GEA launches new group structure to benefit brewing customers

GEA’s Craft-Star brewhouse, geared toward (you guessed it) craft brewers.

GEA is one of the biggest and best turnkey brewing equipment manufacturers in the world. You might know the company from its famous brand name — Huppmann — a leading supplier of complete brewhouses that became a part of GEA back in 2006. Today, GEA products are used by some of the best breweries in the world, including American craft pioneers like Firestone Walker Brewing Co., Bell’s Brewery Inc. and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

Recently, the company moved into a new phase of serving the brewing industry — both worldwide and in the American craft sector. GEA has launched the optimized new “Group” structure developed as part of its “Fit for 2020” initiative, marking a fundamental shift both in its internal structure and organization and in its external customer relations. Starting immediately, the Group is bundling and reporting the development and manufacturing of products and the provision of process solutions in two new business areas — “Equipment” and “Solutions.”

“The new structure is designed to help us develop from a very good to an outstanding company based on a simplified, harmonized and more streamlined organization,” said Jürg Oleas, CEO of GEA. “This means the maximum possible focus within each unit, with clearly defined responsibilities in terms of applications, products, technologies, and services. In addition, the changes will safeguard and further improve our customer focus through first-rate innovations and services, rapid decision-making processes, uniform and coordinated customer management and much more,”

The new bundling into business areas of roughly equal strength promises greater operational synergies spanning technologies and applications, and promotes functional excellence by standardizing processes. For GEA’s customers this means a single national organization per country as a central point of contact covering the entire product portfolio and offering all services on a local basis. The new structure will enable GEA to generate substantial savings while supporting further growth.

In the Equipment business area, GEA brings together all activities that feature standardized and customer-specific equipment offerings. As a general rule, products are manufactured in large quantities as part of large-scale series production on a standardized and modular basis. The Solutions business area brings together all project-based offerings that extensively cover customer-specific and modular solutions. The business areas tailor their products and services to the specific applications and customer requirements.

The most visible indication of the changes is the Group’s new website, which was launched at the same time. The significantly updated and more consistent site is now clearly divided into products, applications and services. Customers are only a few clicks away from both the entire GEA portfolio and the relevant contacts at the affiliates. The new web presence replaces the more than 200 separate Group company websites that had previously existed and illustrates the company’s goal — “OneGEA.”