My learnings and great impression about China started already upon my first arrival at Shanghai airport. Everything over there was much bigger, much more modern and much more beautiful, than I had imagined until then. 
    To be frank and true. Until then my experience with and knowledge about China was almost zero. When I was a small boy, one of my grandfather’s old, heavy books excited me. It was from the 1920´s and explained the several thousands years old history, economy and culture of China until then. But for sure this had already nothing to do with modern China, when I had glances into this book during the early 1960`s. My next experience with China was around 2010. During that time I participated in an event in Sao Paulo, where consultants showed the strongly rising economical relationship between China and Brazil. By the way – just these days I read in one of the economic journals, that the Brazilian exports (mainly commodities, iron ore, soy beans, ….) to China have risen since 2000 until 2020 from almost zero to more than 30% of the total Brazilian exports. Very impressive, isn`t it?
    During two weeks my colleague and I travelled to several distant cities in different Chinese regions and visited lots of companies. I saw everything which You can imagine as industry dated between the middle age and the year 3000. But I made lots of incredible experiences, almost always together with wonderful, friendly, open people. 
    In the end we found excelent high quality suppliers with favorable prizes for all the materials which we had been looking for. To be true, this was just an initial “pathfinder” tour. A few weeks after this travel I returned to China together with our Quality Manager and we deeply audited all initially chosen suppliers. With the ones which passed successfully our audits we signed immediately contracts and from then on until the release for the deliveries of the ordered materials to our factory in Brazil our quality inspectors visited these suppliers several times for doing intermediate inspections and quality gate releases before we allowed the shipment of the materials to Brazil.
    What I can confirm sincerely and proudly to You is, that we did not have a single issue with the materials beeing delivered to us about 9 months later by our new Chinese suppliers. The quality was 100% perfect and all deliveries were exactly as scheduled from the beginning on. This contributed massively to the great technical and commercial success of this very important – for GEA Heat Exchangers do Brasil, our EPC customers and finally Petrobras.
    The city which really deeply impressed me was Shanghai, where everything was so terribly big, new, beautiful and fancy. During my later trips to China I also had the chance to visit as well Beijng, the Great Wall and several other beautiful historical cities and places. But for sure, I would never dare to say, that I know China. This country is so big and full of so quickly changing places, culture and history. I personally am totally convinced, that You would need at least 3 years of permanently living there, before You could really say, that You “know” (most probably still just a little bit) this country. 
    What I found quite strange when I was living in Mexico, was the saying of a German colleague, who visited me from China, where he lived since a couple of years at that time, and who had also lived in Mexico several years before. The guy told me “You can come back to Mexico City after 10 years and almost everything looks the same, but if You come home to Shanghai or any other important Chinese city after 4 weeks, You will be surprised, because lots of things have changed impressively”. 
    This was during 2005. I am sure that my colleague was not lying, because this obviously still was during the very fast development and massive construction and heavy investment times of China. I am not sure, whether my former colleague would see it the same way still today, but no doubt, the dynamic of live and development of the chinese economy are breathtaking still compared to Latin America, where I have been living at different places in several countries since meanwhile almost 20 years. 
    I will come back to China in future posts for sharing some more particular personal & professional experiences with You, which I find very interesting and which made me learn a lot. 
    By the way – the Vulkan Group has a beautiful and highly efficient manufacturing plant in the Chinese city of Wuxi (https://www.vulkan.com/en-us/holding/vulkan-companies/china), about 2 hours by car away from Shanghai, from where my colleagues attend the Chinese market and from where they also export their products within our internal Vulkan Group supply structure to many other Vulkan Group sales subsidiaries in many other countries in the whole world. 
    But for now I will finish my todays post and wish all of You a great successful day. Remember, today is friday ! 

  • Lean, Digital Transformation & Stakeholdership – My experiences with these exciting management concepts

    Good to see You again here in my blog right now. For my todays post I have chosen a subject, wich since longer impresses and drives me very much. Actually I decided to talk about this subject today because of a certain coincidence of events and activities during the last couple of days, which all somehow lead to this subject and which all have a lot to do with it. I am talking about the concept of the “stakeholdership”. 

