What a pride to have "Mr. Brake" with us in our Brazilian management team !

 Hi all You faithful readers of my posts and followers of my blog. Time again for a new post today. The break since my last post in this blog has not really been a break for me in the sence, that I had just rested lazy doing nothing. Not at all. 

To be true, during the last months my activity level has risen even more due to many important international events, conferences, projects and workshops in which I have participated almost around the clock. For me in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to participate in such online activities steered in Europe and Africa very often means to switch on my notebook at 5am or even earlier. When these are finished, my normal busy Brazilian activity day directly starts. In the afternoon the activities in great part of Latin America and US/Canada dominate and in the evening the center of my activities moves to Singapore, Malaysia, Corea, China and Australia, where we from Vulkan do Brasil are also heavily involved in projects and other activities together with our Vulkan Group colleagues in the local subsidiaries and customers over there. Vulkan is almost everywhere around the globe. We are on all continents.

But I really like this active, dynamic way and style of living & working. To be true, it stimulates me terribly and it keeps me highly motivated and productive. The really only important thing is, that I need to reserve some time every day for reading the several international newspapers (for sure the digital versions) which I have subscribed and for which I am adicted, to arrange a free hour for using our wonderful home gym (which we have inaugurated just a few weeks ago) for doing some exercises and to spent some time (dinner, table games, movies,....) @ the end of the day with my wife. And for sure for viewing together with my son Gabriel, who is - the same like me - a fierce supporter, the soccer plays of our favorite team Flamengo on the TV. But the familly member which accompanies me almost all day long during all my activities is my faithful assistant Luke, our golden retriever.

On the weekend my activity routine changes dramatically. Only a few strategically important conference calls, lots of chats with friends wherever they live in the world, plenty of time for just hanging around, reading, listening to music, drinking tea, water, fruit juice, beer, caipirinha, wine, cachaça, whisky, rum, vodka, tequila, pisco and for going out for shopping together with my familly, visiting friends and/or having lunch resp. dinner at places, which we love or want to try out. And writing posts, for sure (:- 

Yesterday I noticed a RFQ from our Vulkan colleagues in Turkey, which especially called my attention. Our Turkish heavy industry customer - after long years of heavy duty service and without having created any head aches for him - wants to replace one of our hydraulic brakes sold to him almost 15 years ago. Together with the technical specification for this RFQ our Turkish colleagues sent us a picture of the name tag of this brake.

I fell in love with it immediately. This brake has been manufactured at our factory in Itatiba, Sao Paulo, Brazil, just shortly after the aquisition of the company Sime do Brasil, which my predecessor had geniously arranged in 2003. And the name tag of this brake still shows the logos of both companies, Sime do Brasil and Vulkan do Brasil. Only a few years later Sime do Brasil became fully integrated into Vulkan do Brasil and since then the former Sime do Brasil brakes portfolio has become massively extended by new and further developped brakes of all construction types and for all imaginable kinds of industrial applications. Actually Vulkan do Brasil since then has meanwhile become one of the market and technology leaders for industrial brakes and braking systems - not only in Brazil, but also globally seen.

When I took over responsability @ Vulkan do Brasil as Interim General Manager in September 2014 - at that time still MD of GEA do Brasil in Franco da Rocha, Sao Paulo - I met Josias and all other key players of Vulkan do Brasil during my first work day in Itatiba. And I was immediately deeply impressed by him. I learned about his career, which he had actually started - from today`s sight more than 21 years ago - at Sime do Brasil and which with the aquisition by Vulkan do Brasil brought him to Vulkan do Brasil. 

When I met Josias, he was responsible as Operations Manager for production, engineering, maintenance, quality control and logistics. And he was - no matter the deplorable state of the whole company and it`s messy factory - doing a bloody good (fire worker) job in this multiple responsability function. But when Josias gave me an idea of the professional experience, which he had already accumulated until then and taking into account his brilliant engineering education and the fact, that he - despite his already long company affiliation - was still quite young, I concluded, that he was not in the right position - seen as well from his personal standpoint as also from the company`s standpoint. 

A man with so impressive technical product and application know how and expertise - that was directly my conviction - had to be inserted totally different in the company. When I found out during the next weeks, that our product portfolio had been neglected during several years and that we were loosing attractivity and competitivity on the market with our products, the idea popped up in my head, to create quickly a product development department, to equip it with the necessary resources and to give it the necessary autonomies and to suggest to Josias, to become the founding father and leader of all this.

