FFG Europe eyes German ops, bigger share of mould market

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ETMM: What is the plan for the MAG IE brands? (Hüller Hille, Hessapp, Modul, VDF Boehringer, Witzig & Frank)

Maniglio: FFG retains all its brands. And it actually invests in its brands and the group communicates technically and commercially through its brands. And these brands are of course very important and very famous brands, with a lot of awareness among clients and customers. We’ll treat them exactly like the others. We will continue to have these brands as the main communication to our markets. FFG is only a company brand, it’s not a product brand. An FFG milling or turning machine doesn’t exist. It would be a Jobs milling machine, a Sachman milling machine, so why not a Hüller Hille milling machine. [...] You will never see an FFG milling machine. So we’re leaving our companies with the original brands with which people identify themselves, and each brand is associated with a well-defined and clearly defined category of machines.

ETMM: How is MAG IE going to be integrated into FFG Europe?

Maniglio: FFG Europe is a company. FFG Werke also is a full-fledged, complete, independent company. Synergies are sought on a voluntary basis, meaning if there is an opportunity to do something together, at a product plant or a customer location, for instance, everybody will be animated to do it, and this is where the group comes in. So my effort, the effort of the top management of the entire group, is to create the best possible set-up in terms of cross-country teams and things like that in order to best achieve these synergies. Nobody will be telling FFG Werke what to do. This is not the type of integration that’s going on because that’s not the philosophy of the Fair Friend Group.

ETMM: Where will product development for the MAG IE brands take place in the future?

Maniglio: We have a team of R&D engineers in the various plants of FFG Werke. We will strengthen this team. We are actually now thinking of having central R&D in Göppingen, and they are going to go on with their existing approach of new product development. Of course this will be “fertilised” by the experiences of the other parts of the group, be it from Asia or from Italy, but again, nobody is going to do the R&D of somebody else. Everybody has to do their own R&D. There will be chances of course to get the maximum out of what we have. We have the unique chance of having two different, let’s say, design philosophies within the group, the Asian philosophy and the European philosophy. The real challenge is to try and bring together the new products and the two philosophies to get the best out of it for the client.

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