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| Miracle on solid ground “An economic miracle from the East,” words of praise from people in the German state of Thuringia for Multicar Spezialfahrzeuge GmbH, a com-pany located in the town of Waltershausen. Whereas since the fall of the Berlin Wall, more than 60,000 companies in the former East Germany have declared bankruptcy, this vehicle manufacturer has become a model of success. The company had already laid the cornerstone for this success prior to the fall of the wall. “This race does not exhaust me. The scenery to the left and right of the course is just too exciting to tire you out.” He is relaxed as he talks about the New York marathon. Perhaps this is the relaxed demeanor of someone who has conquered this course, who knows that he can do it, who has overcome the low points of the race and has now reached the finish line. The runner Mathias Cramer is at home. “At home” is an expression that he is fond of using. For instance, to describe what he feels when he arrives at his workplace in the morning. Here, in the foothills of the Thuringian Forest, lies the world of Mathias Cramer, covering an area of approximately two square kilometers. He is the chief design engineer of Multicar Spezialfahrzeug GmbH, a company that manufactures special vehicles and is located in Waltershausen, Germany. A flagship company In bold letters, the billboard reading “Multicar – the Economic Miracle” towers above the grounds. This Thuringian company sees this as something akin to a trademark. Anyone talking about the economic miracle here is talking about Multicar. The result is not a car that captivates the world like the VW Beetle or a legend like a Ferrari. In fact, many people do not even know that it exists. A Multicar resides in the subconscious and yet one can hardly imagine everyday life without it. It is that small, usually orange vehicle used by municipalities to clean streets, to maintain landscaping, to do construction work or to zip around airports pulling luggage wagons. A total of 27,000 of these “Jack-of-all-trades” were registered on German roads in 2002. And yet, what has happened here in Waltershausen over the past years is nothing short of a miracle. At least according to the common definition. “A miracle is an occurrence that evokes astonishment and that happens to humans in an unexpected and unpredictable manner,” explains the expert. Accordingly, this is a miracle, especially seeing that more than 60,000 companies from the former East German states have declared bankruptcy since the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is a qualified miracle, however, since Multicar was already a flagship company prior to German reunification. Even back then, the company engineers were using original parts made by companies like Bosch and Rexroth in the vehicles earmarked for export to the West. Approximately eight percent of the production went to Western Europe at that time. “We had a marketable product,” is the way Cramer explains how the company could avoid falling victim to the same fate that affected many other companies placed under the administration of the trust agency. The allegation that this was “Russian technology” was a misjudgment that was to have consequences, something that would come back to haunt even companies like DaimlerChrysler. “Not a chance on the European market” Looking back: The state-owned automotive plant in Waltershausen was part of the collective for utility vehicles in 1990. The collective also included the Ludwigsfelde automotive plant, the Nordhausen and Cunewalde motor factories, Robur Zittau and a few other component suppliers. “Many of the employees were already seeing stars – the Mercedes star, that is,” says Cramer in describing the feelings of his colleagues when a bunch of experts from the Daimler corporation showed up in Waltershausen and “left our company with sheaves of documents under their arms.” But the interest subsided rapidly. “Not a chance on the European market,” was the opinion of the Daimler automotive experts. No one had an inkling that this assessment was being made about a company that would later become the market leader for municipal and special vehicles in the class of vehicles weighing under 5 tons. After all, just a few years after CEOs Walter Botschatzki and Manfred Windus had acquired 25 percent of Multicar in 1991 within the scope of a management buy-out, the Thuringian company was already in the black. Cramer goes on to say, “Our advantage was not only that we had a marketable product but also our production, which had been configured using an efficient assembly line prior to German reunification. This was a combination with which the company found a market niche in the mid-nineties, thus attracting the interest of potential buyers such as the Hako Group. In 1998, Hako joined the company as the majority partner and set off on an expansion course. To start with, the owners then bought the well-known Unimog UX 100 from DaimlerChrysler. With the commitment on the part of Hako, the traditional Thuringian company then received not only an infusion of funds but also know-how in sales as well as well-oiled distribution channels. Order-based production Cramer knows that this was indeed necessary. Up until the major changes in Germany in 1990, the Thuringian company had been used to a distribution economy. In the 1980s, approximately 9000 units per year left the production facilities in Waltershausen. “Back then, sales were not a concern since 80 percent of the vehicles were distributed in Eastern Europe by our planned economy,” as he remembers the old times with a smile. For him, the evolution of the Multicar during those changing times in history was like the ups and downs of a marathon. During the East German times, about 1100 people were employed at the plant while today, 13 years later, there are only 240. The anticipated prejudice against the numerous employees who were laid off to join the ranks of the unemployed, however, did not materialize. Almost all of them were received with open arms at the production plants of Opel and its suppliers in nearby Eisenach since they were skilled workers. Today, this traditional company is the European market leader for special vehicles and compact equipment transporters in the vehicle class weighing up to 5 tons. Multicars are driven not only in Germany but in China and Great Britain, Slovenia and Norway. In fact, Cramer’s colleagues in Waltershausen only produce what is actually needed. “Our production is exclusively order-based.” The seemingly endless parking lots with never-ending rows of cars – an image known from many car manufacturers – are non-existent here. Instead, “Economic miracle” shines in big letters over the grounds. A miracle that, in the meantime, has been confronted with the reality of the economic situation in Germany. Empty municipal coffers – and municipalities are the main buyers of Multicars – have been responsible for a drop in annual sales to approximately 50 million euros in 2002, down from over 60 million euros in the year 2000. Joining plastic to steel Where is the clicking and clacking of the automated grabbing cranes? Where is the noisy humming