Quality management for the Romanian automotive industry
WSQ Werner Seeger Qualitätsmanagement • Teaching of German training standards and content
The company WSQ Werner Seeger Qualitätsmanagement has been advising well-known, internationally active businesses in industry and the general economy with regards to all issues of quality and environmental management since 1994. One of WSQ's main competences is in the field of industrial serial production, in particular in the automotive and supplier industry, the plastics processing industry and mechanical engineering. The advisory service provision is supplemented by a comprehensive offer of training and educational programmes. The focus here is on quality and process management. The programme range includes introductory workshops for various management systems as well as seminars focusing on tools and methods.
WSQ started preparation for the internationalisation of its own service provision in the late 1990s, in the wake of German automotive suppliers expanding into Eastern Europe. To remain as close to its customers as possible, the company established the subsidiary Werner Seeger Qualitätsmanagement Romania SRL (WSQR) in Sibiu in Transylvania, Romania, in 2001. At the time, the city began to emerge as a preferred site in particular for German manufacturing companies. Yet the number of Romanian businesses recognising the competitive advantage of additional competence in the field of quality management has likewise been increasing.
The decision for Sibiu brought with it a significant increase in the advisory and training contracts for WSQR. All customers have an increasing need for the practice-oriented qualification of their employees that follows international standards. Since spring 2013, the firm of WSQ and its service profile have gained representation also in the iMOVE provider pool.
As in Germany, the seminars and training courses are addressed at emerging and practising quality assurance managers and representatives, internal and external auditors as well as executive staff in the automotive industry. WSQ carries out its practice-oriented dissemination of knowledge by co-operating with a network of freelance trainers. Noteworthy examples for WSQR's international activities in the past decade include support for the former Romanian public enterprise FLARO Prod on its way to become an internationally competitive automotive supplier as well as advisory services to Bosch Rexroth Automotive in Blaj in the relocation of their production and the complete implementation of a management system.
Another highlight is WSQR's training programme licensed by the quality management centre of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). WSQR uses this training programme to convey German training standards and content in Romania. WSQR records particularly high demand from all regions of the country due to the strong position of German companies in the Romanian automotive industry.
The training courses are carried out in the Romanian language by local trainers with corresponding qualifications. WSQR organises also seminars in the German and English language in irregular intervals or on demand. Demand for these courses exists also in Germany due to the very good transport links also by air with direct connections to Vienna, Munich and Stuttgart.
Even in the face of growing national and international competition in the training provision market, WSQR benefits from the high quality of its training programmes and the demanding examinations that expressly underline the increase in the graduates' competence. WSQR's many years of experience in the automotive industry further augment the company's competitive advantage. This is also the background against which WSQR organises the annual quality management conference "Sibiu Quality Days".
Information
This sucess story was first published in the iMOVE publication Developing Skills for Employability with German Partners • 8 Success Stories from Central and Eastern European Countries and the CIS. The brochure was published in 2014.