    About two weeks ago in a former post (https://klausfhepp.blogspot.com/2020/07/my-experience-with-lean-as-strong-and.html) I have shared some experiences about the beginning of the introduction of Lean Management principles and concepts into our factory in Itatiba some years ago. 
    Since about the same time I am reading a very interesting – but unfortunately so far only available in German language – book (“Digitale Transformation gestalten” – Geschäftsmodelle, Erfolgsfaktoren, Checklisten, Oliver Gassmann / Philipp Sutter, Hanser Verlag), which explains how companies can get started on the digital transformation of their businesses. 
    And yesterday I participated in a really informative webinar (“Digitalisation – How do I get there?”) perfectly organized by my great friends of STAUFEN Táktica Brasil (https://www.staufen-taktica.com.br/pt/). You can – by the way – find the full video of this webinar on their website.
    But what the hell do all these events and activities have to do with “stakeholdership”? Well, better let us at first have a look at the definition of the term stakeholdership. 
    Some people erroneously mean, that stakeholdership was the same as shareholdership. But this is definitely not the case. Stakeholdership is a term, which describes all parties which have an interest in a company and which can either affect or be affected by the business. The primary stakeholders in a typical corporation are its owners, investors, management, employees, customers, and suppliers. 
    However, the modern theory of the idea goes beyond this original notion and includes additional stakeholders such as the public, community, government and associations.

    Following my own interpretation of my role and responsability as President of Vulkan do Brasil, I am the main stakeholder within our company here in Itatiba, Sao Paulo, Brazil. This explains very well, why the focus of my exercise of functions is not just the optimisation of our short and mid term company and mainly financial results, but also the mid to long term further development and growth of our company and business, which sometimes creates conflicts between both, which have to be decided and solved by the primary stakeholders of our company, means by the owners and the CEO of our group.

    In this sence I consequentially play my role as stakeholder within our brazilian company since we have started to introduce all these concepts like lean management and digital transformation to our company and also since we initiated our strategic sales expansion (Latin America, global markets) and product, processes & application development projects. 

    My management team has fully accepted me in this particular role since my arrival at our company in September 2014 and is fully aware, that in all these important subjects and initiatives, which we are constantly launching and executing at Vulkan do Brasil, I am one of the developpers and drivers of our ideas and goals, but I depend massively on the identification and active contribution of all our management team colleagues and our whole organisation with regards to the realisation of all these projects and initiatives and the achievement of our goals. 

    On the other side of the coin, it is my duty and responsability, to check the plausibility and feasability of all our new initiatives and projects before we get started on these and to obtain the approval and – if necessary – financial sponsorship of our CEO and owners. And another important contribution from my side is, to set up the appropriate internal organisation, provide all necessary resources, do the continuous follow up, necessary fine adjustments  and remove all major obstacles and opposition, whenever we encounter these. 

    This is exactly the way, how we have started and executed until today all our great strategic initiatives and projects like the lean transformation of our factory (meanwhile: whole company), our outbreak into the Latin American industrial markets (Mexico, Central America, Caribbean and all South America), the creation and continuous further development of our DPPA (Development of Products, Processes and Applications) department, our “Brain Group” (I will present this in a future post), our active colaboration and experience sharing with our sister companies Vulkan Australia and Vulkan South Africa on the Australian and African continents and the just started development of concepts for the digital transformation of our whole Brazilian company. 

    Seen from this background, You will easily agree, that all this can only be realised by a strong team of lots of experienced and highly motivated colaborators on all hierarchical levels and in all different functions of our company and with massive continuous support from the owners and the CEO of our group. 

    In this sence I would like to finish my todays post with some interesting literal citations from the book “Digitale Transformation gestalten” mentioned at the beginning of this post and which I have still not finished completely to read:

    “The successful achievement of the digital transformation has become a question for the survival for most companies.”

    “The speed of the digital transformation is much higher, than originally expected by most of the industry experts.”

    “The most important driver for the success of the digital transformation is the business model, which has been chosen. The traditional competition between products and companies is more and more beeing substituted by the competition of business models.”

    “The classical “red queen effect” describes, that companies which want to survive in a competitive business environment, have to become at least as fast with their transformation processes as their competitors.”

    I wonder, whether You found this interesting and whether You would like to comment upon Your own experiences which You have already made with these exciting these subjects.

    Anyhow I wish You lots of fun and success during the day and hope to meet You again here in my blog upon my tomorrows post.