Clean room.

Alois Fischer founded Fischer Söhne AG in 1923 and made sheet-metal packaging products. What is still evident today of the founder’s spirit?
Iwan Tresch: The founder’s spirit is still fully intact. We rely on our own developments, optimise our production steadily and expand our infrastructure. Our objective now as before is that what we do, we do properly.  Fischer Söhne AG continues to make packaging products. However, these articles are no longer made of sheet metal, but of plastic, which means that, technically, hardly anything is like it used to be. The company has been operating extrusion blowing machines since the 1960s and injection moulding machines since the end of the 1980s. We apply these technologies in the clean room, which positions us well in the market. We are committed to further develop of this segment.
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The company is still family owned, but has not been in the hands of the founders since 1971. What is the present structure?
Iwan Tresch: The Fischer Family withdrew from the business when it sold the company to Etimex Interplastic in 1971. In 1980, a new group of shareholders consisting of four families took over Fischer Söhne AG.  These shareholders are connected to the company and members of the Board of Directors.

What does Fischer Söhne AG look like today?
Iwan Tresch: We employ approximately 100 people and are active mainly in the Swiss market and the EU-area. The export share is 25 to 30 percent, which is somewhat atypical for a highly specialised company in Switzerland. This is due to the extrusion-blown products.  With the large containers in particular, we are subject to effects limiting the delivery distances. Fischer Söhne AG supplies the packaging, medical, pharmaceutical and other industrial fields. We are certified to comply with the standards ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 as well as the food standards BRC/IoP.

What production equipment do you use?
Adrian Gerber: We produce on about 30 injection moulding machines with clamping forces from 50 to 500 tonnes and approximately 10 extrusion-blowing machines. The clean-room production in GMP C environment runs on seven days per week around the clock. Extrusion blowing and the remaining moulding machines run in three shifts from Monday to Friday, if necessary also on Saturday morning.
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What products do customers buy from Fischer Söhne AG?
Adrian Gerber: In the area of medical and pharmaceutical mouldings: tubs, nests for RTU syringes (ready-to-use) and pistons.  On the packaging side in the majority canisters and technical extrusion-blown parts. To this segment belong also the white street posts with the integrated reflectors for which we are the exclusive producer in Switzerland. For the remaining industry we make various thin-walled articles like cartridge tips, valves, boxes and closures. In some cases, we provide complete subassemblies which we assemble manually or in-line for our customers.

You refer to the clean-room production as your USP. What do you mean by this?
Adrian Gerber: On the one hand the moulding machines with up to 500 tonnes clamping force. They allow us to operate moulds with large numbers of cavities. In spite of higher investments for the moulds, the effect on the price of the end product is positive. We want to expand our competences and capacities in the area of cleanroom production. At the moment, about 20 percent of our total production area is of the clean-room type. We plan to increase this percentage during the months ahead with major investments

To what extent are the remaining areas of the company affected by such a highly sensitive production environment?
Iwan Tresch: This is indeed a major challenge. For the medical and pharmaceutical industries, we work in a clean room of category GMP C, where we have to comply strictly with the regulations. Other standards such as e.g. BRC/IoP apply to the fields of packaging and the remaining industry and must be adhered to. This can only be guaranteed if the corresponding production lines are accommodated in separate premises. Additionally, the employees are appropriately trained and periodically retrained.
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A hundred people work for Fischer Söhne AG. Considering this specialisation, how do you achieve the required flexibility in job planning?
Iwan Tresch: This can be explained at the example of the Quality Department. On the industrial side or where extrusion-blowing is concerned, the criteria are completely different from the ones that apply to clean-room production. To reconcile the various technologies and regulations requires clearly defined processes, expert knowledge and much flexibility. The organisation must be very lean to work efficiently. In other words, we need a very well-trained workforce with outstan­d­ing levels of self-responsibility and a high engagement.

Switzerland is an export nation, but you achieve more than three-quarters of your sales on the domestic market. To what extent do the products you sell at home go abroad via your customers?
Adrian Gerber: Let us first break down the three quarters. The canisters take the lion’s share which we make for customers in Switzerland. These customers supply mostly to customers within our country. Among them are also international corporations, via which a portion might leave Switzerland. We do not have any exact numbers. When it comes to the medical and pharma products, about three quarters of our customers are domiciled abroad. Of the one quarter of products we make for our Swiss customers in the medical and pharma industries, a big portion is also exported.

