Berliner Glas has completed a process of business restructuring, which included separating the functions carried out at its Berlin site from those of its photonics subsidiary SwissOptic in Heerbrugg, Switzerland. The company's photonics business units cover a total of five strategic markets. At the site in Berlin, Berliner Glas focuses on semiconductors (chucks/glass and ceramic components), medical applications and industrial solutions.
At the SwissOptic site, operations have been organised into semiconductor (inspection), geosystems and metrology, and defence business units. Furthermore, a medical applications business unit is also present at the SwissOptic site.
Dr Andreas Nitze, CEO of the group, commented on the benefits of the restructuring: 'Our altered organisational structure has been well received in our target markets and we are pleased that in our business units we are not just working on demanding, large development and production projects, but often also serve the market leaders of the respective sectors and thereby ensure that with our optical system solutions we are working to form the issues of the future.'
New focus areas have also been set at SwissOptic. Nitze said: 'Alongside the pure focus on the market, in the future we will also be placing even greater emphasis on metrology and technological development by organising it in a site-spanning manner. This is because in many cases it is purely the development of new, innovative opportunities which makes our customers successful.'
In the course of the restructuring process, Swissoptic has received a new management team, with the graduate physicist and experienced manager Dr Hans Ebinger as the general manager since April 2011. He has been supported in this new role since March 2011 by Peter Grollmann, head of the semiconductor inspection business unit. Further support will also come from Pavel Dokulil, who will run the defence business unit from June 2011, while from August the position of head of the geosystems and metrology business unit will be filled. Nicolas Hetzel has also already taken on his office; he has been responsible since April for the medical applications market segment, which will be run in Berlin by Sven Knuth.
