PlaymoFriends
General => News => Topic started by: playmovictorian on July 15, 2009, 07:44:38
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Here is a short video on how they come to life...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz10VuugF1E&feature=rec-HM-fresh+div
Karim ;)
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Karim,
thanks a lot for the video! :)
It even brought me a feeling of Johnny Depp's movie "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", but instead of chocolate, it was with Playmos... ::)
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Thanks, Karim,
Neat video! :yup:
Best regards,
Jimbo
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WOW :o! I wish I worked there :yup:! Great employment opportunity video Karim :)9!
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Thanks for the video Karim, I love to see how things are made. Especially things I like!
Gepetto
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Thank you Karim :)9 Wonderful to see how these figures are made.
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If you go to Malta you can go round the factory and see them being made.
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another thank you to you karim. where do you find the time to find all of these?
kaethe
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More on the PM Malta's factory with a Swedish schooltrip tour of the factory related by their Headteacher in 1997 hence the reference to manual assembling...
The visit to the Playmobil factory.
(http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/191/playplas.jpg) (http://img156.imageshack.us/i/playplas.jpg/)
3EA's visit to the Playmobil factory,
On Tuesday we went to Zejtun where the Playmobilfactory is. Playmobil is a part of the Brandstätter group. We arrived at nine p.m. outside Playmobil. There we was met by an engineer. He gave us a short briefing of what we were going to see and a little warning that we had to stay behind the yellow lines. The factory was separated in two buildings, something that was not so good, because then they had to transport things between the buildings. This because the production has been larger and larger, and the area of the factory had grown, the area of the factory is now 22 000 squared meters, compared in the beginning it was only 2500 squared meters. But now they had planners to build more, so all the buildings got together again.
The first we start watching was how they made the forms for the toys. This hall was in a building a few meters away from the mainbuilding. The whole production start when they receive a drawing from Germany. This drawing they draw again with a computer, the drawing program was autocad. This drawing was then transferred over to a machine that cut the pieces for the form. When all the pieces was made, they were put together manually. Afterwards we walked to a production locale were the forms were put into machines that pushed the forms together and fill them with plastic. some of the forms were so advanced that they could make two pieces with different colours, but they also had one bigger that could handle three different pieces with different colours an put the pieces together. After the melting it was still some plastic left. This pieces was transported to a room were they cut the pieces together so they could be reused.
Afterwards we walked to the main building again to see how they put the pieces together. This part of the process was not automatic. The cause the packagesection not was automatic was that many people needed work. Some of the pieces was just putted into bags and packed. This because many people likes to build the things together them selves.
At last we went to the section that paint the plastic figures. Most of the painting process was automized. Here it was a smell of alcohol and de people that worked here was not using any kind of protection.
The Playmobil factory at Malta has about 750 workers and they had some more on offices around the world.
We also got the chance to purchase some of the items produced in the factory, and of course we couldn't miss that oportunity!
Playmobil's cool!
One thing that was kind of sad was that some of the places was so small and noisy that the entire class didn't get to hear what our guide said
We said thanks for the tour and gave him a small gift, a special glas from our town, the Trondheim glas. Afterwards some of us went to the beach and others on a boat trip.
We'd like to thank Playmobil for a nice tour of their factory!
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Malta's PM Factory...a short introduction story :
Or shall I say : "Success story"
Playmobil Malta Ltd. is the biggest 100% German and private subsidiary, of Brandstätter Group- Malta. The mother company, Geobra Brandstätter GmbH & Co, Kg, based near Nuremberg in German is the creator and manufacturer of the famous Playmobil toy system. Geobra Brandstätter has a long history which began in 1876, and the company has always belonged to the same family.
Growth has not stopped since. -At the beginning of the 60s, Geobra Brandstätter was producing record players, communications systems, fibre glass boats, petrol tanks and water skis. Confronted with increasing cost prices at the beginning of the 70s, the company decided to open a first factory on Malta. The Playmobil toy system appeared for the first time in 1974 at the International Toy Fair in Nuremberg.
