EMSNOW Profile: Zollner

Zollner is one of the top 15 EMS companies in the world. More than 5 decades ago, Manfred Zollner laid the foundation in Zandt for today’s Zollner Elektronik AG. Since that time, the company has developed into a worldwide group of companies with more than 11,500 employees. Zollner is both a mechatronics service provider and a flexible, family-run firm.

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zollner

Zollner Elektronik AG
Zandt Headquarters
Manfred-Zollner-Str. 1
93499 Zandt
GERMANY

Phone: +49 9944 201-0
Fax: +49 9944 201-1314

Operational Overview

Zollner is one of the top 15 EMS companies in the world. More than 5 decades ago, Manfred Zollner laid the foundation in Zandt for today’s Zollner Elektronik AG. Since that time, the company has developed into a worldwide group of companies with more than 11,500 employees. Zollner is both a mechatronics service provider and a flexible, family-run firm.

At 20 international locations, in Germany, Hungary, Romania, China, Tunisia, the USA, Switzerland, Costa Rica and Hong Kong, they claim to focus on longstanding, sustainable customer and supplier partnerships, consistent quality and an optimal price-performance ratio.

Company Differentiators

Zollner’s 200+ R&D engineers ensure their industrial OEM clients can focus on their own core development. The R&D lab at the Zandt facility is key to their quality commitment. Their expertise in power electronics and the very stable and loyal workforce gives them strength and continuity, especially at the Zandt location where the company began. Their core offering is technology AND people; their people know how to use their impressive technological capabilities to benefit their customers, and thereby developing trust. Each of their global facilities has its unique strengths that reflect the region. For example, at the China facility, 90% of the production is for the Chinese customer. Their 500+ global customers are primarily in the industrial electronics sector. They not only have the same systems, machines and processes at all of the locations but also offer the same high level of quality, flexibility and surety.

Strategic Growth Drivers

They have invested in new sectors such as 3D printing and agricultural applications. They support customers along the entire value-added chain: from customer-specific development and design at the beginning of the product lifecycle through sample and serial production, including supply chain management and materials management, and all the way to after-sales service.

They believe their loyal workforce will be a major growth driver, and they place special value in continuous further education and training for employees, enabling them to optimally use these technologies and systems for customers. They have included employees in production processes, services and business processes, into the framework of our Continuous Improvement Process (CIP). The goals are the highest level of efficiency and effectiveness. To best serve customers, they employ the Six Sigma method. The avoidance of waste (Muda) is a given.

 

Facility Tour

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Eric and Dieter met with Markus Aschenbrenner, Manfred Amberger, and Xaver Feiner at the Zandt facility in December 2021. They learned about Zollner’s Covid response, which was highly focused on the well-being of the employees. Zollner is facing material shortages, as others on the tour have, and told EMSNOW that the automotive sector suffered the most during the pandemic while the medical and industrial sectors did well. The weakest sectors have been air and rail. They have managed to get strong commitment from their component suppliers for Q1 2022.

zollnerThey agreed that labor is the #1 challenge facing the EMS industry; they bring employees from Tunisia to help in Germany and Romania and say training new employees is the critical factor. They have an impressive apprentice program with a dedicated training center in Zandt.

 

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