Monthly Talk
Roland Tanner. Managing Director of Müller Packaging.
“For customers and for competitors, we are the benchmark for the worldwide best industrial drums”
Roland Tanner, Managing Director of Müller AG Verpackungen for almost 14 years, introduces the 125-year jubilee in this interview: “A jubilee year must be celebrated. We want to thank our customers, suppliers and employees, and communicate our pride about what we achieved to the outside world".
Mister Tanner, what do these 125 years of Müller AG Verpackungen mean for you?
I am very proud to work in a family enterprise that is well established in its market, always acts with sound judgment, on a sustainable and long-term basis for a successful future, and that also has overcome economic crises. Here I can shape the present and the future with my management colleagues from a position of strength, proactively meet the challenges and bring forward the Company Müller AG Verpackungen – also called Müller Packaging.
How will the Company celebrate its jubilee?
We figured out some jubilee actions distributed all over the year 2022 for our employees, customers, suppliers, but also for the neighborhood and the public The primary aim is to thank our employees, customers and suppliers for everything we have achieved together.
We work a lot at Müller Packaging. Now, in 2022, we have a reason to celebrate, and we will celebrate – besides fulfilling our basic mission of maintaining our production and fully satisfying our customers with quality packaging.
What was the decisive factor for Müller AG Verpackungen’s successful history – the customers, the good products or the employees?
Müller Packaging’s recipe for success includes the following ingredients: employee commitment, quality awareness, striving for perfection, Swiss mentality, lean processes and thus efficient production lines, modern material management and smart, regular investments both in production and in the people working in the factory. For the preparation, we pay great attention to the cooperative partnership with our customers and suppliers. And, if we come across innovative ideas, we have the courage to adapt this recipe for success and to focus in on the customer. Hence the wide and comprehensive range of special packaging solutions. The employees of all departments take part in this recipe for success, which leads to exciting discussions, repeatedly questioning our work. So, we do not fear even controversial internal discussions, which give our recipe for success the spice it requires.
“And, if we come across innovative ideas, we have the courage to adapt this recipe for success and to focus in on the customer.”
What were the beginnings of Müller AG Verpackungen?
The foundation of Müller Packaging was laid in 1888, when the couple Rudolf and Elisabeth Müller-Thommen moved from Gelterkinden to Kleinhüningen in Basel and took over a tinsmith’s workshop with a house. This young family enterprise was producing tin containers for pharmacies as a simple and practical solution for ointments. In the 1910s, their son Ernst Müller discovered a real market niche with the series production of tin containers for the quickly growing Basel chemical industry. He developed the production capacity in Münchenstein in 1922. So, Müller Packaging celebrates a double jubilee in 2022: the 125 years Company jubilee and the 100 years of the Münchenstein site.
“So, Müller Packaging celebrates a double jubilee in 2022 : the 125 years Company jubilee and the 100 years of the Münchenstein site.”
The Müllers achieved their first successes with tin containers for pharmacies and subsequently for the Basel chemical industry. What does today’s products range look like?
Müller Packaging produces packaging for hazardous goods manufactured out of thin sheet metal, galvanized steel sheets, chrome steel or composite packages (plastic container in a steel drum). We use thin sheet metal from 0.5 to 1.5 mm for our wide range of tight-head drums, open-head drums and composite drums from 1L to 250L. Fiber drums and many special solutions such as e.g. recovery drums complete this range.
If we describe Müller AG Verpackungen as a “manufacturer of drums, in particular for the pharmaceutical industry”, would you be satisfied with this formulation?
This would not be sufficient. Historically, it is true that the pharmaceutical industry used to be an important pillar in the past. In the current turnover statistics, this area is rather declining, which is also due to the fact that the demand today comes from many different sectors. Currently, companies from the specialty chemicals, cosmetics, flavors and fragrances, food, mineral oil, paints and lacquers sectors and from the semiconductor industry, as well as from the storage, logistics and distribution branches rely on our proven customer solutions.
How did the industrial packaging market evolve in the last years?
Basically, we noticed on the one hand that the quality requirements of the customers for industrial drums increased. The customers are looking in an increasingly consistent way for the ideal packaging solution. Quality, hygiene, purity and recyclability, but also delivery reliability, are decisive factors.
On the other hand, the prices for industrial packaging have come under pressure in the last years. The customers demand a constant high quality, but they are not always ready to pay more for it.
“The customers are looking in an increasingly consistent way for the ideal packaging solution.”
Did the corona pandemic also affect the industrial packaging market?
The corona pandemic has raised new challenges. We had to face bottlenecks in raw material procurement, in logistic chains and in spare parts. This difficult situation has shown how valuable long-term and good supplier relationships and trustful cooperation with customers and suppliers are – and the importance of good communication. Looking together for a solution strengthened the conviction of all parties that they are working with the “right” partners.
But, did something remain unchanged in the last years?
It is interesting to note that the basic construction of the drum has proved successful now for many decades, that the recycling of steel drums is working very well and that the steel drum will have a strong place in the purchasing strategies of the processing industry also in the future.
How is Müller AG Verpackungen preparing itself for the coming 10 years?
