Agne Suipyte: What makes Gabler unique?
Ole Johannsen, Gabler Head of Sales and Marketing: It is our customers who made our history a true success story and it is our customers who have the ability to make our future. That is why we put our customer in the centre of everything we do. Being a reliable partner and having reliable products is our basic understanding. An open and transparent way of working is part of our culture. Innovation drives our products and processes since 1962. We would like to join the customer and support their activities over the entire sub lifecycle. With the Gabler Lifecycle System, we specifically focus on consulting during the design phase and on developing customised maintenance and overhaul capabilities. To ensure the operative goals, we have established our Gabler Business system, which is a guide to reduce waste in order to be more effective and efficient.
AS: What makes Gabler hoistable masts and components unique?
OJ: Our company philosophy is based on customer centricity. Hence, our products are highly standardised but can also be fully customised. We have a very flexible and unique portfolio of hoistable masts with its different footprints and guiding principles. This leads to a huge selection of technical solutions to every sail design. The hoistable masts can be 100% customised. The limitation is just physics. In addition, Gabler masts are very long-lasting, reliable and designed for a lifetime of more than 40 years. The latest developments in hoistable mast general design lead to very low maintenance and total cost of ownership.
AS: One of the biggest topics of every navy is lifecycle support – How is Gabler involved in that?
OJ: The first goal during the entire lifecycle is to keep the submarines in service for the crew. The availability and reliability of technics and the safety of the submarine crew is of the essence. We are offering proactive services to ensure long-lasting availability of our products and components. An important factor is to keep the communication to the arsenal, the navy and all persons or companies, which are involved in the lifecycle of each submarine of the fleet. We will serve you with a 24/7 opportunity for communication ensured by a worldwide network of local acting representatives.
AS: What is Gabler’s mission from your point of view?
OJ: The moments when the submarine crew successfully takes part in a high-quality manoeuvre and then returns safely to the port. We are working for that moment.
AS: As a member of the Gabler team, what are you especially proud of?
OJ: After a typical day at Gabler with a lot of conversation with our customers and creating solutions internally for our customers, I feel proud to be part of this team. We have a big customer base and we are serving our customers around the world. This leads to the fact that I learn day by day to improve our cross-culture awareness and learn how to satisfy our customers.
AS: What are the biggest challenges working together with navies around the world?
OJ: There are no challenges. To have the chance to work with navies is why Gabler exists. Navies are no real business enterprises and the goals of navies is to assure that missions can be executed with lowest risk, costs and with reliable partners – they need a safe supply chain. We listen to all navies who are interested in our solutions and try to customise an attractive solution package.
AS: How does Gabler keep their products up to date and make them future-ready?
OJ: We are listening to our customers. We do not want to develop something where we believe it makes no sense if no customer would use it, once the prototype is ready for a series product. We have established our own process for research and development and we are always looking for new developments. We are searching for latest developments to the industry to access new and improved materials and we are in talks with submariners / crews and admirals and other levels to receive the latest ideas and requirements for submarine missions. Once we get an internal or external impulse from customers or from the industry, we have a very strict process with different quality gates to ensure that the idea / development is on the right track with regards to costs and the product itself. All developments have the goal to increase the benefits on the customer side, for instance, with regards to costs and operation safety. In our special niche market, it is reducing the signature of our product, including acoustic, electric and magnetic.
