Interview with Ralf Heitzelmann, Managing Director of Albea Oberflächenbearbeitung GmbH and Deputy Head of the Technical Commission of the VOA e. V.
What prompted you to take part in the data collection and offer the delegation a tour of the company?
Our company has been involved in the VOA for many years to promote the interests of our industry in Germany. It is clear to us that the interests of medium-sized surface finishing companies can only be heard if we act as a strong association and actively participate in the legislative processes that are relevant to us. The fact that these processes are now taking place at European level certainly does not make things any easier. We expressly welcome the fact that the VOA is represented both at national level in the Federal Environment Agency's expert group and at European level in the working group in Seville with representatives delegated by the VOA. When the request came, it was a matter of course for me that we would both participate in the data collection and be available for a factory tour.
What topics came up during the site visit?
During the delegation's visit, we were able to make it clear that the range of components, customer requirements and therefore also the process sequences that we successfully implement on our anodizing lines are anything but uniform, but rather differ considerably from one another. From small parts the size of a wedding ring to large parts up to six meters in length, everything is possible. It is therefore obvious that there are major differences in the required processes in terms of the chemicals used, the number and type of process stages and therefore also in terms of energy and water consumption. The participants were also interested in exhaust air and waste water treatment in our company, water and energy consumption as well as waste and waste water production.
Another key question was to what extent and in particular how precisely we can measure the surface of the components we treat. As a contract processing company, we treat tens of thousands of different component geometries every year. In contrast to open profiles and sheet metal, it is virtually impossible to determine the effective surface of many technical components, i.e. structural parts, castings and hollow chamber profiles. Although we use the same but greatly simplified calculation approach every year, it allows us to evaluate the development of our energy efficiency compared to the previous year, for example. However, the inaccuracy of the surface area determined in this way is far too great to be able to deduce whether, for example, a consumption limit for water consumption in liters per square meter of surface area has been met. The precision required for this would mean an immense amount of additional bureaucracy for us. In our opinion and that of the VOA, this applies to all contract finishing companies.
How were the values received by the delegation in your company?
(...) The questions were answered comprehensively by myself, by our environmental and energy management officer Ms. Sturm and by the VOA. The feedback we received from the participants was consistently very positive, especially because they were able to engage not only with theory but also with practice.
