THE EMPLOYEE MAGAZINE OF EVONIK...

EN | International Edition

T H E E M P L O Y E E M A G A Z I N E O F E V O N I K I N D U S T R I E S A G 3 / 2 0 0 8

AutomotiveCustomer Days in Toyota Town

Success with additivesInternational technology specialist Evonik RohMax

Walsum 10 power plant will set the standard

Energy for tomorrow 1_Folio_03-08_EN_K0 11_Folio_03-08_EN_K0 1 27.02.2008 15:58:58 Uhr27.02.2008 15:58:58 Uhr

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3 Editorial More communication needed

4 A picture and its story Chemical anchors in Dresden’s Frauenkirche

6 Magazine Three questions for Volker Batroff, Customer Days in three countries, lunch break in Moscow, expansion in Brazil

8 Cover story One of Germany’s most modern power plants is being built in Duisburg. The project is in many ways a pioneering undertaking

14 Business Unit in focus Success with oil additives — the international joint venture Evonik RohMax

18 Customer Days The Evonik Automotive Industry Team presents products to Toyota managers in Japan

23 Rally puzzle Win one of five iPod nanos

24 Evonik people Michael G. Rübenkönig

Cover: Walsum site manager Dr. Peter Weiß takes time out for a photograph by Frank Preuss

MASTHEADPublisher: Evonik Industries Aktien gesellschaft, Dr. Werner Müller; Office Manager/Head of Internal Communication: Stefan Haver; Editor in Chief: Sven Scharnhorst (responsible according to press law);Editorial Consultant: Christoph Peck; Art Direction: Wolf Dammann; Managing Editors: Stefan Glowa, Ulrich Raschke; Head of Group Editorial Office: Steffen Henke; Authors in this issue: Oliver Driesen (OD), Christof Endruweit (CHE), Michael Hoffmann (MH), Ursula Jäger (UJ), Walter Klöters (WK), Nina Labitzke (NL), Annika Nägele (AN), Christoph Peck (CP), Sven Scharnhorst (SVS), Silke Wodarczak (SW); Address: Rellinghauser Straße 1, 45128 Essen, Postfach: 10 32 62, 45117 Essen, Tel. +49/(0)201/177-33 81, internal 992-33 81, Fax +49/(0)201/177-31 81, e-mail: [email protected]; Picture Editor: Karsten Bootmann; Design: Martin Bartel; Arnim Knorst (head), Fraisy Manjali, Silke Möller/Redaktion 4, Hamburg; Copy Desk: Wilm Steinhäuser; Translation: TransForm, Cologne; Publishing house: HOFFMANN UND CAMPE VERLAG GmbH, a company of the GANSKE VERLAGSGRUPPE, Harvestehuder Weg 42, 20149 Hamburg, Tel. +49/(0)40/441 88-457, Fax +49/(0)40/441 88-236; Management: Manfred Bissinger, Dr. Kai Laakmann, Dr. Andreas Siefke; Publication Manager: Dr. Jessica Renndorfer; Production: Claude Hellweg (head), Oliver Lupp; Marketing: Kirsten Beenck, Tel. +49/(0)40/688 79-139, Fax +49/(0)40/688 79-199, e-mail: [email protected]; Reproduction: PX2, Hamburg; Copyright: ©2008 by Evonik Industries Aktiengesellschaft, Essen. Reprinting only with source credit and voucher copy. The content does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the publisher.

Oil additivesWhat’s involved in producing top-performing engine oils? The employees at Evonik RohMax know: their joint venture is a leading international supplier of oil additivesPAGE 14

Readers with questions and suggestions can contact the editorial offi ce at: [email protected]

Power plantThe Walsum 10 power plant in Duisburg is to be built in only 39 months, and its 45 percent efficiency rating will set standardsPAGE 8

2 C O N T E N T S

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More communication neededThe popularity of Evonik as a business partner has meant that I’ve spent a great deal of time on the phone in recent weeks. As a member of the Corporate Communications team, I consider this a normal part of my work — but the sheer variety of the inquiries that reached me on my mobile phone was astounding. Shipping companies inquired whether we’d be working at Evonik Industries on one of the main days of Carnival, Rose Monday. The post office informed me that packages for our company that had been sent to the wrong address had been redirected and would be delivered soon. Other callers were interested in doing business with Evonik. I even got a call from a father inquiring about an internship for his daughter at the Marl Chemistry Park. When I asked this man why he was calling me instead of another one of the approximately 42,000 employees of the Evonik Group, it was his turn to be surprised. He had called directory information to find out how to reach Evonik and been told the number of my mobile phone. Well, that at least explained the large number of calls. A quick check on the Internet revealed that my mobile phone number was in fact listed next to the name of Evonik Industries AG, without any further explanation. How it got there is clearly one of those insoluble problems of daily life at the office. Any attempt to have it removed would mean overcoming the daunting hurdle of German bureaucracy.