To what extent does the Swiss origin of the products play a role?
Iwan Tresch: In our business field, whether products are Swiss-made or not plays a rather unimportant role. We are facing a very competitive international environment, also as regards the prices, of course. To be able to participate as a Swiss producer, it is important to do one’s homework. For us, this means to develop innovative and clever solutions for our customers, to permanently improve the existing infrastructure and to optimise the installed processes all the time. True to our motto: “Fischer Söhne AG, excellent solutions in plastics”.  

How do you ensure this quality in the long term?
Iwan Tresch: For one thing, with the required infrastructure. In addition, with the knowledge and experience gained in decades of successful production, as well as motivated and professional workers. A further must is the permanent and uncompromising monitoring of the quality in the ongoing production.
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According to your company principles, quality is generated at each and every workstation through engagement, high identification and self- responsibility. How do you guarantee that your employees implement this?
Iwan Tresch: Many of our employees have been working at Fischer Söhne AG for years. Their loyalty is evidence of their identification with the enterprise. We inform our employees regularly on the course of business, developments in progress and planned activities. We also involve them in the decision process concerning larger projects across departments. By this, we try to obtain wide and lasting support for changes.  Looking at our fluctuation rate, the overall package seems to be right.

With a basic training as a polymechanic and your present job as Sales and Marketing Manager, you are a shining example of the Swiss education system. How important is this system for quality?
Adrian Gerber: The training as a polymechanic – at Otto Hofstetter AG, by the way – has given me a practical perspective. In my present function, this makes me better able to understand my colleagues from the production side and accordingly to motivate them more easily. During my professional career so far, from trainee right to Member of the Management, I have experienced all levels of the hierarchy. This is a background which would not have been possible without Switzerland’s dual education system. This is also a reason why Fischer Söhne AG trains young professionals.
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Comparing Otto Hofstetter AG of the time when you were trained there with the present company, what has changed?
Adrian Gerber: The progress is similar to the one at Fischer Söhne AG. It was a top operation then and it is a top operation now. The company has grown and numerous processes have been automated. I am not aware of any other enterprise in this industry which relies on such a high-grade infrastructure as they have in Uznach. I have been familiar with Otto Hofstetter’s philosophy since the time of my apprenticeship, and countless aspects are still fully present despite the fact that nearly 20 years have passed since then.

According to current public opinion, the sustained protection of the environment and plastic are incompatible. How do you cope with this pressure in public?
Iwan Tresch: As a matter of principle, it is important to me that we urgently return the public discussion of plastics to an objective level. Plastics as such are not dangerous. Littering is the problem that calls for solutions worldwide. What can we as Fischer Söhne AG do? We try to save every gram of plastic we can. For example, by optimising the wall sections or by grinding up surplus material from production and ad­ding a certain percentage of it to the cycle again. In the field of medical and pharma mouldings, however, our hands are tied because hygiene takes top priority, i.e. recycled material may not be used.
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Fischer Söhne AG have been injection moulders for many years, but only started using moulds from Otto Hofstetter AG two years ago. What are the underlying factors?
Adrian Gerber: The cooperation goes back to a large order from a producer of special chemicals who desired a reorientation. To hold on to the order, we had to improve the cycle times and reduce the wall thicknesses. This was a task which we believed only a mould from Otto Hofstetter AG could fulfil.  In the meantime, this first project resulted in an intensive cooperation with the experts from Uznach. Today, we also entrust Otto Hofstetter with the overhauling of moulds made by other manufacturers.

Where do you see optimisation potential in the cooperation?
Iwan Tresch: We are very happy with the performance of Otto Hofstetter AG. I would have a suggestion, though, in the area of development. The products become ever more complex, the expectations are higher and the time-to-market decreases steadily. To be able to support our customers in this early phase of development, mould-flow studies would be helpful. Also useful in this phase would be to create 3D samples to enable first handling tests.

Mr Tresch, Mr Gerber, many thanks for the interesting insight into Fischer Söhne AG. On behalf of the entire team of Otto Hofstetter AG, I wish you continued success.

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