Idea Management

The ideas submitted by its employees help WACKER to do things better and stay competitive. In 2018, the number of improvement suggestions submitted rose slightly year over year. The participation rate (number of submitters per 100 employees) and the total benefit rose as well.

Since 1975, WACKER employees have submitted around 156,500 improvement suggestions. Over half of these – 85,160 suggestions – have been implemented, leading to company savings of €155 million. Submitters have received a total of €37.5 million in bonuses.

The WACKER Employee Suggestion Program celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2018, holding discussion groups and organizing events and campaigns, such as an online quiz and the “Ensuring Health and Safety in Routine Work” initiative. This initiative asked employees to submit ideas about occupational safety. As a further measure to raise employee awareness of idea management, we made a filmfilm (in German only) that can be downloaded from our video portal.

At the 2018 National Congress held by Germany’s “ZI” Idea Management Center, a WACKER team won first prize in the Production and Engineering category. The Idea Management Center (ZI; website available in German only) is an interest group that promotes and disseminates idea and innovation management in Germany. WACKER is one of 150 member companies. The winning team convinced the judging panel with an intelligent combination of IT systems that speeds up lab results and saves analytical costs.

The WACKER BIOSOLUTIONS sites in Jena and Halle have been integrated into the Employee Suggestion Program since 2017.

We extended our online suggestion tool in 2017 to include a campaign function that features idea voting. Our aim is to intensify the controlled nature of idea management. Teams can use this new function, for example, to vote on ideas or ask a specific group of participants to submit suggestions for a common goal.