All Posts By

Frederike Yilmaz

Partners

Business Skills for Ph.D.s

Posted on 31. October 2016

We are excited to be part of the program “Business skills for Ph.D.s”, organized by the doctoral candidate’s representation of Kiel University (CAU) and the Education Cluster opencampus.sh. The program offers a unique chance to gain insights into the organization of 8 large companies in Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark.

Last Friday, October 28, 2016, we welcomed 10 doctoral candidates at the punker headquarters in Eckernförde. punker CEO Dr. Henning Bähren gave our guest from Pakistan, Japan and Germany an overview of the punker Group’s history, product portfolio, customer base and company structure before starting off on a tour of our production facilities. The diverse academic background of our visitors (from Electrical Engineering, Material Sciences and Biology to Business Administration) sparked an exciting and versatile subsequent Q&A session and discussion. Topics included Lean Management at punker, possible product or service diversification models and punker’s medium-term growth strategy, as well as career opportunities with Northern German small and medium sized businesses. The doctoral candidates were surprised to learn about the number of modern, successful and internationally aligned businesses in Schleswig-Holstein. This showed us yet again that initiatives like “Schleswig-Holstein. The True North.” (Der echte Norden) and our involvement in the incorporated partner program for businesses in Schleswig-Holstein are of great importance to promote career opportunities for high professionals in the “True North”. punker was the first stop of the program. Over the next three months, the group will visit seven more businesses in Schleswig-Holstein and Denmark:

4th of November: Mach3 – The marketer of the three radiostations RSH, delta radio and Radio BOB. Perfect marketing for everyone.
18th of November: Macio – User Interface Design and software engineering from one source.
25th of November: Die Futter-Manufaktur – Founded in 1870 this family business managed the transformation into an innovative manufactory for forage.
2nd of December: FLS – In Heikendorf located Fast Lean Smart is the recognized technology leader in the development and implementation of workforce management, route optimization and mobile solutions in Europe.
9th of December: Eisenschmidt Consulting Crew – Their mission is to guide people and companies out of a crisis, support their development and give meaning to economy and life.
13th of January: Danfoss – Founded in 1933 the business has grown from a solo enterprise into one of the world’s leading suppliers of energy-efficient and innovative solutions.
20th of January: Dräger – Dräger is a leading international company in the fields of medical and safety technology. No matter where Dräger products are used: it’s always about life.

About opencampus.sh

opencampus.sh aims at connecting Kiel’s colleges and universities with businesses and organizations. Students get a chance to apply their knowledge, look into different career options and find their own professional path.

With the entrepreneurship program “job starter”, the opencampus.sh wants to guide and inculcate the entrepreneurial thinking in international students who are interested in launching their own ventures or invest in new business projects, with a lifelong commitment to achieve social and economic progress globally.

www.opencampus.sh

Solutions

The new D-Series

Posted on 3. October 2016

Endurance and efficiency – these are not only the unique features of our punker fan wheels but this is characteristic for the whole punker team. Our key objective is to continuously optimize each product, no matter how good it is. Based on the former R63D wheels, we developed a new, highly efficient fan wheel series with integrated diffuser technology – in short: The “D-Series“.

The unique characteristics of this series, specifically designed for unhoused fan wheels, is more than ‘state of the art’. The mechanical efficiency static of up to 75% is perfect to meet or exceed our industrial and ventilation customers’ energy efficiency requirements. We also focus on our customers’ cost effectiveness. This is why our R&D Team designed each of the 3 varieties of the D-Series not only with highest durability but also with optimal material input in mind.

The Dlight made of aluminum is available in tapped version for a diameter range of 225-630 mm (9″ – 25″). It is preferably used in pressure ranges from 1000 – 1500 Pa (4 – 6 in. WG – AMCA Class I) with a tip speed of up to 55 m/s (180 fps). This fan wheel stands up successfully against the already available competitors’ products.
The Dclassic works best in a pressure range from 1.500-2.500 Pa (6 – 10 in. WG – AMCA Class II) and is available in a diameter range of 225 – 1000 mm (9″ to 39 3/8″). This welded steel design with a maximum tip speed 75 m/s (246 fps) is powder coated by default and comes with the well proven taperlock system.
The diffuser series would not be complete without the Dprime made of aluminum for a performance range of 2500-4000 Pa (10 – 16 in. WG – AMCA Class III), additionally optimized with regards to acoustics by airfoiled blades. This fan wheel is currently still in test stage and will be presented to the public in spring 2017.

Being Sales Director of the punker group, I am firmly convinced that this new series with all its features provides an attractive product range that enables our customers to meet the current requirements for energy efficiency but also the costs resulting from these new requirements. With its three different types light, classic and prime the D-Series offers a big variety of applications and combines a lot of benefits in one single product family: super silent, absolutely efficient, extremely robust, surprisingly small and exceedingly lightweight.

