Dücker: 50 years In Pursuit of Prime

In October 2021 FEFCO Best Innovation Gold Award 2021 was given to Duecker Conveyor Systems

Also a Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Peter Dücker for his outstanding output to the corrugated industry

In October 2021 FEFCO Best Innovation Gold Award 2021 was given to Ilmay Karamanlar from Duecker Conveyor Systems for customised truck oriented automated loading project of palletized finished goods.

Also a Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Peter Dücker from Duecker Group, for his outstanding output to the corrugated industry and its high standards of innovations development in material handling systems.

It had been my intention and lucky draw to meet in one place Mr Peter Dücker, Mr Markus Dücker and Mr Ilmay Karamanlar right after the inauguration.

Mr Dücker congratulation! Great success! Please tell me about yourself?

■    I was born on 16.08.1948, 100 years after our company was founded. In our family business I am the fifth generation. I am married and have two children who are now in the management of our company. My parents ran the company, which was very small at that time, my father  was responsible for the technical issues and my mother was in charge for the commercial part and I so to say grew up in my father’s workshop.  After school, I did an apprenticeship as a blacksmith and subsequently studied mechanical engineering in Cologne. Just as I finished my studies and had my engineering exams, my father became seriously ill and I took over the management of the company: I have been doing that for 50 years this year. Over many years, I have led the company through ups and downs and have driven the development of our products. Nevertheless, I still had time to take care of my family and to do sports together including horse riding, boating, water skiing, hiking, dancing and singing. I sing in two choirs and otherwise I love to spend time with the whole family.

What were the challenges you faced in the beginning of your career?

■    At the beginning of my career, our company was a blacksmith and locksmith shop and we were looking for products with which we could expand our company in the long term. One of our customers, a paper factory in our neighbourhood build a corrugated board plant in 1965 and had some of the non-driven roller conveyors. After further roller conveyors were needed in 1974, we said we could do that as well and we started to develop, to build and to further develop such roller conveyors. After it worked out, we approached the other companies in our area and also sold such roller conveyors to them. We have then, bit by bit, improved the systems and constantly worked on making the systems fully automatic with electric control, computer systems with visualisation and data tracking, so that today we can sell complete systems all over the world.

Have you achieved any scientific or industry awards?

■    Rewards: during my studies, I have received the Professor-Köpfchen-Award twice, for special performance, I have received several honours from our industry association and six years ago I was elected Entrepreneur of the Year by the Langenfeld Industry Association.  But the biggest honour is the Live Achievement Award at FEFCO this year and the Gold Award for the best innovation.

What are the most outstanding and important industry events you have experienced?

■    The most important events in our industry are FEFCO, VDW Conference, TAPPI, Supercorr Expo and RICC and of course Sino-Corrugated.

What are the most memorable thing in your life?

■    The most memorable thing in my life was the birth of both of my children. And to take over the responsibility for the family business and for our employees.

What is the most important thing you have done for the Company?

■    For our company, I have always supported, promoted and developed our employees and so today we have a lot of employees who have been with us for a very long time, some of them for 38 years. Apart from that, I have always tried to develop our products further with our team and to expand our circle of customers, so that we can deliver worldwide today. But also additional products such as palletisers, prefeeders, robots due to Asset Deals in companies our intention is to expand the product portfolio and increase the service to our customers. In this respect, we have made good experiences, when we participate in partner companies, we see them as members of the Dücker family and treat them as such. This means that our partner companies should keep their DNA and continue developing with our support in our sales network and service network, and this only works in a partner relationship in which our partners, our employees and our customers are being satisfied.

What is the best recipe to combine job and family?

■    It is always difficult to combine job and family, and I worked much and I travelled a lot, but I have always lived close to the company all my life, and therefore was able to safe travel time and I was able to switch directly from work to private life within a very short time. I always did everything with full dedication, whether work or private life, whether parties or other events and I enjoyed and did everything to the fullest with 100%.

Your vision for the Company tomorrow ?

■    Vision for the company: In recent years, we have invested a lot in many locations and we will continue like this.  We will continue to develop our products and we will focus on the development of new products. Together with our customers, we will create solutions they need.  We have many young employees and managers who will and who want to lead the company and who will continue to develop the company in the future to be a preferred partner for our customers.

What is your advice to young students and industry entrants?

■    I recommend to young students and industry entrants, that everything what you would like to do should be done with passion and engagement, because only when you are enthusiastic about your work it will be fun and only then you can achieve success and can develop yourself successfully. It only will work, when you do things from the bottom of your heart.

During my career I have met many people over the years, interesting people and I have been able to learn a lot from them. I have learned a lot from our customers and also from our suppliers, in many common discussions we have found solutions together that have brought us all forward. The partner relationship to customers, suppliers and to employees is very important, because only in an atmosphere of trust a company can be managed and developed. Therefore, I would also like to thank all the partners I have met over the years.