My disappointment could not have been bigger. When I confronted Josias with this idea, he initially rejected it. He was concerned, that he would loose power, importance and responsability in our company compared to his actual position. Instead of for more than 150 employees (we still had too many of them at that time, but I was already about to correct this...) he would be responsible for only a group of 5 - 10 employees as per my proposal. And he also was not convinced, that such a new development department would be successful, taking into account the desperate general situation of our company.

To make the story short - I finally managed to convince Josias and on January 1st, 2015 he started as Director of our freshly foundet Development of Products, Processes and Applications (DPPA) department with me as the stakeholder and supporter and defender. As per my offer, Josias was allowed, to chose whoever he needed and trusted from our engineering staff for setting up his new area of responsability. 

Another strategic initiative was beeing launched by us at the same moment. Under the coordination of our HR & Special Projects Director (he was awarded this new position at the end of 2014, when I set up a completely new management team for Vulkan do Brasil) Marco Santos (Marco, by the way, has also originally started his career at Sime do Brasil and meanwhile - still a quite young man - also has more than 20 years with us) , we launched our project "fishing", within which we looked up several highly qualified, experienced and culturally seen nicely fitting to us and our future company environment, former Vulkan do Brasil employees and convinced some of them, to come back to our company and to join our completely new DPPA department. Thus within only 3 months we created the "criticial minimum mass" of experts which Josias needed, for really becoming able to get started with the new development department and projects. 

Today we are already in the 6th successful year of our DPPA department (in Portuguese: Desenvolvimento de Produtos, Procesos e Aplicações) and we can proudly look back to several successfully developped and launched improved and completely new products, amongst these couplings, brakes and backstops.

During his first year as DPPA Director, Josias has elaborated and implemented a very efficient and well structured internal process for the development of new products, which includes several fase examinations and approvals. He has also implemented a category system for the different types of development activities. And from the first hour on, our DPPA department members document all their activities ongoingly in individual logbooks. Once per month Josias, his "right hand" Marcel Moraes (Development Manager) and me do a detailed follow up of all activities of the DPPA department. 

The work progress is monthly beeing measured, determined and documented in our "workmap status" tool. Once per quarter, Josias, Marcel and me have a well structured steering committee conference upon our development activities and plans together with the CEO of the Vulkan Group, the Global Development Director of the Vulkan Group and the Global Sales Director of the Vulkan Group for our industrial division Vulkan Drive Tech. Thus we are always fully aligned and define all new strategies altogether. 

But Josias has not at all become a pure office worker. In the contrary. It was very clear for Josias and me from the beginning on, that for becoming really able to execute product development work, Josias and his development team members needed to constantly observe and accompany the world (technology, materials, suppliers, customers and also competitors) outside our own company. We did not foresee any space for "egg heads" and "pure theorists" in our organisation. In the contrary - our goal was a team (during the first 2 years we even called it internally "Elite Squad") of highly qualified, motivated and agile women and men of bones, flesh, brains and blood. 

Besides this I have invited Josias - the same as many other management team members - to accompany me during my very frequent trips to customers and events (congresses, conferences, exhibitions, etc...) in Brazil, allover Latin America, Germany, India, US and - during the last 2 years - Africa and Australia. 

Josias`latest "baby" is our internal "Brain" group, which we set up about 2 years ago with a special focus on new technolgies and the digital transformation wave, for which Josias also became our leader. The activities of this group led us very quickly and successfully to the technology colaboration projects with several universities and research institutes in Brazil and in Germany. 

All these joint activities - and for sure the endless hours and countless beers at numerous airports and during (good and lousy ones) hotel overnight stays at so many different places in the world - have strenghened our experience with each other and helped us, to create a wonderful relationship of trust and colaboration and gain plenty of fun. During one of our trips, I invented the title "Mr. Brake" for Josias. He is undoubtedly our most experienced expert for all types and kinds of brakes, braking systems and their applications in all kinds of industries. But this should not reduce his merrit and experience with regards to his technical know how about couplings and backstops and their industrial applications, which he similiarly dominates perfectly. 

Here a song, which Josias will appreciate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0_mbmeqUpE

Hope this was interesting for You. I am really proud on my success with the development and execution of all these different strategies, initiatives and projects together with my great team of colleagues. 

I wish You a wonderful weekend. Fill up Your batteries for next week`s battles ! I`ll go directly to the fridge now......