I am very much looking forward to show you all these benefits of our new wheel series in a face-to-face conversation. Meeting opportunities will be for example at the AHR Expo in Las Vegas or during the ISH in Frankfurt, Germany. Or feel free to contact our Sales Team at your earliest convenience.

I would like to take the opportunity to express my sincere thanks to the whole punker team as well as for demonstrating amazing team spirit by developing these fantastic new products.

Discover the new D-Series at the following trade shows:

AHR Expo Las Vegas
International Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating Exposition
Jan. 30 – Feb. 01, 2017
Booth No. C1832

Please join our presentation in the New Product & Technology Theatre:
“Increasing Fan Wheel Efficiency with New Diffuser Technology”
Date/Time: Monday, 1/30/2017 – 3:15 pm
Location: Theater B

ISH Frankfurt, Germany
The world’s leading trade fair for the Bathroom Experience, Building, Energy, Air-conditioning Technology, Renewable Energies
March 14-18, 2017
Hall 11.1, Booth No. C28

Quality

Outstanding trainees

Posted on 23. September 2016

On September 21, 2016, the Chamber of Industry an Commerce Kiel invited us to graduation ceremony to honor the outstanding achievements of trainees and their apprenticing companies. As punker’s Human Resources Manager, I accompanied our graduate Kevin Salten, who completed his vocational training as an industrial mechanic between August 2013 and June 2016, and our vocational training manager Joachim Peetz to the ceremony. Kevin Salten achieved an overall score of 94 out of 100 points and was awarded the top grade “1”.

A total of 44 graduates of various occupations and from different companies were being honored. Kevin’s colleague Tobias Huth, who completed his vocational training as industrial mechanic together with Kevin, achieved a similar dream result of 92 points and was awarded the top grade “1” as well. Tobias Huth will continue his school education to gain the entrance qualification to attend an advanced technical colleges. Luckily for us, he decided to continue working for punker’s quality department as temporary staff.

It is a solemn moment when young men and women proudly accept their certificates and realize: I made it! Vocational training completed. The grade is not the most important thing, being content with your own achievement is what counts. You don’t study for our employer or our parents, your doing it for yourself and your own future. Nevertheless, two trainees of the same class achieving top grades and finishing their training half a year early is a real cause for celebration.

punker was being honored as well as an outstanding apprenticing company: „In recognition of exeptional services in vocational training, the Chamber of Industry an Commerce Kiel presents punker with this certificate.” Particular thanks are due to our vocational training manager for his extraordinary efforts: Joachim Peetz has been part of the punker crew since 1978 and is co-resonsible for the prudential, quality-oriented vocational training of our industrial/technical trainees. Thus, this honor award is also the result of dedicated and extroardinary professional training work for which thanks are due to all those who contribute to the vocational training: co-workers, team managers and especially Joachim Peetz. But no matter how good the coach, the trainee has to really want to excel. With a lot of dedication by the trainee and a high training quality, the course for a successfull career start is laid. In this case, it all came together nicely.

We congratulate two more trainees on their graduation: Tore Peetz and Jana Nissen have successfully completed their vocation training as industrial management assistants this summer. Tore Peetz continues to work for punker’s order center while Jana Nissen found a job at a close-by trading firm.

Both our training manager Joachim Peetz and I are on the board of examiners at the Chamber of Industry an Commerce Kiel and are therefore responsible for examining and grading the trainees from our chamber’s district.

Together

punker welcomes nine new trainees

Posted on 1. September 2016

The Freshmen

Today on September 1, nine new trainees start their careers at punker. The training year usually starts on August 1, but we all remember how nerve-racking final exams can be. That is why we decided to grant our new colleagues one last summer vacation before life starts getting serious. So today, these well-rested clever minds start their apprenticeships at punker:

Industrial Management Assistants:	Industrial Mechanics:	Mechatronics Technician:
Jannik Pick (19) Jana Grawe (20) Christoph Jürgensen (20)	Erik Thiesen (18) Marc Ehret (18)	Timo Schulz (19)

Eletronics Technician	Technical Product Designers
Sergej Yan-Fa (21)	Johanna Kemper (19) Philip Keding (21)

A warm welcome to our new trainees!

Our freshmen’s first day at punker started exeptionally late at 10:30 am (thanks to flexible work schedules, working at punker is compatible with any kind of sleep habits, really). They were greeted by our Managing Director Dr. Bähren and a welcome committee made up of the training managers, team leaders and “old” trainees. After a round of introductions, the new trainees were equipped with their trainee binders and workwear before they started of to the trainee-operated “punker Shop” for a shopping spree.

