EMPHASIS ON CUSTOMER SUPPORT BODES WELL FOR DIEFFENBACHER U.S. OPERATIONS MOVING FORWARD

EDITOR’S NOTE: Dieffenbacher Customer Support, LLC has completed 10 years of operation in the U.S., and with that in mind Panel World tossed several questions at Bernd Deffland, President & CFO; Colin Folco, Director Modernization; and Rolf Krey, Director After Sales.

PW: What is your impression of what Dieffenbacher Customer Support has become in its 10 years and the key aspects that have contributed to its successful evolution?

Deffland: Dieffenbacher Customer Support (DCS) in Alpharetta, Georgia, stems from a company founded 150 years ago in 1873 by the Dieffenbacher family in Eppingen, Germany. It has been a family run business from the first generation to the current fifth generation, and we are very proud of that. DCS began as a small subsidiary over a decade ago and has become our thriving U.S. headquarters through keeping our focus on customer needs. DCS has been able to come this far through our dedicated long-term employees who enjoy a family-like work environment, and are always willing to help one another. We have had strategic growth in both people and parts with over 100 talented people in North America and 80,000 spare parts housed in our warehouse.

PW: The team at Customer Support appears to be highly experienced in the industry and with longevity at Dieffenbacher. What skills are you looking for in your personnel and the way they conduct business that perhaps sets Dieffenbacher apart?

Folco: We strive to add people to our team who have knowledge and experience in the mill environment, who can speak the lingo, who know what our customers expect. Our people come with a great attitude, go the extra mile and put the customer first. We make it a point to stay on top of the newest technology trends by attending trade shows and conferences to ensure we are providing the best options and services to our customers. We pride ourselves on being proactive, caring, accurate and fast.

PW: Since we last interviewed Customer Support management in 2017, we’ve seen continued emphasis on parts availability, delivery and service. What has made this so successful?

Krey: Constant communication with our customers to understand what they want and when they need it, to keep them running smoothly. We try to make it as easy as possible for customers to obtain parts. We have implemented a plan to align with mills to keep a running list of critical parts to have onsite to ensure less downtime by having a holistic view on the parts needed and to provide risk assessment to our customers. We do this by making sure to keep these parts in stock and in the right quantities through continuous warehouse improvements and expansion. We also are helping our customers assess their risks on large parts and gaps in critical spares. To further make it as easy as possible for our customers, we have implemented a program to laser engrave item/part numbers on our parts. This saves our customer a lot of time trying look up parts numbers, assists our customers with reordering and lessens the lead time on these parts. We provide same day shipping for stocked parts because at DCS express service is the standard. Having close cooperation with our global service team enables us to support locally.

PW: How was Customer Support able to overcome the challenges brought on by the pandemic, and what has been implemented in your operations that you found useful during the pandemic?

Deffland: Five years ago, we made the decision to change from desktop computers to laptops. This helped tremendously, during the pandemic, when we immediately pivoted to having everyone work remotely. We cloned office workstations for use in our home offices and went completely paperless to increase efficiency. We kept our office staffed with only our warehouse personnel to ensure a safe environment during the pandemic. We enhanced our virtual meeting capabilities by using Microsoft Teams, having weekly virtual meetings with the entire team to stay in touch, to maintain the family work environment and keep up morale through virtual team building events, such as virtual wine tastings, where we shipped bottles of wine to each colleague.

PW: How does the Georgia office go about contributing to the development and continuing modernization of the various Dieffenbacher technologies, such as through continuing communication along these lines with your German and Canadian operations and wood panel producers themselves?

Folco: We are fortunate to have a lot of good knowledge about Dieffenbacher

North America, Inc. in Windsor, Ontario, and their capabilities, as I used to be the manager there. We have many discussions with our product groups in Germany such as engineering on what customers are trying to accomplish. We, here in North America, develop a solution that we believe would suit our customer needs, then work together with our German colleagues to finalize the concept/solution. It is important that we listen to our customers and to understand what they really need to make their business successful. Then having the knowledge of how to translate what our customers are asking for, we turn that into an equipment solution. Even before COVID, our Modernization team held frequent virtual calls with our German colleagues to discuss, work together on, and finalize solutions for our North American customers. We attend North American industry events like CPA meetings, APA/EWTA info fair, IWF, PELICE, etc. to stay informed and close to our customers.

PW: What actually constitutes Dieffenbacher Customer Support in terms of its structure? That is, what are the different operating units of emphasis?

Krey: DCS Alpharetta HQ supports North America (United States, Canada and Mexico). We have three directors who lead our After Sales Team (spare parts, service, warehouse and logistics), Sales Team (modernization/upgrades, key account management and new lines) and our Finance Team. North America has an installed equipment base of $1 billion, which makes DCS the largest subsidiary within the Dieffenbacher group. Our After Sales Team consists of many talented personnel who support and help our day-to-day operations including our Customer Support Specialists (CSS) who visit our customers on a frequent basis. Our Sales/Key Account Management Team also consists of many talented personnel, both here in the USA and Germany, who have specialties in modernization, mill operations and new line sales. Our Finance Team ties it all together. We make sure to have the right people in the right places at the right time in order to provide the best possible solutions for our customers.

