In July 2008 the Dörken-Group companies – including Dörken MKS-Systeme GmbH & Co. KG – won a ‘Top 100 Companies’ award. They thus rank as being amongst the 100 most innovative companies in the German SME sector. For the Herdecke-based company, however, this is no reason to relax. Instead the topic of ‘Innovation’ is now being given new impetus across the whole company with a strategic system of innovation management. Of key importance to this is the newly created role of Innovation Manager, which Jan Mielke has taken on since the start of the year.
 
Investing in innovation
Continual analysis of markets, the competition and technology, plus regular customer surveys, trade fair visits and research of written information and patents are key monitoring tools for identifying potentially innovative ideas at all Dörken companies. One example of this is the newly installed Dörken ideas database, into which every employee is able to insert ideas. “We have created a new motto specifically for this process of ideas generation,” explains Jan Mielke: “We’re multiplying our innovative capacity by the number of our employees! For at Dörken everyone is an innovation scout!”

In addition to these tools, Dörken MKS-Sys¬teme is making increased investment in the innovation area. Setting up and expanding the laboratory facilities and extending the production facility at the Herdecke site are just two examples of this. In November 2008 the new MKS technology centre was also opened in Herdecke. Further technology centres will be created in the USA and Korea before 2009 is over. In the company’s three key markets – the EU, the USA and the growth market of Asia – Dörken will thus be able to offer users of microlayer corrosion protection systems expert technical advice at the respective production sites.

A twofold presence at the Hannover Trade Fair
Dörken MKS-Systeme will in 2009 once again be exhibiting at several international trade fairs. At the 2009 Hannover Trade Fair the company will be represented with innovations at not just one, but two of the 13 key sub-sector fairs. At the ‘Surface Technology’ event and at ‘Wind’, the new leading international fair for ‘systems, components and services for wind energy’, the company will thus be showing the new Delta-Protekt^® KL 101 basecoat, which has been specifically developed for large steel components used in car production and wind turbine construction.  For vehicle axles and the bolts of wind turbine pylons it is an effective alternative to the established process of normal temperature – and especially high temperature – hot-dip galvanising. In the case, above all, of highly rigid, susceptible grades of steel the possibility thus exists to counter the system-specific drawbacks of hot-dip galvanising through use of a fundamentally different application method.

Dörken MKS-Systeme will be exhibiting at the Hannover Fair in hall 6 on stand D27 and in hall 27 on stand K07.