What do you think about the idea of moving more production plants to Europe?

Dirk Zedler, managing director, Zedler-Institut

In principle, this is a good idea because relocating the production from Asia to Europe can improve the product quality. This is due to the fact that there are less language and cultural barriers within Europe and that routes are shorter. In Eastern Europe customers have the opportunity to visit production more often and to communicate to the producer more directly and more open, what to improve. In Asia, you should not express criticism as directly as you would in Europe, because this would lead in fact to a deterioration of quality.

In addition, prototypes could be forwarded faster to the test stands in Europe. This could result in safer products. Of course, this does not work with all products; key decisive factors are the costs for manual work as well as the degree of automation. As the production of carbon for example still requires so much handwork, the production will remain in Asia for the moment, even if automation can still be improved. Especially in Europe, however, metal processing is highly automated. This would not only enhance the product quality, but also the production speed. Moreover, I am convinced that the all-in costs are often underestiamted in the case of the production in Asia.