A permanent place among the best
No other commercial competition in Germany achieves such a high level of resonance as the Grand Prix of Medium-Sized Enterprises which has been awarded by the Leipziger Oskar-Patzelt Foundation for the past 24 years. The award does not even come with a monetary prize: For the companies that face the jury, this is not about money, but simply about honour, public recognition and recognition of their competitive strength. Both newcomers and traditional companies are among the winning companies. All winners represent the socially committed growth elite of the German medium-sized enterprise sector, are innovative and also have strong values and a clear strategy as well as being highly flexible. All the winning companies were judged by the jury on the basis of the following five criteria: overall business development, creation and protection of training and jobs, modernisation and innovation, regional commitment and service, customer focus and marketing. Excellence was called for in all five categories.
“We are very proud that we have been able to fulfil these criteria and have been able to secure one of the top places among so many highly effective and innovative companies,” said Bruno Hirtz, Managing Director of Bilstein & Siekermann®. “I, and the entire team, are delighted that we have been able to position ourselves as a successful and innovative company to meet the challenges of the future,” continued Hirtz.
According to the Managing Director, one of the reasons that the company won the prize was the fact that, in recent years, it has always managed to produce stable returns and reinvest profits in its own company. “Our goal is to always keep the equity ratio high,” says Hirtz. “Our ability to form integrated technology partnership helps us deliver maximum value to our customers. And we are constantly working on consolidating our competence leadership”. The continued expansion of the company's in-house know-how in the InTech+ competence centre also played a role for the jury, says Hirtz.
Bilstein & Siekermann® manufactures approximately 2,000 different products – cold-formed parts and turned parts – used in various industries, including automotive, mechanical and plant engineering. The portfolio includes screw plugs and sleeves, screws and bolts, as well as high-tech and complex turned parts manufactured on CNC and cam-controlled lathes. The special feature of Bilstein & Siekermann®'s production method is cold forming. Depending on the part geometry, this significantly reduces the consumption of raw materials compared to conventional cutting. At Bilstein & Siekermann®, this technology is called BSH cold forming®. Accordingly, the company’s machine park also incorporates state-of-the-art, electronically controlled cold forming presses. Another unique technique that the company has perfected is HEATforming™, which extends the possibilities of three-dimensional solid forming and enables the economic production of aluminium, steel and stainless steel components with very high degrees of deformation; these parts are also used in the automotive industry.
By the way, The Grand Prix of Medium-Sized Enterprises in 2018 is not the first commercial prize recently awarded to this medium-sized company from the Eifel region: As if this prize was not enough, Bilstein & Siekermann® was, ‘as a particularly impressive winner’ also presented at the end of October with the honorary plaque of the Oskar-Patzelt Foundation at the grand closing gala in Berlin.
The Bilstein & Siekermann®company
Bilstein & Siekermann GmbH + Co. KG (BSH) from Hillesheim in the Volcanic Eifel region, was founded in 1956 and manufactures complex metal formed parts, including various screws, bolts and shells. These cold-formed parts and turned parts are used in the automotive industry as well as in the mechanical and plant engineering industry. BSH generates annual sales of approximately EUR 24 million. In 2015, the Chinese subsidiary Bilstein & Siekermann Cold Forming (Taicang) Co., Ltd. was founded and produces locally for the Asian market. Since 2003, the company has been owned by INDUS Holding AG, which is listed on the SDax and is based in Bergisch Gladbach.
