35 years at Logitrans: Joy, quality products and involvement make a truly loyal employee
Interview with Leo Jørgensen, Fitter at Logitrans A/S
The secret behind Leo working 35 years in the same company, Logitrans A/S, is a work happiness and a pride of making quality products.
Leo Jørgensen is a fitter and since 1983, he has been employed at Logitrans, manufacturer of material handling equipment. He and his colleagues in the assembly department are the last stop, before the products are shipped to the customer. This makes high demands on quality control, overview and efficiency.
“It is important that we make quality control and check that everything is in order and that the customer gets his product on time,” Leo tells. The quality control is carried out in accordance with the ISO 9001 certification. The lifting height, number of pump strokes, welding quality, functionality etc. are examined through tests and sampling controls.
We help each other
The assembly department is always busy. The Logitrans units consist of many different components, and the large variation in the product range, e.g. stainless highlifters, electric and manual units, pallet trucks with special wheels, is also one of the main reasons, why the assembly process is still placed in the factory in Denmark, even though Logitrans in 2010 started a factory in China.
When the assembly department is too busy and finds it difficult to catch up on the orders, they get help from the welders. “The best thing about working at Logitrans is the really good colleagues, and here I’m not only thinking of the assembly department, but the whole company”, Leo tells.
To Leo it is important to be happy when getting up in the morning to go to work and be together with your colleagues: ”You have to feel joy at your workplace”.
Quality products and satisfied customers
A big part of Leo’s work happiness through the years is due to happy customers and the pride of making quality products. “It is a pleasure to make a product that people are happy to use,” Leo tells, “it wouldn’t be the same, if you knew, you were making bad products.”
“In the assembly department we ensure that the products can be sold, because we are happy to make them”. The high quality standard and the uniformity in the production process guarantee that every customer gets the same good product. “The customers should be able to trust that the assembly department has made what they asked for, and that they get the product at the requested delivery time.”
Involvement and development
The management often asks Leo for advice, when developing new products. He knows what it takes to develop new products. ”When you have been employed for 35 years, you know all the former products”, Leo tells. In the development process, Leo supplements the product requirements of the management with his knowledge about how to ensure a fast production time, use of fewer components and of course general product improvements seen from the assembly department perspective.
At Logitrans, the management listens to their employees; A lot of involvement and participation, when it comes to new decisions. Leo especially remembers the time when the factory was expanded and rebuilt in 1998 as an exciting time, because the assembly department was helping to fit a brand new paint facility.
”In the past we used to do everything ourselves, but now we are fewer workers and everything is more rational”, tells Leo, who cannot hide his pride of the fact that fewer workers today actually make more units than at the time with the highest number of employees in the company history. The efficiency now is partly due to more semi-finished products coming from the factory in China. Earlier everything was welded at the factory in Denmark.
”We do everything that is possible to get all the units delivered on time, and we do it with a smile!” Leo ends.