A few weeks ago, photographer Klaus Storch visited our company and took photos of our systems. One of the award-winning photographer's specialities is taking detailed shots with long exposures in natural light. This technique emphasises the aesthetic component of industrial plants. The first photos have now been printed in large format and are hanging in the corridor of our office wing. They give visitors an atmospheric first impression of our technology.

This month, four very different machines are going out to our customers. The machines are currently being dismantled. Over the next two weeks, the machines will gradually be travelling to the customers, where they will be put into operation. This will give us a little more space every day in our assembly hall for setting up the new systems, which are already waiting in the wings. 😃

A glimpse behind the scenes: In the largest of the systems to be delivered, the length of the installed supply and control cables alone adds up to around 4 kilometres. These cables are removed for despatch and have to be correctly reconnected at the customer's premises. 🙈 Correct labelling is therefore of crucial importance.

Schmale Maschinenbau GmbH from Altena has been awarded the title of "Family-friendly company" this year.

For Managing Director Andreas Schmale, the award is about more than just a strategic competitive advantage on the labour market.  For him, people and their families must not take a back seat at the expense of company profits.

"This is a rather unorthodox entrepreneurial attitude, but I believe that employees with healthy families also do a good job. I believe that healthy families, in which parents are present and are not replaced by childcare services so that they can work more, also produce healthy children, teenagers, trainees and the future of Germany," says the entrepreneur.

Schmale therefore has a whole range of measures in place that have led to an increasingly family-friendly working culture in recent years. In addition to flexible flexitime arrangements with working time accounts, these include the option of working from home and short-term leave, for example to care for relatives. Bike leasing, celebrations with family members, parental leave for fathers and allowances for private pension and healthcare schemes are further benefits for the company's employees.