But no matter — I soon became accustomed to being the voice of the Evonik Group. Some of the calls even developed into pleasant chats. Most importantly, I found out just how diverse the inquiries directed at Evonik really are. In fact, they’re just as diverse as our company.

Pleasant reading!

The Evonik Agenda for March

New York, March 10–13:The elite of the chemicals industry will meet in the famous Hotel Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan for a conference of the U.S. Drug, Chemical & Associated Technologies Association (DCAT). Evonik is one of the conference’s sponsors.

Essen March 31: This is the deadline for submissions for the Evonik European Science-to-Business Award. This year’s topic for the award, which is worth €100,000, is “white” biotechnology. The competition is open to outstanding researchers, young entre-preneurs, and company founders from outside the Group. Contact: [email protected].

New Delhi, March 12–14:The PU TECH trade fair, which will be held for the second time in March 2008, highlights the importance of the rapidly growing Indian market for the polyurethane industry. The Polyurethane Additives segment of the Consumer Specialties Business Unit will be represented by a stand at the exhibition as well as presentations at the technical conference.

Dubai, March 10–12: Four Evonik Business Units will be represented at the Middle East Coatings Show, which will be held for the 15th time this year. The trade fair will focus on the most recent developments in paint and enamel technology for the booming Gulf region.

Sven Scharnhorst,Editor in Chief

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E D I T O R I A L

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4 A P I C T U R E A N D I T S S T O R Y


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Standing firm in DresdenDresden’s famous Frauenkirche church is more dazzling than ever. Destroyed during World War II, today it’s a very popular attraction with a powerful symbolic value. Since the inauguration of the Frauen-kirche in October 2005, more than four million people have attended church services or concerts in the impressive Baroque building. The spectacular reconstruction campaign was financed by many generous donations. Evonik and its partner Hilti — a globally operating company that develops, manufactures, and markets products for the construction industry — also played important roles in the project. Hilti relied on methacry late performance monomers from Evonik as “chemical anchors” in the injection mortars used in the reconstruction. It is these anchors that make the church’s framework, windows, stairs, and rail-ings steady as a rock. The resurrection of the Frauenkirche in Dresden was thus possible thanks to a special technology from Evonik, which helped to bring a historic structure back to life. AN


_ For quite some time now, an increasing number of e-mails containing malicious software — known as “trojans” — have been sent over the Internet. What kind of damage can such programs cause to computer systems?The term “trojan” refers to a com-puter program that carries out un-wanted and damaging actions, normally without the user’s knowl-edge. Possible consequences in-clude the employee’s computer could cease to function, the oper-ation of Evonik’s IT infrastructure or its central components could become degraded — or even fail completely due to massive inter-ference — or data, passwords, or confi dential company information could be distributed to external ad-dresses or stolen without the theft being detected.

_ How can employees help to prevent such losses?Despite the fact that defensive measures against trojan software have been set up and are being continually improved, every em-ployee should use their computer with care and remember that when e-mails of unknown or unusual or-igin arrive, it’s better to check with the Helpdesk or the IT department. Never, ever open or forward such e-mails, and only use USB sticks that you know you can trust.

_ How many e-mails arrive in the company’s inboxes every month, and how many are actually delivered to users?In December the fi rst fi gure was 35 million e-mails — and that isn’t counting all the purely internal e-mail traffi c that Evonik employees send to one another. Of these 35 million e-mails, a total of only ap-proximately 1.5 million — less than fi ve percent of all the e-mails re-ceived — were actually delivered. In order to reach their addressees, the e-mails have to pass through four different IT fi lter systems that check them for trojans, false ad-dresses, and spam. And that still doesn’t guarantee 100-percent se-curity, however. A few e-mails can always slip through into employees’ inboxes, and it is possible that these e-mails could still contain trojans.

