Mr Schreiber, you were formerly a Managing Director of Liese GmbH together with Frank Liese. Now you have founded TS Quadrat GmbH, where you will be carrying on your work in materials handling technology and nuclear technology. What were the reasons for moving on to this new venture?

Tobias Schreiber: That’s right. I had been Managing Director at Liese GmbH since 2011, and I worked together with Frank Liese to transform a small company with a focus on service and maintenance in the beverage industry into a global, medium-sized engineering company with over 40 employees.

However, the company’s rapid growth showed Frank Liese and me that our objectives and vision for the company were diverging. We were able to recognise this early on, so we took the mutual decision to split the company in two, each of us taking different business areas, so that both of us could shape our companies according to our own specific visions.

How did you split the company? Why did you take on materials handling technology and nuclear technology?

When I joined Liese GmbH as Managing Director in 2011, a time when the business was being led solely by Frank Liese, the company was focusing exclusively on beverage technology – and this remains Frank Liese’s main area of interest today. The areas of materials handling technology, nuclear technology and laser technology only developed in the following years because of my input. So, in that sense, it was relatively easy to see how the company should be split. Although laser technology has to remain with Liese GmbH due to the infrastructure conditions it requires (such as hall quality and storage), the rest of the areas that developed largely under my leadership are passing over to the new company, TS Quadrat GmbH.

What about your employees? Do they have the right expertise for the new company?

We have managed to secure the best employees for our requirements right from the start.

All the positions we need, including those that are behind the scenes but essential for ensuring smooth operation, have been filled – this means we can hit the ground running. Where project management and customer support are concerned, I’m delighted to say that all the employees who were so successful at dealing with this area at Liese GmbH, such as Ms Schirmer, Mr Beck and Mr Schimming, are coming over to the new company too. This enables us to start with an extremely experienced and highly skilled team, so we are perfectly set up for the future.

What does the name TS Quadrat mean?

The “TS” part represents my name – Tobias Schreiber – but as well as this, it stands for what we do: we offer technical solutions, which can be abbreviated to TS. However, both “TS” and, even more so, the “Quadrat” part (which means “square” in German) also stand for the potential I see in the company and the power that will drive our work in the future.

How will you work in the future?

My vision is to increase efficiency in the business through streamlined and smart processes. We want to be close to our customers and to our suppliers as well, bringing suppliers on board as partners and actively involving them in our business early on. I don’t want to impose a strict hierarchical structure – I want to be on equal terms with my staff. I really believe that employees need to be happy and motivated to produce good results. Of course, that doesn’t mean that everyone can do what they like or that I’ll no longer have to make important executive decisions. Nevertheless, my employees must be able to play an active role in shaping their working environment. That is what will allow them to have an important say in how the business is structured and feel a sense of responsibility for their actions. State-of-the-art technology, methods and tools will be a vital part of helping this to happen. I want to make the best possible use of the opportunities that technology is currently affording, so that our team can shape our future together.