THE MAN TO CALL IN AN EMERGENCY
Dennis Fröscher works in process control and
is part of the rapid response team in the event
of technical failures. He says, “If it’s an acute
failure we’ll come in and sort it out in the
evenings, but our aim of course is to make sure
that failures don’t happen at all.”
RE AL CR AF TSMANSHIP
Depending on the model, the handle on
a pressure cooker consists of up to 42 different
parts, which are put together by hand –
a delicate job which requires maximum precision.
W
olfgang Wiedmann works as foreman
at one of the most modern production
facilities in the world, where up to 6500
pots are produced every day. The 61-year-
old has worked at the WMF plant in Geislingen since 1981,
and is one of a total of 180 employees in the cookware
production department. Every one of them has a key role
to play because even though a lot of the work on the
production line is done by robots, there are plenty of tasks
in the process which can only be done by hand – to ensure
the highest possible safety standards and product quality.
The staff here are especially proud of the WMF pressure
cookers. Not only have they been awarded numerous
prizes but also bear the coveted TÜV seal of safety. Their
most extraordinary features are the sealing technology,
which has been developed and constantly improved over
decades, and the control system which is housed inside the
handle. “You don’t get that from any other manufacturer,”
explains Wiedmann.
The sophisticated handle system, which also has a num-
ber of safety functions as well as a wide range of functions
for simple, quick and precise cooking, is made up of over
40 individual parts. Every handle is still assembled by hand
here – a delicate job which requires maximum precision.
It goes without saying that employees also put the same
amount of care into manufacturing the actual pot. This job
involves more than a dozen finely coordinated steps. This
is in addition to checking the countless quality and safety
features which must be strictly adhered to.
FROM THE COIL TO THE FINISHED POT
When you’re holding the elegant piece of cookware in your
hands it’s hard to imagine that each pressure cooker starts
out as a stainless steel band a few millimetres thick, rolled
up into long coils. The round blanks are then punched out
of these coils – circular discs which are later used to form
the pot bodies. “Even here you need to be absolutely pre-
cise down to the millimetre,” explains WMF plant operator
Kai-Uwe König, “because even the smallest of deviations
can damage the material and make it unusable.”
The punched-out round blanks are then deep-drawn
using up to 300 tonnes of force. This is how every WMF pot
blank is formed. “The process of deep-drawing with stain-
less steel is very demanding,” explains Wiedmann. “You
need to have the right steel for it to work properly.” As far
as back as 1927, WMF developed and patented its own
K NOW- HOW
by WMF
|
29