Page 5 - Manual FAT EU

Manual FAT EU 2018

1. Introduction

This handbook is a comprehensive reference book that provides both in-depth
background information on the FAT EU Organisation as well as concrete instructions
and rules on how these structures work in practice. The goal of this book is
summarize rules and methods that have been defined in the project FAT4EU to
ensure the proper functioning of the FAT EU organization.

This document presents the structure of the Böllhoff corporate division FAT (egl. for
Fasteners and Assembly Technology) in Europe and is applicable for all European
FAT companies of the Böllhoff Group. They have to respect and apply structures,
rules and methods set and described in this Manual.

1.1 Background

The document is the final word of the project FAT4EU. Structures and processes
were analysed during the project runtime from Hebst 2015 to spring 2018 and
designed in accordance with the specified requirements. Due to the extent of the
changes in business processes, it is not necessary to look at them in detail, but
rather to examine the concept as a whole.

The organizational project FAT4EU is the consequence of the FAT Strategy. The
organizational change is part of this big strategic picture 2015-2018, which is to be
continued in the Strategy 2018-2021. At the beginning of 2016, the FAT division
contains twelve companies across Europe and six companies in non-European
countries (worldwide). Five companies are headquartered in Bielefeld. The structure
has grown historically in each country and was organized classically according to
functions that are characterized by a high degree of specialization. The respective
functions are sometimes carried out as separate legal entities, e. g. Sales in BVT
GmbH. Böllhoff France acts as a satellite at this time: it not only has all the roles from
production to distribution and logistics, but also serves other southern European
countries such as Spain, Italy and Switzerland. The processes are designed
differently than in the parent company in Bielefeld, even some fields in the ERP
system are defined differently, so that the comparability of the processes is not
always given and coordination needs are high. An efficient direct delivery without
cross-selling is only possible with high manual effort.

The increasing market dynamics and customer orientation push the entire
organization to its limits. In the automotive industry in particular, stringent
requirements for quality and adherence to certain customer processes pose the
entire structure of challenges. In the targeted direct business with leading OEM's,
projects are expected to be handled more and more quickly, but the FAT organization
is becoming increasingly sluggish due to growth, decision-making processes are
getting longer and the need for coordination is increasing. The long reaction times

Page 5