Near the border with Denmark, thousands of Kraft strips go for festivals every day, but easily detachable connections from the tape. Follow us into the Harrisiee factory, this is where the Tesa Powerstrip is made.
Casually dressed in jeans and a checked shirt, Peter Jacobsen walks through the factory hall. greet employees, the tone is loose, you use the first name. The grey-haired man, whose smile rarely leaves the corner of his eye, looks friendly over the narrow reading glasses. As a production manager and safety engineer, he is in Germany's northernmost production facility and together with 36 Women and men responsible for adhesive force by the meter. In strips it is "baked" in Hamburg, “Applied” in Hesse and “Applied” in Bavaria. But the Tesa Powerstrip has long since crossed national borders and started its journey around the world.
The versatile adhesive strips have been around since the mid-1990s, which not only stick well to many surfaces, but to take hold of one's own – traceless – Deliver removal at the same time. In the meantime, the Powerstrips have grown into a whole family, whose individual members fulfill specific tasks. In several sizes and "weight classes", white or transparent, the strips solve fastening problems and fix hooks, posters.
The entire world production of the versatile adhesive idea now comes from the factory in Harrislee near Flensburg. The power strips are manufactured in a very flexible production process controlled by the employees themselves. This is how production manager Peter Jacobsen summarizes the process: "Coating, cut, punch, pack.” All right? Again to read along: The manufacture of the adhesive begins quite unspectacularly and cleanly with the melting of various granules. With the resulting mass – white or transparent, depending on the type of strip – a brown backing paper is coated” and rolled into so-called bales.
Tailors cut them into "mother rolls" of various widths. All components of the power strip - the adhesive and various protective papers – brings the punching production step together. This is followed by packaging in a machine, which can process all formats produced and also packs the instructions in the box. It's really easy.
“It is all a finely tuned process, in which the most modern technology and progressive organization intertwine", says Peter Jacobsen. Every Wednesday, the employees coordinate the processing of the orders in a meeting. "The details of the article, Quantity and date come from the disposition. The teams then plan the processing steps and allocate materials.", explains the production manager. Employee Tanja Schult, since 13 years at the Harrislee plant, added: “Based on the two daily shifts – that's ten a week – we calculate the number of shifts required for each job.” Everyone has an insight into the planning on a large board, can overlook, what work is pending, which are quite varied for the individual. Who operates a machine, also eliminates minor glitches; who replenishes material, also keeps an eye on the replenishment; who has just divided details of the weekly planning, sits on the assembly line in the next moment and fills packs by hand. Innovative production and self-determined work, that does not require a time recording system, unleash creativity. “Everyone is an essential cog in the machine. When something isn't going right, chops everything”, Peter Jacobsen is convinced of that. That's why he's not the only one who walks through the factory with a satisfied face. Here is noticeable, that a tight-knit team with ideas and drive for “their” product – the Tesa-Power strip – committed. That's how it is with the power from Harrisiee.