New topics such as for example energy efficiency, raw material extraction, circular economy or digitalization, only to name a few, are coming to the forefront in the company agenda, and we will have to process them from both the strategic and the operative aspect. Environmental protection and sustainability remain important. And, despite all changes that will occur, we must go on increasing the efficiency, keeping the processes lean and employee satisfaction high. Reliability, quality and ecology become increasingly important in this agile environment. They become the lubricant of a successful customer relationship, if I may use a “mechanical” example.
Müller Packaging in Münchenstein
Müller AG Verpackungen has acquired the reputation of a “quality leader”. What does this mean?
Very simply and without being boastful: For customers and for competitors, we are the benchmark for the worldwide best industrial drums. This is why the term “Müller drum” established itself in our markets. We are credibly setting the “quality leader” standard, which is appreciated and recognized both by customers and by competitors. This is all the more important since every leak in hazardous goods packaging can lead to a disaster. Customers expect an all-round protection for their goods. At Müller Packaging, we uncompromisingly warranty and supply this protection.
You are the Managing Director of Müller AG Verpackungen for almost 14 years. What is driving you as the Company Manager?
Achieving something jointly with people, motivating each other, exchanging, accepting different opinions in everyday working life, not judging, but rather learning from the others, this is what drives me. Working on the culture. Promoting the sense of community. Creating ideal work premises as the ultimate goal – being well aware that in most cases ideal conditions cannot totally be achieved. Besides this, three maxims are important to me. First: consistency in our action, in our statements and in our quality. Second: the commitment to make every effort, to improve oneself constantly. Third: align our actions with the customer requirements.
You are running a Company of the Müller families. Does the status of a family enterprise strongly influence the company philosophy? Where can you feel this?
In a family enterprise, people know each other and stand for each other. The owners are visible for the employees, they are close to them and they always have an open ear for concerns, wishes or ideas. This makes the collaboration more direct and personal. The well-being of the employees is a strategic factor. Financing by the Müller families makes us independent. The action is based on family values and not on any demands from the capital markets.
“In a family enterprise, people know each other and stand for each other.”
In the meantime, the fifth Müller generation has joined the group management. Do you feel fresh top-down wind?
Increasingly reflecting our business model and our annual plans with younger family members of the fifth Müller generation inspires me. Facing young ways of thinking, other viewpoints and approaches can only have positive effects on Müller’s future. Since beginning 2022 Patrick Müller, son of the former CEO Peter Müller, is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Müller AG Verpackungen. Besides this mandate, he is also actively involved in the 2022 jubilee actions, which is very enriching. The Müller families have two or three identical traits that can be found through all generations: they are open-minded, down-to-earth, friendly, humorous and helpful. All these traits are well received also in the enterprises!
“The Müllers are open-minded, down-to-earth, friendly, humorous and helpful.”
According to you, which Müller generation did develop the vision of becoming some day a leading supplier of hazardous goods packaging?
Every Müller generation correctly recognized the signs of its times and smartly laid the foundations for the future. But the greatest step in expansion – also in business diversification – goes back to the third Müller generation. While Ernst Müller (the second generation) is considered as the “founder” of the packaging company, his two sons Rudolf and Hans are called the two “fathers” of the Müller Group. They rapidly expanded the original business in the 1950s, they modernized the Company and secured it on several pillars. They can well be called the pioneers of the Swiss sheet metal packaging industry.
Müller Packaging in Reiden
You are – with your management colleagues – in charge of two sites: Münchenstein and Reiden. What is the importance of the two production sites for you?
From an historical point of view, Münchenstein, in the immediate vicinity of Basel, is the ideal site to follow closely and supply quickly the chemical and pharmaceutical customers on the Rhine. The second site, Reiden, is strategically ideally located in the center of Switzerland and completes optimally the east-west and north-south sales orientation. Rudolf Müller (3rd generation) considers the foundation in March 1978 of the drum factory in Reiden as the highpoint of his professional life. He once said smiling: “I must admit that, in addition to my three children, this was my fourth child”.
Müller AG Verpackungen belongs to the Müller Group. The companies group adopted the slogan “From Packaging to Processing”. What is this about?
The slogan relates to the four companies of the Müller Group and their products, which reach all along the value chain, from industrial packaging up into the factories of our customers. Because the Müller drums, with their valuable contents, are repalettized, transferred, blended, stored or cleaned. Müller Packaging’s subsidiaries have suitable customer solutions for all these handling and processing tasks. The group approach and the bringing together of the companies to form a powerful industry group is the work of the3rd and 4th Müller generations.
A jubilee is often an opportunity to make presents. Can you already tell us whom Müller AG Verpackungen wants to make presents, and what these presents will be?
I don’t want to tell you too much about this here (he laughs). We want to make the surprise. If the readers of this interview want to “accompany” Müller Packaging through this jubilee year and get more information on our actions, I recommend them regular visits to www.mueller-group.com/en/125. This website has 12 windows for the 12 months of 2022. A new window opens every month and the contents of these windows will be regularly updated. This way, information, photographs and stories about the jubilee will be accessible for all interested persons. I look forward to welcoming you online.
Mister Tanner, thank you very much for the interview and your insight in the Company jubilee.