of the machines? Here, in the production hall where the passenger compartment of the Multicar is built, nothing can be heard or felt of the atmosphere that a visitor would expect in a production hall. Silence reigns here. With a sharp eye, Cramer watches every production step. An employee inserts the deep-drawn plastic parts made of BASF’s plastic Luran® S into the processing machine. The grabbing crane conveys the plastic part, which had been previously provided with an adhesive, to the steel frame of the passenger compartment so as to join plastic to steel. A second employee then fills the space left between the materials with a jointing filler. This combination of plastic and steel is called space frame technology, and Cramer’s engineers use it to replace the heavier and more expensive components made of steel. Absolutely nothing of the mass production of a standard product can be seen here. The Multicar is a specialty and this is exactly how the Thuringian company makes it. Each vehicle is individually and precisely tailor-made according to customer specifications – in more than 100 variants. As though he were in the presence of a good old friend, Cramer leans against the partially finished passenger compartment as he tells about the Multicar vision: “We are staying on the course we have set out for ourselves. We are a small supplier of a specialty that is manufactured completely according to customer specifications.” In order to continue making a specialty, the engineers in Waltershausen are sometimes forced to take some rather unusual approaches. Technical requirements, such as anti-lock (ABS) brakes or the Euro-III-engine, new design variants, continually smaller unit numbers – all dictates of the automotive industry – do not come to a grinding halt in front of the gates of the Multicar factory. For the new model, the FUMO, a search was underway for materials and production techniques that would allow all of these requirements to be met while reducing costs at the same time. “Since large stamping tools for sheet metal are very expensive, we turned to plastic as an alternative material and thus to the associated space frame technology,” recalls Jan Stephan, project engineer for the passenger compartment. The path from an idea to implementation is often a rocky one. The search for the right material The greatest problem in the beginning was the different expansion coefficients of the materials. Tests in the cold chamber and in the heat chamber showed that the expansion of the materials differed by about 5 millimeters. The adhesive used had to fill this space and withstand the stress. Engineers sealed off the gap with a jointing filler. Next, the search was on for the right material. Here, extreme weathering resistance was required, particularly of car body parts. What product is best suited for a technology that, on the one hand, opens up new horizons in automotive construction but, on the other hand, calls for knowledge that a classical steel processor like Multicar did not yet possess? The technicians from Thuringia came up with Luran® S. Matteo Uslenghi, Business Manager for Luran® S at BASF, knows why, “Luran® S is not exactly unknown, particularly when it comes to automotive construction. This material has demonstrated that it is at least equivalent to steel, in addition to which it reduces the weight, it is weather-resistant and corrosion-proof.” Now there was the matter of color coordination. Coatings look different on steel and on plastic. “It was a challenge to match these colors with each other,” explains Stephan. As a next step, the Thuringian technicians built a total of 8 prototypes which they then tested from head to toe. Once the vehicles had passed the test, the design came next. Thus, five years went by from the seed of an idea until serial production. Today, the B-columns, the roof, the passenger compartment rear wall and the hood are all made of this BASF material. In the meantime, Multicar also uses Luran® S to make the rear door of the FUMO double compartment. According to Cramer, not all has been said and done yet when it comes to using plastics in automotive construction. The tanks for fuel and hydraulic fluids, fenders and bumpers are only the beginning for the people at Multicar. “Precisely in terms of modern design, we are going to have to rely on the design diversity that the material entails.” The fact that the FUMO has a modern design today and that this little powerhouse does not have any sharp edges is mainly thanks to the use of plastic. A touch of nostalgia The way it looks today, you would hardly believe that this workhorse can already look back on a 47-year history of this model. It saw the light of day for the first time in 1956, in the form of a diesel-powered vehicle, the “Diesel wagon DK 3”; its successor in 1958 was already called the Multicar 21. The Multicar 24 model looks more like a locomotive on wheels. Although planned as a two-seater, it was really only meant for the driver. Cramer gladly provides the simple explanation for this with a touch of sarcasm: “The collective managers at that time decided that the East German industry did not need any two-seater utility vehicles.” Engineer Arthur Ade from the Swabian town of Ravensburg would certainly not yet have thought of such problems. Back then, in 1920, he started to build the first coaches and vehicle trailers in Waltershausen, thus laying the cornerstone for the later success story from the East. Observers look back at 83 years of history that the former main building has witnessed. In many places, nostalgia and modernity work side by side in order to build a Multicar. The production hall dates back to the founding era. However, since the building structure has now become too weak to support the production lines of the year 2003, the interior of the hall is being reinforced with a modern load-bearing structure. The “Wedding” A Multicar passes through thirty assembly steps before it emerges into the world. Cramer has given the name “wedding” to the moment when employees join the power train to the vehicle body. The couple has hardly been hitched together and it is already put to the test. Is the engine running smoothly? Are the wheels balanced? Do the brakes make a bit too much noise? Nothing escapes Cramer’s hearing. No grinding, no sputtering is allowed to disturb the last few meters as the vehicle passes through the assembly line. Altogether, a Multicar has to go through four quality assurance stages before the gate leading to the outside opens up. Full of energy, the newborn powerhouse lines up in a row of all kinds of different models of its type. They are bursting with dynamism, power and energy, they are symbols of the “economic miracle from the East”. Matthias Cramer makes no secret of the fact that the miracle is built on very solid ground. The head design engineer and passionate marathon runner cannot suppress a proud smile as he stands in front of the Multicar that has just left the assembly line and admits, “The transmission used in the Multicar was developed in cooperation with Porsche.” Product information can be obtained at www.luran-s.com and www.multicar.de. |
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