Interview with the Dirks Group
With the beginning of the new month, we like to present you another partner. Recently, the Dirks Group has joined our inititiave Operational Excellence.
The company is a family-operated and internationally active service company with headquarters in Emden. At 25 locations in Germany and Europe, integrated and holistic system services are developed and realized - on the basis of the company's core capabilities logistics, engineering as well as technics and quality. The customers of the Dirks Group are belonging to different sectors, for example automobile manufacture, ship building and plant construction, defence but also food and fashion. All of them can rely on professional, individual services and product solutions offered by the Dirks Group.
In the usual manner, we pulled out our questionnaire about Operational Excellence to get to know our new partner. At this point, we like to thank Holger Dorsch, Head of Quality Management, for the interesting interview.
And now, enjoy reading!
Which approaches and measures concerning Operational Excellence are already implemented at your company?
Holger Dorsch: The ISO certification (in parts), the Quality Management and ERP.
Are there further actions planned to be undertaken in the future in this field?
Holger Dorsch: Yes, there are! Namely, driverless systems and the cobot technology.
Does your company offer advanced trainings to the topic Operational Excellence for your employees?
Holger Dorsch: We are working on Lean Basic and Six Sigma trainings.
What are your expectations on this initiative?
Holger Dorsch: We expect networking and benchmarking as well as to jointly find solutions and to potentielly form strategic partnerships.
To which themes do you wish to exchange thoughts and know-how?
Holger Dorsch: We like to exchange to (intra-)logisitics, autmation and automotive.
Are there specific aspects which are extraordinarily interesting for you? (for example, for networking-meetings or best-practice trips)
Holger Dorsch: We are especially interested in process optimation in the administrative area.
Are you interested in workshops during our networking-meetings?
Holger Dorsch: Definitely, since the implementation of suitable methods and perspectives of other people are helpful.
Which challenges to you see your company being confronted with in the future?
Holger Dorsch: The intensified automation, to cope with the increasing complexity of the requirements and thereyby, to set standards, which we can stick to reliably.
Do you see a fundamental change within your sector in the next 5 years?
Holger Dorsch: Yes, at this point I can name the transformation to e-mobility as well as a further change to artifical intelligence at automated processes.
Thinking about the north-western region, what do you think is mostly needed by the region to challenge the ongoing as well as future changes?
Holger Dorsch: A close linkage to science further on, especially with the Hochschule Emden/Leer. Strong representatives in Hannover und Berlin, who promote Emden and the region and who are going to point out the locational advantages for large projects in the future. The competition between the regions is strong, but East Frisia and Emden do not need to hide. We need to clearly communicate this!
In this context, how do you value the potential of initiatives like ours?
Holger Dorsch: There are a lot of initiatives, which are partly overlapping in their goals.
We are very happy to welcome the Dirks Group as a partner of our initiative and are excited about the valueable impulses and experiences the Dirks Group can offer to the network.
If you have any questions to the interviewed person or any points of reference, do not hesitate to contact Holger Dorsch (hdorsch@dirks-group.de).
