Düsseldorf, Germany-headquartered GEA is now operating under a new structure as part of its “Fit for 2020” initiative, marking a fundamental shift both in its internal framework and organization, and in external customer relations. The Group has bundled the development and manufacturing of products and the provision of process solutions in two business areas roughly equal strength – Equipment and Solutions.
The restructuring is aimed at providing greater operational synergies spanning technologies and applications, and promotes functional excellence by standardizing processes. For customers this means a single national organization per country as a central point of contact covering GEA’s entire product portfolio, and the offering all services on a local basis.
In the Equipment business area, the company has brought together all activities that feature standardized and, in part, customer-specific offerings. As a general rule, products are manufactured in large quantities as part of large-scale series production on a standardized and modular basis.
The Solutions business area brings together all project-based offerings that extensively cover customer-specific and modular solutions. The business areas tailor their products and services to specific applications and client requirements.
“The new structure is designed to help us develop from a very good to an outstanding company based on a simplified, harmonized, and more streamlined organization. This means the maximum possible focus within each unit, with clearly defined responsibilities in terms of applications, products, technologies, and services. In addition, the changes will safeguard and further improve our customer focus through first-rate innovations and services, rapid decision-making processes, uniform and coordinated customer management, and much more,” said Jürg Oleas, GEA’s chief executive officer.
The most visible indication of the changes is the Group’s relaunched website (www.gea.com). The significantly updated and more consistent platform is clearly divided into products, applications, and services. The new web presence replaces the more than 200 separate group company websites that had previously existed and illustrates the company’s “OneGEA” goal.
With sales of approximately EUR 4.5 billion in 2014 and a workforce exceeding 18,000 people, GEA is ranked one of the world’s largest suppliers of equipment and turnkey production lines for the food processing industry and a number of other process sectors. From grinding and grading meat to cooking, freezing and packaging, the company focuses on process technology and components for sophisticated production processes in various end-user markets. More than 70% of its revenue comes from sales to the food industry.
