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BEYOND SURFACES
Fall
16
28
Passion
Passion
Behind the scenes
F
or almost 19 years, they have been working together
in the Oerlikon Balzers coating centre at the head-
quarters in Liechtenstein, operating several RS50
coating systems simultaneously. They complement each
other quite literally: “Sometimes it’s almost spooky! There
are days in which we hardly even speak to one another
during our shift; we work together so well as a team that
we understand each other without a word. But outside of
the workplace, no, we hardly ever do anything together.”
Handling worker, Helene Aggeler, has to smile as she
says this, and Christian Bärtsch adds: “Helene goes fish-
ing, but I prefer sports. She took me along a few times,
but it’s not really my thing.”
Almost half a century of experience
Loading the parts, insertion and removal, as well
as operating the RS50 systems for which they are
responsible are the most important tasks which
occupy the dedicated Oerlikon Balzers employees.
They coat several thousand tool parts daily with
BALINIT C, which is one of the perennial successes in
the Oerlikon Balzers portfolio. Christian has been with
Oerlikon Balzers for nearly 30 years, and Helene for
about 20. “You could say that together, we have almost
half a century of experience. That’s worth a tremen-
dous amount, because details are especially important
in our work, things like perfect cleaning. If even only
one little detail isn’t right, the customer doesn’t get the
quality that he expects from us,” explains Christian.
Helene adds: “The work offers a lot of variety,
which makes it very interesting. You always have to
stay focused, though, even when things get tough.
I’ve known some customers for as long as I’ve been
with Oerlikon Balzers myself – or, more accurately,
their tools!” When the two are asked about what
they consider to be personal highlights in their work,
Passionate
and
enamoured
with
detail
They couldn’t be more different. But what they have in common is
their passion for their jobs and the enthusiasm with which they talk
about them: BEYOND SURFACES visited one team each from
Oerlikon Balzers and Oerlikon Metco in Liechtenstein and
Switzerland and met four men and one woman for whom “Passion
for Surface Solutions” is not merely a slogan, but a mindset.
there is immediate agreement: “We have already been
invited by some customers to come and see how ‘our’
tools are put to use. After that, you see the parts that
get coated in a completely different light!”
“We’re called Solutions, and that’s
what we make!”
Some 150 kilometres towards the west, in the Swiss
canton of Aargau, is the small town of Wohlen –
about 220 employees make it the most important
Oerlikon Metco site in the world. In the Coating Solu-
tions Center (CSC) Europe, we meet the three project
managers, Massimo Cunsolo, Halil Arifovic and Peter
Zürcher. Together, the three tinker with problem areas
in thermal spraying. “We’re called Solutions, and that’s
what we make,” explains Massimo Cunsolo assertively.
Peter Zürcher, the supervisor of the energetic team,
already has 27 years of service at Oerlikon Metco. He
elucidates: “We support or colleagues in sales and
other business areas by developing customer-specific
solutions. It’s our job to ensure that the customer gets
precisely the system or the exact material that meets
his needs. This also includes the production of test
series to the customer’s specifications, the definition
of the parameters needed for a perfect solution that
matches up the part to be coated, the powder and the
machine, but also involves direct customer support.”