Clothed in punker polo shirts, tshirts or longsleeves, they revealed themselves as “the new ones” during the following tour of the premises. The industrial trainees were introduced to their future departments such as manufacturing, tooling and design by their training manager Joachim Peetz, while the commerical trainees were lead through purchasing, sales, order center and accounting by their training managers Felix Hegmann and Svenja Wriedt. This way, each trainee knows where they will start work the next morning.

We didn’t want them to be overwhelmed on their first day, so we let them call it a day at 2:30 pm – which is half an hour before core time ends, by the way.

The first months as a trainee at punker

The trainee binder they received on their first day includes a personal training schedule for the first year of training at punker. Until christmas, the commercial trainees Jana, Jannik and Christoph will tour departments which aren’t really part of their training: manufacturing, R&D, the warehouse and quality management. This way they will gain a an impressions of what punker acutally does and it will help them get a better understanding of how their work contributes to the big picture. When they get back from christmas vacation, they will start working in the commercial departments such as purchasing, sales & marketing, order center and accounting for periods of 3 to 4 months each. The industrial trainees spend the first 4 weeks at the training workshop of the nearby Lürssen shipyard, where they learn the basics of the craft before they start off in the respective departments at punker. The on-the-job training is complemented by vocational schooling – while the commerical trainees spent periods of 4 to 6 weeks in school, the commercial trainees have one or two school days per week.

Quality Together

Customer Survey 2016

Posted on 30. May 2016

In Spring 2016, we conducted a comprehensive customer survey. Our customers’ honest opinion is invaluable for us to further optimize our products and services. It shows us how satisfied they are with our product range and reveals starting points for further increasing customer satisfaction.

How was the survey conducted?

While punker used to conduct customer surveys by sending out paper questionnaires by mail, we this year decided to do an online survey for the first time. Many of our customers valued the previous personal correspondance. However, an online survey offers a lot of advantages regarding the flexibility, handling and design and not least it is by far more resource-saving. We opted for the online tool SurveyMonkey, which we liked a lot. It lets you design surveys fast and conveniently, the survey can be distributed by differents means (automatically generated Email, sending out a link via Email, embedding the survey on a website or social media-channel) and offers extensive options for analyzing results. We decided to send out a link to the survey via personalized Email to a previously defined group of addressees.

Who was questioned?

We have contacted 1,577 addressees from sales, engineering and qualtity management departments worldwide and devided these into two cohorts – A- and B-customers as well as C-customers. This way we would be able to analyze wether the different customer segments perceived or rated the quality of our products and services differently. The survey has been conducted anonymously in order to get honest feedback.

What was being analyzed?

We asked our customers to rate punker in various areas that are key drivers of customer satisfaction:

Product range – i.e. quality, depth and width of our product line and innovative character of our fan wheels
Order fulfillment – i.e. delivery times, packaging / labeling, prder processing
Our employees – Evaluation of our staff in Sales, Order Center, Engineering and Quality Management
Informational resources – i.e. technical product informationen, puncat Software for the selection of fan wheels, Website www.punker.com and www.punker-usa.com, punker Blog, Newsletter

What have we learned?

97% of participants are satisfied or extremely satisfied with the quality of our products.
98% of participants think our employess from Sales, Order Center, Engineering and Quality Management possess excellent professional competence.
Some few participants see room for improvement when it comes to our technical information, such as data sheets, drawings or the selection sofware puncat.
69% of participants don’t know the punker Blog yet – but those who do like it very much.
The ratings of our C-customers do not differ from those of our A- and B-customers.
Our customers abroad rate us similarly as our German customers.

What happens next?

We are using our customers’ honest feedback as an opportunity to further improve our products and services:

We are currently reviewing and revising our product data sheets and customer drawings.
We are working on improving our reachability and reducing response times for customer requests.
Our puncat selection software is being overhauled – a new web-based application will be released late Summer 2016.
We will conduct the next customer survey in Spring 2017 to find out whether our efforts bear fruits.

We thank everyone who participated in this year’s customer survey!

Together

European Project Semester – Welcome!

Posted on 18. March 2016

Five university students from Portugal, the United States, Spain, Poland and Germany participate in the European Project Semester (EPS) and will be putting the punker product range under the microscope to seek out potential for optimization.

EPS is a programme offered by 16 European universities. Teams of 3–6 students from all over the world work on interdisciplinary projects and write detailed final project reports which can be acknowledged as their Bachelor’s theses.

Some projects are done in cooperation with commercial businesses and industries, meaning the students are being assigned a real project by a real business – for example by punker.

To succesfully work on these projects and be able to advise the businesses, the students need a certain set of skills, of course. These are being taught during an introduction phase with a series of seminars and tutorials ranging from project management to marketing and market research.

