Fine tuning

Tuesday mornings are "game" time at Adpro-Instruments but for general manager Emidio Friggieri, this is serious stuff. "GAME" stands for General Adpro Mechanical and Electronics, a comprehensive training programme for the company's operators. The thick manual covers everything from the terminology of the product to the design rationale behind the units they assemble.

Mr Friggieri believes the at training is a valuable part of his workforce's career progression. Last year, the company dedicated 2.5 per cent of working hours to training.

He stops by one operator who only started work there a month ago but is already talking about getting sponsorship from the company to learn IT.

Sales coordination is handled by Margherita Mizzi, who started there as an operator and worked her way up, via storekeeper and production cell coordinator.

This approach is becoming more and more critical in today's labour market, where competent and technical staff are harder than ever to find - and therefore more valuable to keep.

"Adpro currently has four vacancies that we are finding difficult to fill," Mr Friggieri said, expressing a concern repeated by many industrialists.

The company offers private life insurance to those who stay with the company for three years. It has also sponsored training in welding, first aid, supervisory skills and human resource management, among other things. EU funds obtained through Malta Enterprise were used to run workshops on strategic leadership and lean manufacturing and others are in the pipeline. The Employment and Training Corporation also helps with training grants.

Adpro would relish the chance to offer an apprenticeship but even students are in short supply. In fact, Mr Friggieri is contemplating an open day towards the end of the academic year, before the graduates have been sucked up by the larger employers.

"We have to get the message across that there is a lot of potential in small companies like ours - and not only in the large ones," he said.

"The Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology is doing all it can and has absorbed many of our needs into its curriculum. But the economy is growing so fast... We need many more people."

Adpro is a fully-owned subsidiary of the German firm UWT GmbH. It makes a limited but highly specialised range of level indicators for bulk goods. These could be anything from coffee beans and corn kernels to fodder and gravel.

There are three main types of equipment. One is based on a stainless steel tuning fork whose vibrations stop as soon as it comes into contact with the material. The other has a rotating vane or paddle, which likewise stops when it encounters resistance.

The third option is the lead system which measures the level of material inside the silo on a continuous basis. Most silos would have these installed to show empty, half-full and full or for continuous monitoring as in the case of the lead system. Components are virtually all imported through the parent company though Mr Friggieri has managed to source around 3 per cent of the materials from Malta and is in the process of sourcing contractors for stress-relief and polishing of the tuning fork.

"We are very excited about the possibility of doing this. These are very important services for industry and it is important to encourage companies to invest so that they can provide them on an industrial scale," he said. In the case of moulded parts, he would dearly like to find a tool-maker and injection moulder who would work together to fill this particular niche in the Maltese market.

"Malta really needs these kinds of clusters. We need about €45,000 worth of injection moulded items every year. But injection moulding companies would need to work together with tool-makers..." he said.

Fact file

● Adpro is UWT's only production facility outside Germany. It was set up with five people in 2001, making the most of the tax holiday available under the Industrial Development Act, which expires in 2012. It now employs 23 people.
● It has ISO 9001-2000 certification for quality management and also Canadian, American and European certification for product quality.
● The company made 37,000 units in 2007 and the sales coming in from Germany are growing steadily.
● UWT will hold its next international sales meeting in Malta in April, bringing 50 delegates to Malta from 23 countries. This is the second time that the meeting, organised every two years, is being held here.

Case study

Flexibility is the key if companies are to retain their staff. Doris Mifsud Pisani starting working for Adpro as an operator seven years ago when she was 23 - and still single. She loved it. The work was interesting and the atmosphere convivial.

But soon after she got married, she got pregnant and started to find the days long and tiring. General manager Emidio Friggieri offered her reduced hours and as she got closer to her due date, she worked as much as she felt was feasible.

"He was more than happy to let me do what I could. And once Elena was born, he also offered to let me work from home. But I found it too distracting so I used to leave my daughter with my mother and work for a few hours.

"It was a wonderful opportunity for me. It would have been impossible for me to work full time but as it was, I got the chance to get away from home for a bit, which widens your scope, and of course it is nice to earn a bit of money," she said.

Ms Mifsud Pisani since had a second daughter, Bjork, and will be returning to work next month after her maternity leave. Once again, she plans to work four hours a day.

It is a win-win-win situation. She gets to work; Adpro retains her skill; and Elena and Bjork just got a toy airplane...

The way ahead

Adpro owns 55 per cent of the shares in Melitech Design Ltd, a company dedicated to research and development, the balance held by managing director Stefan Attard Bason, a former technician with UWT.

"We work on electronic solutions from design concept to launching the product into production, including the design of testing jigs," Mr Attard Bason said.

"We could design the electronics of any product. In our design we take care that the equipment does not only operate well at room temperature but over the temperature range it is intended for and in the noisy conditions commonly present in industrial environments." Melitech already employs seven people and is growing fast. It will soon need more staff and more space.

"We are going into the mechanical side, which is a new field for us, such as the design of manufacturing equipment and mechanical components."

Most of the company's work is done for UWT but its clientele is spreading to other companies.

"And UWT is growing and passing on more work to use. The amount of hours for which they contracted us increased drastically this year," Mr Attard Bason said.