Volker Batroff Dr. Volker Batroff is Corporate Security Information Officer (CSIO) at Corporate IT

T H R E E Q U E S T I O N S F O R …

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Capacity boosted to 70,000 tons per year: the H2O2 plant in Barra do Riacho

Expansion in BrazilThe Active Oxygens Business Line of the Industrial Chemicals Business Unit has suc-cessfully completed an expansion of the capacity of the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) plant in Barra do Riacho, Brazil. This expansion has boosted the plant’s annual capac-ity to 70,000 tons, with the potential for further expansion to 100,000 tons per year. “The expansion has been carried out at a time when the region is experiencing con-tinuous growth in demand for hydrogen peroxide. We are now much better able to supply our customer’s requirements as a reliable, high-performance partner. This in-vestment underlines that we want to further strengthen our good position in the hy-drogen peroxide business,” said Dr. Alfred Oberholz, Member of the Executive Board of Evonik Industries AG responsible for the Chemicals Business Area. The company’s proprietary high-performance technology is soon to be installed at other Evonik H2O2 production locations, either in Gibbons, Canada, or in Mobile, Ala., U.S. In contrast to new construction, this technology enables existing plants to be efficiently and economically expanded.

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Sales in AsiaEvonik is to pass on its shares in two joint ventures for the sale of chemicals in Southeast Asia to its partner Jebsen & Jessen in mid 2008. The cooperation estab-lished with Jebsen & Jessen in 1997 as a central pillar of Evonik’s sales and logistics activities in the region will be continued, however, as JJ Degussa has, with its connected companies, established itself as one of the leading distributors of specialty chemicals in South-east Asia over the last ten years.

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Henkel award for EvonikThe Consumer Specialties Business Unit has chalked up another success. It has been recognized as the world’s best and most reliable supplier to Henkel’s Laundry and Homecare business sector during the year 2007. Bertrand Conqueret, Vice President Global Purchasing at Henkel, presented the award to Dr. Claus Rettig, head of the Business Unit, at an in-ternational congress of the Soap and Detergents As-sociation in Boca Raton, Fla., U.S. Conqueret praised the top quality of the Evonik products and Evonik’s pro-active approach to developing new ideas and so-lutions, in addition to lauding the Business Unit’s con-tribution to Henkel’s growth.

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M A G A Z I N E


Cooperation with polyethylene manufacturerThe Performance Polymers Business Unit has signed a services and supply contract with SABIC Europe, a subsidiary of the Saudi Arabian chemicals and metals group Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC). SABIC’s products include flexible and elastic low density polyethylene (LDPE), which is used for the manufacture of films in beverage packaging and photographic paper, for example. SABIC has developed a new technology that guarantees an even better quality of LDPE — and uses an es-sential co-monomer from Evonik. The Performance Polymers Business Unit is not only bringing its expertise in safe handling and storage of monomers into the cooper-ation, but also its comprehensive know-how regarding toxicological properties and approvals that are required by food legislation.

Contract signed: Peter Clarke, Claus Wassermeyer, Philippe Janssens, Dr. Steven de Boer, Dr. Volker Kerscher, Dr. Robert Adriaansens, Dr. Mario Gómez, Dr. Wilhelm Karnbrock, Heinz Gehri, Danielle Kruijen, Dr. Wolfgang Klesse, Peter Neuteboom (from left)

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LUNCH IN …

MoscowChicken soup, fried liver, Russian borscht, and “glo-balized” spaghetti — the canteen at Evonik’s Russian subsidiary in Moscow offers a large selection at low prices. And it’s fast, which is especially important for HR team member Eleonora Bobrova, SAP specialist Aleksey Bulgakov, and controller Kirill Bagin (from left). The colleagues come to the second basement of the office building on the banks of the river Moskwa around three times a week — on the re-maining days they generally make do with a snack at their desks.

Customer Days in three countriesMore than 300 customers and partners were present for the Performance Polymers Business Unit’s pre-sentation of its range of products and services at Cus-tomer Days in the growth markets of Brazil, Korea, and China. “We wanted to show the Brazilian market the latest developments in the area of high perfor-mance polymers, while also making our customers aware that Evonik has a strong presence in South America,” said Product Manager Germano Coelho. The Customer Day in São Paulo was the second such presentation, with the focus this time on future trends in the automotive industry. The events in Korea and China were the first of their kind. In Seoul, the busi-ness unit presented an impression of the special prop-erties of its various materials. The Shanghai Cus-tomer Day took place in the High Performance Polymers Business Line’s new Technical Center. “We are going to use this center as a platform for regular communication with our customers, for initiating joint developments, and to agree on long-term coop-erations,” explained Dr. Georg Oenbrink of Innova-tion Management at the business line. The repeated positive feedback shows that this customer loyalty measure is always well-received.

