Regarding the requirements of the global market, the Wagener & Simon WASI GmbH & Co.KG is positioned very well: In the summer of 2009 the specialist for stainless steel connecting elements opened its new logistic centre at the location Wuppertal. An area of 7.300 square metres provides a fully automatic high bay storage with 156.000 container spaces, 12.200 palette spaces and reserves for further expansion. The future-oriented distribution centre enables WASI to react to customer inquiries fast and flexibly, to turnover high volumes and to finish deliveries individually. "Our new logistics centre is an important step in equipping the company for the future. We see the greatest challenges in the progressing globalisation and the technical advancement", says WASI manager Dirk Kiele-Dunsche.
The company founded in 1961 by Emil Wagener and Werner Simon in Wuppertal has developed into the worldwide market leader in trade with rust free connecting elements made of A1 to A5 in all strength classes, and since 1978 has been a part of the Würth Group, the worldwide market leader in the trade with assembly and mounting material. The production branches are divided into WASI Norm, WASI Solar, WASI Special and WASI Maritim.
24.000 Articles permanently on stock
For Kiele-Dunsche, the key to company success is the broad assortment, the inhouse quality laboratory, the individual customer services, and the flexibility to constantly adapt to new product requirements. "We have 24.000 articles permanently on stock and immediately available. And our special department can procure everything outside of standard within a short time", says the manager. "Strict controls in our chemical-metallurgic laboratory for detailed quality inspections ensure that our customers rely on the quality of our products." The special bandwidth and depth of the assortment sets WASI apart from the competitors. "We also are different from other providers due to our reasonable price politics. In this relation, our constantly adapting offer is also especially important", explains Matthias Wolf, who has been supporting the WASI management since October 2009.
WASI constantly watches the changing market in order to identify possible new application areas for existing products or assortment expansions. The success of this strategy is proven by the comparably young product branches Maritim and Solar. Especially WASI Solar makes it clear how the company from Wuppertal can adapt to new product requirements: In the trade with solar fixings WASI recently recorded the largest percentual growth.
Adapting deliveries to processes
"The most important developments take place in the service area", says Wolf. "In order to facilitate work for our customers, we continue to increasingly adapt the delivery of our connecting elements to their processes." Because the tightening competition is forcing industrial companies to consistently optimise own services and processes, which also changes the requirements to a supplier for stainless steel connecting elements. The requirement ranges is versatile, at WASI it relates to customer specific packaging, packaging units, deliveries in the name of the customer, barcodes on delivery slips, supply systems and the automatic data transfer, among other things.
WASI delivers to wholesalers, industrial companies, and craft enterprises. The company has grown continuously within the country and abroad during the past years and meanwhile has over 6.000 longstanding and satisfied customers in various branches. "This broadly spread customer circle is also the reason why the economic crisis did not influence our business that much", says Kiele-Dunsche. "On the other hand, many of our customers had to fight massively to be able to survive the turnover decreases. Of course, we felt this." The international orientation of the specialist for stainless steel connecting elements who exports to more than 60 countries worldwide also helped cushion this development. The company is represented with independent country associations in eleven countries: Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Spain, Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and China.
The majority of the goods go to European Union, as delivery times there are very short. Countries like Turkey however are also included in the focus markets of WASI. "The country will develop significantly throughout the next years and therfore become an increasingly interesting market for us", says the WASI manager.
A high performance partner also in the future
The industry will continue to work intensively on slendering processes and shortening paths in the coming years. It purposefully targets Just-in-time-deliveries; smal warehouses on location and thus reducing its capital bonds. The industry companies will therefore be able to react even faster to changes and trends on the market than before. WASI already sees this development today, to be able to be a high performance partner for the customers also in the future. The best example here for is the new logistic centre with its versatile options. The target is to meet each customers´ individual demand towards the product and especially towards the service.
About WASI:
The Wagener & Simon WASI GmbH & Co.KG is a specialist for stainless steel connecting elements and worldwide market leader in the trade with rust free connecting elements made of A1 to A5 in all strength classes. Since 1978 the company that was founded in Wuppertal in 1961 belongs to the Würth-Group, the worldwide market leader in the trade with assembly and mounting material. WASI employs more than 180 employees at the location Wuppertal and supplies over 6.000 customers in approcimately 60 countries. All in all, WASI has ten independent country associations. The business areas of the supplier whti the broadest and deepest assortment on the market are segmented into WASI Norm, WASI Solar, WASI Maritim and WASI Special. The name WASI has been standing for innovation, customer satisfaction, and highest product quality for almost 50 years. The certification according to the international standard DIN EN ISO 9001 guarantees that the company possesses a quality management system with standardized processes that is recognized worldwide.