The success was immediate and has been maintained until the present day. Geobra Brandstätter has become the most prosperous toy manufacturer in Germany, with a consolidated turnover in 2001 of 292.9 million Euros and a payroll of 2,318 personnel of which 1,257 in Germany. Production is today spread between Germany, Spain and Malta.
Brandt International Ltd. started its production on Malta in 1972 manufacturing toy telephones and record players. Playmobil production on the island started in 1976. At the start, only the famous Playmobil figures, whose manufacture necessitated the use of large numbers of staff, were produced on Malta. Today, Playmobil Malta Ltd. produces toys, timers, software and steel models.
In 2003, the group moved into a new 38,000 m2 factory, where 150 injection moulding machines are installed with a sophisticated system of printing and packaging processes. It is the largest factory in the plastics sector on Malta, producing around 50 millions smiling plastic figures per annum. The Maltese unit employs 700 highly specialised staff and exports goods worth 65 million euros per annum, essentially to Europe, the USA and Canada.
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The Head ( MD ) of Malta's PM Factory is a very talented Lady indeed...
(http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6614/helgaellul.jpg) (http://img140.imageshack.us/i/helgaellul.jpg/)
Helga Ellul is well known in Malta as a very successful, determined and shrewd business woman, who is at the helm of the largest German factory in Malta – with 850 employees also the third largest employer in Malta. Yet, as she told me during her interview, she also finds time to cook and knit, paint and write poetry, play golf and enjoy at leisure the view from her house in Naxxar. Amongst others, she also holds honourable positions like Governor of MCAST, Vice-President of the Malta Federation of Industry, Past-Vice-President of the Rotary La Vallette Malta Club and Vice-President of the National Council of Women. She was the first foreigner who employed young Maltese workers straight from school offering them a proper vocational education or apprenticeship with training in Germany. For her efforts as an outstanding employer and for her continuous engagement in business and industry, she was also the first foreigner to be awarded the Maltese National Order of Merit by the President of Malta in 1993.
Who exactly is this lady, spending her working hours in the spacious office building of the newly erected factory in Hal Far? It is this enterprise and product success of Playmobil which is closely interwoven with her own personal accomplishments and professional career. Let us see how it all began:
Helga Ellul was born in the small town of Zirndorf near Nürnberg, Bavaria. Together with her younger brother she was brought up by very conservative and bourgeois parents of protestant faith. Her mother did not pursue a profession, but gave the grand old house always a welcoming atmosphere for every body living there including the numerous friends of the children. Hikes in the surrounding hills and skiing in winter were natural pastimes enhancing the children’s love for all living creatures. As her father could only afford a University education for one child, this – according to the trends of the times – had to be the boy, who actually was not keen on studying at all. Consequently, father arranged an apprenticeship as a commercial clerk in Nürnberg for the brighter daughter. She had to leave school at the early age of 15, having completed her “Mittlere Reife” (approximately equivalent to O-Levels). She successfully absolved her three years as an apprentice and added another year in the accounts department.
However, getting homesick, she wanted to return to Zirndorf, and applied for a position in the sales and export department of the only private company in town, belonging to a certain Mr. Horst Brandstätter. The factory with approximately 200 employees produced toys, such as kids’ telephones, scales and cash registers as toys. She was accepted and started in 1968 making also much use of her fluency in English and French. Talking about this period, Mrs. Ellul says: “Mr. Brandstätter was and still is my mentor”, - admiration and gratefulness obvious in her voice. He had the reputation of furthering his female employees, particularly when he sensed special talents, professional knowledge and an open mind. He introduced her to the factory processes and taught her the analytical way of taking decisions including their realisation with perseverance. He systematically built up her self confidence, encouraging her to never to drop her dynamical attitudes.
