How did the last fiscal year go?

We set a record for the third straight time with sales of 1.68 billion euros, and we strength­ened our tech­nology and market lead­er­ship. We’re pleased that our customers trust in our solu­tions exper­tise and our prod­ucts. Our numerous inno­va­tions were also well received by the customers.

What goals follow for you from that?

We want to continue along our path to success. For the 2016/2017 fiscal year, the ebm-papst Group plans for revenue growth of 9.3 percent to 1.836 billion euros. We want to top the two billion mark in 2019, so we’re investing around the world in new produc­tion facil­i­ties and new devel­op­ment centers. Our current plans call for 192 million euros in capital invest­ment.

How will you meet the needs of customers?

We need to keep getting from customer requests to reli­able, customized prod­ucts quickly, and for that our motor plat­forms, impeller sets and product lines provide an excel­lent foun­da­tion for all markets. We’re improving the inter­play among sales, devel­op­ment and produc­tion so that we can deliver suit­able solu­tions even more quickly and continue to be perceived by customers as a tech­no­log­ical trend­setter that provides quality and satis­fac­tion.

How will ebm-papst confront inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion?

Many of our customers are posi­tioned across regions or glob­ally. With sales teams focused on market segments, we’re adjusting to strength­ening global market and customer struc­tures to further strengthen our customer focus with speed, flex­i­bility and a high level of tech­nical exper­tise. In addi­tion, we’re increasing efforts to build up tech­no­log­ical exper­tise at our produc­tion sites abroad.

Where do you see tech­no­log­ical poten­tial?

With our core exper­tise in motor tech­nology and aero­dy­namics, we can make even more progress in effi­ciency, noise reduc­tion and resource conser­va­tion. We see partic­ular poten­tial for further devel­op­ment in aero­dy­namics and aeroa­coustics. We will satisfy more complex require­ments with more easily installed and highly effi­cient system solu­tions.

How is ebm-papst approaching Industry 4.0?

Many of our prod­ucts are already parts of big networks and commu­ni­cate with a variety of other systems. We want to continue along this path and also develop more exper­tise in soft­ware. We’re very enthu­si­astic about digi­tal­iza­tion and are increasing our research activ­i­ties there.