Bad Windsheim (er) 16 people for 25 years and 1 employee for four decades of their professional life is the proud balance that the two managing directors Dr. Christiane Heunisch-Grotz and Dipl. Ing. Christian Gerhäuser were able to celebrate with the long-serving employees on the occasion of this year's honours at the Heunisch foundry.

The speaker presenting the honours, Christian Gerhäuser, appeared delighted during his speech to be honouring 11 people or more for their long loyal service to the company for the seventh year in a row. A total of 31 employees have been honoured for 40 years and 85 people for 25 years of service since 2013. "A company cannot become strong if it cannot rely on strong employees," says the managing director.

Cebrail Özdil has been at the welding furnace for 40 years. With his high level of expertise in repairing castings, he was able to turn supposed scrap material into a good part again.

Steven Santos began his professional life as a worker at the moulding plant. His superiors realised that he had more potential over time. Foreman, REFA training courses, shift supervisor and finally the successful completion of the master's examination reveal his resolute career path and speak for his ambition. Hakki Sahin started two and a half decades ago as a worker in the core shop and feels very comfortable there. He fills the position of foreman to his superior's complete satisfaction. With his pleasant nature, he succeeds in fulfilling all the given goals. Zeynep Ucak, Belma Solmaz and Songül Yilmaz have worked in the same department from the beginning. The three women conscientiously ensure that all cores are coated with the so-called core coating during the dipping process. They are sometimes also used for core assembly. Walter Scheider takes care of the production line for large cores to coat the cores as well. The yellow, black and pink colours ensure that the liquid iron cannot penetrate into the cores' sand pores during the casting process. Uwe Schreindorfer also works in the core shop. The core shooter has been his profession for 25 years. During this time he has produced thousands of cores and was responsible for ensuring that the moulding plant always had enough "fodder". Caldwell Brown takes care of the careful storage on the transport rack at his workplace. Before that, he stood his ground at the blasting facilities. At the beginning of his professional career, Heinrich Fast worked in the blow room and injection moulding shop, before he was employed in the core shop from 2006 and developed into an experienced machine operator there. Martin Pillich was responsible for the blasting system as an operator from the very beginning. All the maintenance through to ordering spare parts was up to him. In the meantime, he has also acquired specialist knowledge of the grinding machines in order to carry out maintenance and adjustment work responsibly here as well. Wolfgang Körber loves exact specifications with regard to his work on preparing the model equipment for production. Johannes Jonas was trained as a caster at the small moulding plant in 1994 and has been filling the 1,440-degree Celsius hot iron into the prepared moulds since then. Hundreds of thousands of small castings have been produced during this time. The all-rounder Sandro Bacchiocchi is employed at the middle moulding line. Be it the core transport, preparation of insertion gauges, or insertion of the cores, he has detailed specialist knowledge of everything. During his 25-year career at Heunisch, Alexander Scheider has been through all the casting after-treatment departments and thus acquired a high degree of flexibility. Toni Dukoski is employed in the hot area, which includes the melting aggregates and the moulding plants. A whole range of completed courses enables him to work at various stations. Mehmet Celebi concludes the line-up of long-serving employees. The welding shop has been his workplace for 25 years and he carries out the work assigned to him conscientiously and accurately.

At the end of the small ceremony, the speaker wished everyone the best of health and stressed that "thanks to your work, the Heunisch foundry is one of the leading customer foundries on the market".

Text: Ernst Ripka

Photo: Ernst Ripka