There was never going to be a better opportunity! Leading dispenser and payment solutions provider Wayne Fueling Systems, currently celebrating 125 years in the business, had last month invited erpecnews to visit its European HQ in Sweden, to write about the modern day success of its manufacturing plant in Malmö.
Following a massive re development programme over the last five years, this factory now serves in excess of 60 countries across the globe, with a full range of Wayne products. However, having redevelopment plans of our own, for a completely re vamped web news portal to be up and running by next month, erpecnews ‘live’, supported by our new TV channel ENTV, we had clearly been gifted the subject matter for our first film output. Our task, to create up to six short films on Wayne, being shown on ENTV over the coming 6 months, proved more than enough for our new film crew, ably assisted by veteran industry reporter Sandra Stroppel, to cut their teeth on. For European VP Damian Tracey and EMEA Marketing Manager Robert Asbrink, it was just another day at the office.
‘Wayne’s World’
In what proved to be a hectic two day schedule, we were first given an extremely interesting insight into why Malmö plays such a key part in ‘Wayne’s World’ from both a geographic and strategic perspective, by Sven Bladh, Finance & Site Leader Malmö. Sven has been with Wayne for over 40 years.
Since 2010, when the modern facilities of the Malmö factory were first introduced, Wayne has been operating a state of the art production and assembly line for its fuel dispensers, CNG dispensers, payment terminals, POS, ATG and parts division, having combined its factories from the UK, Germany and Italy in the process of achieving this European hub and Centre of Excellence. The obvious logistical benefits of being so close to one of Europe’s major sea ports, Copenhagen Malmö Port, gives Wayne the kind of operating advantages one might expect when shipping its products to the 63 countries the factory now exports to. But this is by no means the only reason why Malmö pulls its weight so effectively for Wayne in the general scheme of things.
There are currently upwards of 250 full time employees working at the Malmö factory carrying out a wide range of skills to support Wayne’s technical objectives, spanning operations, engineering, product management and IT. Located in what is known as the Öresund region, the Malmö factory is readily able to recruit the majority of its skilled labour requirements from the immediate area which offers a young technically minded and highly qualified workforce in significant numbers, drawn mostly from 12 universities in the region and headed up by the most renown of them all, The University of Lund. With four being Swedish and eight being Danish, the universities in total have 150,000 students and more than 14,000 researchers combined.
Astonishingly this very commercially unassuming part of the world, mentioned as such more so because of its wonderful rural scenery, accounts for 25% of the Swedish and Danish GDP making it an extremely important hub for economic activity in Scandinavia. So it is the access to a wealth of technically minded workers in Malmö and its immediate surrounding regions which underpins Wayne’s most important reasons for being there and few could argue the merits of this, as raw talent must surely be considered the lifeblood of any successful hi tech company.
Snow in Sweden
The cold, not surprisingly, was the first thing that crept into my mind when we came out of the hotel the next morning. It was minus something and having an all girl camera team does have its disadvantages sometimes. Enough said. With cars at the ready we were whisked off to an OK Q8 retail outlet about 30 km outside Malmö, recently fitted with Helix 6000’s fuel dispensers, fully equipped with media and pay at pump facilities, where we planned to meet up with Lise-Lotte Nordholm, Global Product Manager for Wayne.
From left to right. Frozen, camera assistant Rabiaa Rahman-Quereshi setting up shot, the Helix 6000 in the snow. Wayne's Robert Åsbrink. Lise-Lotte Nordholm and McLean Events' Sandra Stroppel. Damian Tracey, European VP at Wayne Fueling Systems.
Lise-Lotte would be answering questions on camera about the Helix family of dispensers, put to her from a very scarf and gloved up Sandra Stroppel. Since its introduction four years ago, the Helix brand, a collection of five dispensers designed to suit a variety of retail and commercial markets, has been rolled out across the world and Lise-Lotte, who was heavily involved in the Helix development programme back in 2012, explained that the Helix family has been developed specifically with the user in mind following an enormous amount of end user research conducted prior to the design stage. She is proud to point out that every part you can see on a Helix pump has a thought behind it. From the small and basic Helix 1000 dispenser, to the much more sophisticated Helix 6000, complete with a digital advertising display, all the Helix range share a common user interface, making it far easier for the consumer to understand, whichever model they encounter.
On a site which was getting colder and windier by the minute and with one of the camera crew frozen statuesque style where she stood (see picture above), Lise-Lotte happily continued with the film interview, underlining the strong commitment Wayne has to research and development and its ongoing quest to find new ways of doing things in the course of evolving their products.
Goggles and Hi-Vis
With the welcomed warmth of a car dashboard blowing copious amounts of hot air onto our faces, we set off back to the Wayne factory with a promise of a hot lunch, followed by an afternoon of filming on the Helix production line, alongside Kevin Burnett, VP Global Operations. Everything and anything manufactured out of Wayne’s four factories in Malmö, Austin, Rio and Shanghai is Kevin’s responsibility and like most manufacturers today, Wayne takes Health and Safety very seriously. Whilst ultimately I am happy to report that there was complete compliance by the whole camera crew to every HSE required procedure, it is fair to say that some comments were definitely heard about there being nothing in the right size or colour to wear as the whole crew marched out onto the shop floor dressed in bright orange jackets, safety shoes, hats and goggles. It is surely one of the largest and most modern factories I had ever seen, with robots playing their part to great effect at various stages of the production line. There was even a robot to wrap up the finished dispensers in cling film.
Kevin Burnett, Vice President Operations at Wayne
It is understandable that for obvious reasons we were not allowed to film every part of the manufacturing process, but as we were carefully guided around the factory there were several stop off points presenting us with really interesting opportunities to film key parts of the production line, in full swing. Our first official stop was to film a number of dispensers at an advanced stage of production, being given extensive electronics tests prior to being passed fit for service. At each point Kevin would describe exactly what was happening. With Health & Safety rules keeping us at least three meters away from any of the real action, we still managed to see these particular dispensers being given a 100% clean bill of health before they were pushed out the door. Next was the wet test where pumps are checked for weights and measures purposes, involving lots of pouring liquids into various parts of a pump to check their worthiness. Lots of good footage for the camera team, without getting too wet!
The print shop
One of the most intriguing parts of the tour came towards the end when we were shown the imaging room, facilitating the printing, cutting and applying of the particular logos, images and signs, needing to be placed on the finished dispensers, waiting patiently in the room next door. Whatever signage is needed for whichever oil company, on any product, Wayne now produces everything in house, but pointed out that previously this service was contracted out to a specialist signage company. Everyone we spoke to connected with this facility, seemed to agree that in house works much better than out house for reasons of simplicity, flexibility and control.
125 Years of Wayne
2010-2016 is seen as a new era for Wayne, with the new factory in Malmö, the successful introduction of the Helix family, its 125th anniversary, a new infrastructure, strong organic growth, increased automation in its products and two recent acquisitions to enhance the technical side of its business, which is already benefiting enormously from the success of its Fusion Automation Server, linking systems and devices together; including point-of-sale, dispensers, price signs, and tank gauges. In a closing session with European VP Damian Tracey he talked about the things that really make Wayne tick and outlined the company’s objectives for the next 125 years!
Not quite, but you can see it all on ENTV with the launch of erpecnews live.
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