EPS is all about team work – and in order to make that happen, the team made up of students with an international and interdisciplinary background, is coached in intercultural and conflict management as well as in language skills.

In Germany, EPS is being offered by the faculties of mechanical engineering and business at the University of Applied Sciences Kiel. This year, punker is contributing a project: the students will examine the punker product range for possible standardization potentials and answer questions like

How many different fan wheel designs would be needed to efficiently serve our customer base?
Which existing designs would offer a good basis for standardization?
Which existing designs would cover the widest possible range of customer requirements?
How can the desing department and manufacturing at punker profit from standardization?

“Our” EPS-students Ali, Aleksandra, Abel, Ana and Erin study International Sales and Purchase Engineering, Business and Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Design Engineering, and Engineering Management, respectively – possibly making them the perfect team for our project. We’re very excited to hear their take on our product range and are looking forward to the months ahead. We will keep you informed about their progresses on this blog, of course.

Together

Junior Executives take over

Posted on 9. February 2016

Last week at punker was all about headphones. In a week long business simulation game, students from 10th grade were assigned the task of running four virtual headphone companies which they named “BUZZ”, “EcutECK”, “Silence” and “QH Soundz”. Each company was represented by a team of 5 to 6 students who were assigned roles of CEO (Chief Executive Officer), CFO (Chief Financial Officer), CCO (Chief Communications Officer), CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) and CHRO (Chief Human Resources Officer). And punker was happy to share their business premises with these “Executive Boards”.

During each of the 6 “business years”, the Junior Executives had to make up to 37 decisions towards various aspects of managing a business, such as:

Production operations
Research & Development
Corporate Social Responsibility
Upgrading plants and expanding capacity
Worker compensation and training
Financing of company operations and investments
Pricing and marketing
Sponsorship

To help prepare the students for their challenging tasks, punker employees presented their scope of responsibilities and explained how far-reaching management decisions are being made at punker.

The students realized quickly that being an Chief Executive means long working hours, a lot of negotiating and persuading and making decisions that affect one another. It also involves a lot of creativity, though. For example in developing a marketing strategy to define how the company should position itself compared to the competition and to define the marketing-mix. The students came up with a lot more than that: individual company logos were being designed, advertising slogans texted, tv commercials performed and sponsoring ideas developed.

Markets Partners

New Website for North America

Posted on 22. January 2016

Mission accomplished. Our new website www.punker-usa.com for (prospect) customers from North America has been released!

With large economies like the USA and Canada as well as up-and-coming markets like Mexico, North America is a growth market with a whole lot of potential for the punker Group. In 2012, punker LLC was founded to make sure our customers get ideal close-by service. To further optimize the service and support for this market, we now released a separate website for this significant group of customers. It takes in account this target group’s specific information needs and technical demands regarding our fan wheels.

The new website is aimed mainly towards the HVAC-industry (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning). Accordingly, it spotlights the fan wheel series R63D-HVAC and D light. Regarding the imagery, we opted for more personality and character. Our colleagues at punker LLC organized a photo shoot just to make sure they’ll be seen from there best side. And it looks like that was a lot of fun. To make the visit to our website more fun, we included animated graphics, 360°-views and exploded views that explain the benefits of our diffusor design over conventional wheel designs.

We’re excited to find out how our customers and prospects in the USA, Canada and Mexico like our new website. We on our part are very pleased with the outcome of yet another great project realized by our trusted web agency wquadrat Medien GmbH.

Markets

Our site at Hickory, NC is now ISO 9001 certified!

Posted on 9. October 2015

When punker LLC was founded at the new location in North Carolina it was already clear that there could only be one benchmark / standard for punker quality. Right from the start, the customers served by punker LLC should be able to experience the quality of products and services they were accustomed to. Consequently, only a comprehensive quality management system could be considered. At punker headquarters in Eckernförde this quality management system has been in effect for years. It is successfully certified according to DIN EN ISO 9001, the internationally recognized standard for quality management systems, and is being advanced continuously. In order for this certificate to be valid for our new site in Hickory, part of this year’s surveillance audit was performed by TÜV Nord (certification body in Germany) in Hickory for the first time.

In the run-up to this audit numerous specification documents had to be translated and adapted to the conditions in the US. Trainings on-site and at our headquarters in Eckernförde conveyed our understanding of quality to our colleagues in Hickory. This transfer of knowledge proved successful during the audit: no deviations were detected. As a reward for their efforts, our colleagues in the US received their own certificate issued by TÜV Nord.

More information from TÜV NORD CERT:
http://www.tuev-nord.de/de/qualitaet/din-en-iso-9001-9181.htm
http://www.tuev-nord.de/cps/rde/xbcr/SID-683B6491-CF3D2D13/tng_de/ISO_9001.pdf

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