Knocking Down the Bone Pile: Hot Air vs. Infrared PCB Rework
Nolan’s Notes: Why Mexico’s Time Has Come
Standard of Excellence: ‘Quality’ Is Your Company's Greatest Competitive Advantage
Family goals and values—born by one man tinkering around in his garage in Bavaria near the Czech border—are the cornerstones of IPC member Zollner Elektronik AG, one of the 15 largest EMS companies in the world, and the largest in Germany. The company places heavy priority on its employees, products, and partnerships.
Zollner has more than 13,000 employees in 25 locations worldwide, including Germany, Tunisia, Hungary, Romania, Switzerland, Thailand, and China, five locations in the U.S., and one in Costa Rica. In 2023, the company had a turnover of about 2.8 billion euros. Manfred Zollner is chair of the supervisory board, and his three sons are on the board.
“We are a family company and are still family-driven,” says Xaver Feiner, vice president of marketing and sales and, in this case, the company spokesperson, “and that’s very important for us from a cultural perspective. People are very important to us.”
This is highly evident in the company’s training programs, particularly through its apprenticeships that support young people in the fields of electrical, mechanical, and mechatronics. They support bachelor’s and master’s programs and have their own training center.
Students of high school and college age attend school two days a week, and train at Zollner for the other days. Or they attend school for two weeks, and then work for three weeks in the training center. “That’s the model in Germany,” Xaver says. Zollner offers a similar program at its facilities in China.
“You have to understand where we are coming from,” he says. “Our headquarters are in Zandt, a very small village of about 2,000 people. On our campus, we have about 3,000 people, so we have more employees than people living in the town. But when our founder started the company, we were right at the border of the Iron Curtain.”
During the 1960s and ’70s, that area experienced high unemployment, and Zollner “had no other choice” but to train the local people to build electronics. “No electronics or EMS businesses even existed in our area,” Xaver says. “At the time, we were driven by some tourism, and a lot of agriculture. Workers had been moving to Munich, Frankfurt, and Stuttgart to get jobs. Those were the hotspots.”
Continue reading this article in the Spring 2025 issue of IPC Community.