Folio 3 | 2008


Walsum 10: Pioneering

8 C O V E R S T O R Y

More than ten years after the last hard coal-fired power plant had been built in Germany, the cornerstone was laid for Walsum 10 in November 2006. Fifteen months later, one of the world’s most modern power plants is already taking tangible shape

A power plant takes shape: The cooling tower grows by 1.20 meters every

day. Next to it are the stair tower and the steel skeleton of the future boiler house.

If necessary, work continues right through the night and on weekends


power plant


“We need to think as much as two years ahead”Site Manager Dr. Peter Weiß

sions. The foundation stone for the Walsum 10 facility — one of Germany’s most modern hard coal-fired power plants — was laid on November 20, 2006, and the plant is due to come on stream around 39 months later, in spring 2010. With such an ambitious sched-ule to meet, Weiß could certainly do without stormy weather.

A turnkey power plantWeiß is responsible not only for supervising construction and assembly work but also for ensuring that occupational safety is main-tained on site and that all the official require-ments are complied with in full. Evonik — or Steag at that time — put the entire project out for bid, rather than in individual parts, and Hitachi Power Europe landed the contract for the turnkey facility. The Duisburg-based subsidiary of the Japanese power-plant con-struction company has subsequently sub-contracted out some of the work to other companies, including Hochtief of Essen.

Progress is managed and monitored by Evonik’s project team in Essen and the man-agement team on site. There are experts for all the various types of work, cooperating with colleagues from the construction side of the project and checking that the work

Dammit! The forecast warning is for very poor weather conditions. Way too much wind! And no chance of lifting the ceiling of the

boiler house into position today. Slowly but surely, “alarm bells” are beginning to ring. And not only here. But that will only become evident later in the day.

The weather forecast is required read-ing every morning for Peter Weiß. And that can be a time when his thoughts turn to con-cerns like these. As site manager, he needs to know what might cause delays in the work schedule. A stiff westerly breeze — not un-common on these bleak February days — can shut down work altogether, especially if a complete ceiling has to be craned into posi-tion: “It’s no joking matter when 1,000 tons start to swing around,” says the 39-year-old engineer.

Here north of Duisburg, on a bend in the Rhine, is where Walsum 10 is taking shape: the project marks the first time in over a de-cade that a hard coal-fired power plant has been built in Germany. With a rating of 750 megawatts, the facility will boast a net effi-ciency of over 45 percent, a value that puts it at the very cutting edge of this technology and one that also will help to cut CO2 emis-

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Civil engineer Wilfried Haak: The first boiler support is erected and the base pillars for the cooling tower are in position — milestones in a construction project


Walsum 10 — facts and figuresConcept: Evonik IndustriesConstruction time: 39 monthsHeight of cooling tower: 181 meters Capital investment: €800 millionOutput: 750 MW Commissioning: 2010Construction jobs: max. 1,500Operating jobs: over 60

THE FACTS

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meets all the specifications in the complex contract. Among them is Wilfried Haak. A highly experienced civil engineer, Haak was one of the very first people on the site. In fact, he was here even before there was a construction site. Prior to the project’s start, the site had to be prepared and, for exam-ple, made level. Since then, Haak has been here every day of the week — if necessary, at five in the morning or late in the evening, and also on more than a few weekends. Dur-ing his long career, the 64-year-old engineer has acquired a wealth of know-how, much of it abroad, where he worked on construction of the Iskenderun power plant in Turkey, for example. Walsum is his last project. At the end of the year, he will retire, although not necessarily in full. “I’m not going to let some-one like that leave right in the middle of the project,” says Weiß. Haak will then be on call in a consulting capacity.

Walking around the site, it quickly be-comes clear that Haak knows the status of progress on each individual job. What’s his relationship like with the workers? “Good, but they’re not really my responsibility. The person I deal with is the civil engineer re-sponsible.” What does it mean having to su-pervise that person’s work? “We know and

respect each other on a professional level, and that’s exactly how we treat each other. If there’s a difference of opinion on the quality of the work, we just take a look at the con-tract.” Are there any conflicts? “Not at all.” But are things really always so harmonious on a building site like this one? “In my whole career, I’ve only exploded once, and that was because the same mistake kept being made over and over again. That’s when I lost it and really tore into the duty engineer in front of his team. But I apologized later, and after that we got along just fine.”

We climb the seven meters up to the future turbine house. Here the workers are assem-bling a tight lattice of steel rods, where con-crete will later be poured to form the in-termediate ceiling beneath the floor of the turbine house. From this vantage point, there’s a fine view across the site.