In the times of manual typewriters, carbon copies, and wax stencils, he gave young Fräulein Helga her first project: to carry out a market analysis of printing machines - comparing office time of conventional methods against the speed and prices of this new investment. She obliged, and the printing machine suggested by her was acquired. This filled the female heart of the budding entrepreneur with pride, still detectable today.
Due to rising costs and lack of workers in the Germany of the late sixties a transfer of the production into a country with more suitable resources was envisaged. It was a German friend producing artificial Christmas trees for Canada in Malta who praised the island and mentioned the high local unemployment rate. Consequently Malta was chosen, and the factory was inaugurated in 1971. The new staff members were trained for some months in Zirndorf, where it was Helga Ellul’s duty to look after these young people, all of them first time away from home. Some of them are still working at Hal Far! Originally the factory produced various toys made of plastic, until it was decided in 1974 that little people should excite the children’s imagination. The choice fell on a red Indian, a knight and a builder. It was a Dutch trader who discovered and marketed these first figures in Holland. The breakthrough was made also with the introduction of the name PLAYMOBIL, a brainchild of Mr. Brandstätter.
While this happened in Malta, the young and head-strong Fräulein Helga from Zirndorf wanted to gain some experience on this “distant” island and asked for re-location for one year which was granted. She drove alone (!) with her tiny Volkswagen beetle - which was painted with colourful flowers - all the way through Italy, arriving in Malta one fine day in February 1974, after which she never ever re-settled in Germany for any length of time. Her duties in the Maltese factory comprised the setting up of a managerial administrative department with accountancy, payroll, banking, production planning etc. After some years the original technical manager left and when Bernd Ritschel took over as Head of Technical Department and Operations in 1976, Helga Ellul was installed as Managing Director of Playmobil Malta Ltd, a position she enjoys whole heartedly to this very day.
Helga Ellul also cherishes a private life, which - one may say – started while playing tennis at the Marsa Sportsclub during her first Maltese year. There she met this interesting and internationally open minded Maltese gentleman Joe Ellul. Though she actually considered herself a career woman not wanting to be bound by marriage or children, she eventually gave in, got married in 1977 and a few years later first Christian and then Chiara were born. A very harmonious family life unfolded. “But”, so she says, “this would not have been possible had my husband not very willingly shared with me all responsibilities, even with the young babies. Because I was – and still am – obsessed with my professional scopes and the workforce of the factory depending on me.”
For Helga Ellul it is essential to have a goal which can be reached by development and with responsible strategies. It is important to show the youth of a country that it is of lesser consequence which work they carry out, as long as they follow an aim and are in themselves satisfied with their achievements. “We as adults have to supply them with an environment on solid pillars”. She concludes quoting her father’s words written into her album of poems: ”Alles, was Du sagst, muss wahr sein, aber nicht alles, was wahr ist, musst Du sagen”. – Everything you say has to be true, but not all that is true has to be mentioned by you.
And for the reader with quantifying inclinations: At the time of writing the 100.000.000.000th little plastic figure had left the factory at Hal Far to travel into the world.
For your diary
Wednesday, 2nd April 2008
Gesprächsrunde „Verkürzung der Schulzeit in Deutschland - Verlängerung in Malta“
Diskussionsleiter: Klaus Koch
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An insight in the business vision of our favorite Brand...
Playmobil favors Europe for the manufacture of toys
Recalls of millions of toys by Mattel Toys'R'Us and U.S. manufacturers in recent months has triggered a controversy on the quality of products manufactured in China.
Against the tide of this subcontract, the famous German brand continues to manufacture its toys in Europe, and even exported to China.
The group says focus on quality and long term.
His charge, Andrea Schauer explains why.
For the Bavarian toy maker, there can be no question of outsourcing in China, explains Andrea Schauer: "If we were in China, while retaining the same concern for quality, then we could achieve real savings.
Our great advantage over companies that outsource to China is that toy manufacturing is done in Europe (the group has manufacturing sites in Spain, Malta and Czech Republic) mainly Dietenhofen, which is 20 kilometers from the headquarters of the company.
Also, the continuous monitoring by our teams is not a problem.