PW: Describe the current location, its square footage breakdown, and any new developments there in the past couple of years whether in additional spacing, warehouse material flow and optimization or new inhouse design and communication technologies or culturally driven programs and layout you’ve implemented to enhance your operation?

Krey: Due to our increase in personnel and parts stocked, we moved into a new building of 20,000 sq. ft. in 2017. This allowed us to increase our inventory to over 80,000 parts and provide faster delivery from our warehouse. We have since optimized our warehouse space to hold 50% more value. We implemented laser engraving of our parts reliability programs and needs in order to become a better partner. There they saw new technology trends like Spot, the robotic dog from Boston Dynamics, and how Spot can be utilized for maintenance and reliability needs. to provide ease of reordering for our customers. To maintain our family environment and appreciation of our employees, we celebrate team successes with warehouse barbecues to promote team comradery.

PW: What are some of the more exciting developments Dieffenbacher is involved in, technologies and panel products, in the U.S. and North America wood products industry?

PW: The Dieffenbacher North America team is very visible with its participation at events such as the PELICE conference in Atlanta as well as the annual APA and CPA meetings and many other events? What benefits do you find in this regard?

Krey: In addition to PELICE, APA and CPA trade events, we also attend IWF in Atlanta and MEM Industrial in Mexico for North America, as well as joining our global team at LIGNA in Germany. This gives us the opportunity to speak with many of our customers face to face, allowing them to have discussions with our experts. The virtual world allows for improved communication throughout the year, but it is no substitute for these in person opportunities at the shows. This also helps to build long-term relationships with our customers. Bernd and I recently attended the International Maintenance Conference in Marco Island, Florida, to better comprehend customer and vendor

Folco: There are many exciting things happening in our industry including our own CEBRO smart plant concept and products like our EVOscreen and our new belt dryer. In the industry, we see an exciting new trend regarding reliability, which is driving a new/renewed interest in data acquisition and AI products. Our customers, more and more, depend on hard data to make sound business decisions. With personnel becoming more and more difficult to find and retain, our customers are turning to AI and data acquisition systems to do more and more of the repetitive tasks in their mills and using their skilled personnel for other tasks. Several of our customers believe this is mission critical and have created standalone control centers where they can monitor all of their mills in real time. There are also many exciting new products happening with our customers. We are seeing quite an increase in the wood fiber insulation boards. One of our customers here in the U.S. is currently building up the first wood fiber insulation board plant here, which will produce a number of different insulation products. We see exciting new products that are a mix of recycled wood and other recycled products along with strong interest in other “green” building products.

PW: In your 10 years of operation, how would you describe the difference between the nature of panel mill modernization and operation, and Dieffenbacher’s contribution toward it, today versus 10 years ago?

Folco: In general our customers have evolved from simply panel manufacturers to more integrated value add companies. At DCS, we have also evolved from an equipment and parts supplier, to a complete plant solution provider. By doing so we have moved from a transactional type of relationship with our customers to a more integrated partner type of relationship. Along the way, we have shifted the focus to be more proactive with our customers, and view ourselves as a value-adding partner rather than just a vendor. There is more focus on ensuring customers have the solutions they need when they need them. Integrating our departments to work closely together to identify needs of the customer whether it be solutions for reliability, spare parts, service solutions, modernization of older equipment or even complete new line solutions. We always take our customers one step further in what they do.

Please provide additional insight into your CEBRO and EVORIS smart solutions and con-

CEBRO’s advanced plant engineering solutions include intelligent heat recovery concepts such as reusing heat from the press and dryer exhaust air elsewhere in the production process to reduce energy costs and emissions and increase profit. To help manufacturers achieve operational excellence, CEBRO uses optimized processes and innovative technologies that improve board quality, increase output, save costs and support a plant’s sustainability. With wood recycling solutions, smart environmental and new energy-generation technologies, CEBRO also helps manufacturers find the right balance between economic and sustainability goals to build a better future for business and the environment. Complementing solutions for advanced plant engineering, operational excellence and sustainability is our new digitalization platform EVORIS. Based on standardized interfaces that collect and process sensor and actuator data—including camera footage—EVORIS gives manufacturers more insight into their production and processes. AI-supported analysis of live data is just one way that EVORIS helps plant operators better understand and control their plants and make important decisions more quickly. EVORIS is available for any wood-based panel plant regardless of the equipment manufacturer, panel type, and whether it is a new or existing plant. Together with advanced plant engineering solutions, operational excellence and sustainability initiatives, EVORIS forms the holistic approach that makes a CEBRO plant a truly smart one. PW