INNOVATING FOR A WORLD ON THE MOVE Plastic Omnium, with headquarters in Levallois in France, is a family-owned global company that is a preferred partner of automotive manufacturers. It also works to address environmental needs of local communities. It has nearly 100 plants worldwide, including large operations in Poland through Plastic Omnium Auto Exteriors Ltd (formerly Plastal Poland). Piotr Sadowski reports.
29
December 2011 marked the formal signing of an acquisition contract of Plastal Poland by Plastic Omnium. “Plastal Poland was a company that went through a number of ownership changes over the last decade, with the production plants eventually being brought to bankruptcy in 2009,” recalls Aleksander Czajka, country director for Poland, in charge of Plastic Omnium’s Polish plants in Gliwice and Poznań. “After a period of two-and-a-half years we managed to pay the creditors and held a high-level pre-acquisition meeting with the top management from Plastic Omnium. 54 Industry Europe
This subsequently resulted in us formally joining the company at the end of last year.” Pascal Bardet, the director of new industrial operations, responsible for integrating new entities into the overall Plastic Omnium structure, explains that the Polish plants were very attractive because of being wellorganised and staffed with a lot of talented employees. “They also had excellent relations with customers and were located close to key clients such as GM, Volkswagen and Fiat,” says Mr Bardet. “As Plastic Omnium continues to grow dynamically and our volumes of orders are turning out to be higher
than planned, we find ourselves with the need to increase our capacity. Plastal was able to offer that, particularly in the central and eastern Europe region.” It is also important to note that the acquisition of Plastal by Plastic Omnium was a move supported not only by the employees of the Polish plants, but also very much by customers.
Integration with a global player Plastic Omnium Auto Exteriors is being effectively integrated into the family matrix of Plastic Omnium worldwide. The company speaks the same corporate language as all of the other