In addition, an accredited independent institute controls our products.
Created in 1974 by Hans Beck, when asked by the Brandstätter Group to draw a new line of toys for children, the series Playmobil quickly proved to be an inescapable room of children.
Thirty years later, it is 1.8 billion figurines that have been designed and manufactured in the heart of Bavaria, and success is full.
Andrea Schauer emphasizes the importance of time given to the design of new series: It can take up to three years, a luxury in an industry willingly carried by fashions.
"Our office, composed of 60 employees, and our manufacturing team, which includes a staff with a long experience with us, make sure that the products produced at the outset meet safety standards," says she said.
Clearly, Playmobil has made the manufacturing quality of its toys - which also involves a careful choice of plastic - its advantage.
Industrial Quality, linked to a strategy based on long-term exercised throughout the production chain: the motivation of employees to grow within the company, through the very idea of the toy, designed so that children can play as long as possible, ie several years , until the group's financial structure, which ensures independence vis-à-vis the financial markets. Andrea Schauer, says: "If we had to rely on borrowed capital, then we could no longer work the same way.
We invest much time in design.
And we are investing significant sums in our production plants in Europe, to ensure optimum quality.
The capital market offering are certainly not necessary to achieve it. "
He added that a flotation would require the group, on the one hand to meet financially, and in a very short time, groups of shareholders, and to take risks to finance expansion imposed.
"We want to avoid at all costs having to take measures sudden, spontaneous, and imposed."
Playmobil, a German SMEs typically Playmobil, a typically German SMEs
The industrial strategy of the brand of the famous figure is not exceptional in a country where small and medium-sized businesses are the backbone of the German economy.
Very discreet, deeply rooted in their regions, with a good financial health, many of them also turn out to be champions of export.
Great success great success in France in France
The french market proves to be the main importer of the famous figurines.
Market share in France rose 3.4% to 5.3%, in a stagnant market.
"The strategy to increase turnover through the specialist has been successful," says the manager, adding: "Playmobil France was created in 1981.
The new generation of parents had a positive relationship with Playmobil, and transmits this feeling to happy children.
"Clearly, french children are very fond of role-playing. "
Bémol hand, these SMEs are often decried for their patriarchal structures, synonymous with the financial community rigidity. However, the anchor of regional SMEs, however, ensures a good reputation among civil society.
It is not uncommon for these SMEs to donations of computers to schools in the region, or make financial donations to associations, primarily around Christmas.
In short, they take an active part, but discreet, just the media coverage over the course of the regional daily newspaper, in society.
Also, if the concept of corporate social responsibility has recently made its appearance in Germany semantics, the social commitment of companies is traditional.
For example, Robert Bosch, the founder of the company of the same name, encouraged the training of its employees, introduced the working day of eight hours and made donations for the construction of a hospital in Stuttgart.
That was in 1906.
Pressure Pressure from hedge funds of hedge funds
However, globalization has to undermine a structure that still permeates the German industrial landscape, and many SMEs are concerned about the creeping influence of hedge funds, which do not hesitate to force the door of leadership.
"Until now, companies operating in a specific national context, impregnated by an environment where cultural norms and values were well anchored.
This has influenced their industrial strategies in the long term, "says Marcus Kreikebaum, Institute for the ethics of business to the European Business School, in an interview with German magazine Fluter.
However, globalization has led to an internationalization of the regional roots does more, hedge funds, taking the reins of the company, order to proceed, the pursuit of maximum profit quickly replaced gradually principle of managing the long term.
In keeping with the policy of long-term, Horst Brandstätter, the current owner and descendant of the founder of the group Brandstätter, fixed in his will the foundation of a foundation, ie a structure protecting the company bouts of hedge funds: "The foundation protects the future of Playmobil and prevents him from being sold or listed.
Claire Stam, Frankfurt (Germany) Claire Stam in Frankfurt (Germany)
Uploaded on: 02/01/2008 Uploaded on: 02/01/2008
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