The vista is dominated by the gigantic cooling tower, which has already reached 65 meters in height. When completed, it will soar to 181 meters, with an outer shell 23 centimeters thick. Every day the tower grows by 1.20 meters, though not today. That’s right: the wind is too strong. “They can’t hold the concrete chute still enough up there,” Weiß explains. Soon after, the eleva-tor fixed to the side of the tower — obligatory for working heights in excess of 20 meters — comes hurtling down to discharge a gang of workers. There’ll be no more progress there today either.

Five phasesBetween the cooling tower and the turbine house are the stair tower and the steel skel-eton of the future boiler house. Given that the boiler is to be freely suspended, the ac-tual construction process runs in reverse, with the ceiling being built first. The ceiling

Folio 3 | 2008

11C O V E R S T O R Y

being carried out on an ambitious schedule of 39 months. Walsum 10 is due to come on stream in 2010


“Taking on our responsibility for climate protection”Dr. Alfred Tacke

is attached to steel cables at the moment but cannot yet be maneuvered into position be-cause of the wind. This takes 14 to 15 hours, so there’s no point in waiting until the wind dies down for just a little while.

The erection of the first boiler support marks the start of the steelwork, so it’s al-ways a milestone when a power plant is built. Construction of a power plant is split into five phases. First the earth is excavated and the foundations are poured. In Walsum, this involved driving piles 15 meters into the ground for the requisite stability. Next is the erection of the first boiler support, which means the foundations are finished and steel construction can begin. The third phase in-volves installation of the various compo-nents of the power plant itself. Fourth in line are the electricians, who install all the elec-trical equipment and the instrumentation and control technology. And then commis-sioning can begin, which means starting up the various systems and machinery and test-ing all the circuits and processes. The com-missioning phase ends with a trial run, when the power plant is tested to see if it meets all the specifications in the contract.

The end of this year will mark another important milestone: the so-called backfeed.

Before a power plant can generate electric-ity, the various pieces of equipment need im-mense quantities of power themselves. “We can’t use the normal power supply on the construction site for that. We have to con-nect to the 380-kilovolt network,” Weiß ex-plains. Once this has been done, the equip-ment can be tested.

With the start of commercial operation, Evonik will assume responsibility for the power plant. This means Rainer Borgmann, the power plant’s director, and his team will take control of the new generating unit and take the old one offline. The new unit has a greater efficiency than the old one — as well as being five percent more efficient than any other modern hard coal-fired power plant — so it needs less coal to produce the same amount of electricity, which also reduces pollutant emissions. “That’s a result of using modern materials,” Weiß explains. “They make it possible to use higher steam temper-atures and higher pressures, although they are more difficult to process.”

The site tour also gives an idea of how the finished power plant will function. Next to the turbine house is the boiler house, be-hind that the flue-gas denitrification plant, then the electrostatic precipitator and, next

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Folio 3 | 2008

In the cooling tower: Despite being only a

third of its final height, there’s already a no-

ticeable upward draft


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to it, the flue-gas desulfurization plant. Once they have been cleaned in this way, the flue gases can be expelled directly via the cool-ing tower, and that eliminates the need for a separate chimney stack.

“Right on time”No wonder, then, that German Environ-ment Minister Sigmar Gabriel praised the new power plant at the cornerstone cere-mony: “This investment in high efficiency and lower CO2 emissions comes at just the right time. It’s the kind of technology that can help protect the environment.” And as Dr. Alfred Tacke, member of the Evonik Man-agement Board, stresses: “By building Wal-sum 10, we’re taking on not only the compe-tition but also our responsibility for ensuring power supplies and climate protection.”

Once inside the cooling tower, it’s pos-sible to see how this will work. While it still looks for all the world like a gigantic wall-of-death attraction at an amusement park, there’s already a noticeable upward draft, de-spite the fact that the tower has only reached a third of its final height. Anyone working up there needs a good head for heights.

Back in Weiß’ warm container office, he recounts how he came to join the company —

then still Steag — in 1994. “There was an ad in the paper for a secretary’s job, but I rang Essen anyway and found out they were look-ing for engineers as well.” Weiß applied and was hired. After assignments in a variety of locations, including Nigeria, in 2001 he went to Colombia for four years, where he was di-rector of the Termopaipa power plant and got to know the operational side of the busi-ness as well.

Now his job is to ensure that the con-struction project progresses organically and to preempt any dangerous develop-ments. “That’s why we think as much as six months to two years ahead — and use com-plex computer programs for the purpose,” he explains. There was the small problem, for example, of how to lay a clean-gas pipeline, eight meters in diameter, to the power plant. “You can’t ship in something that size via the Rhine, and it’s too big for a low-loader,” says Weiß. The answer was to fabricate directly onsite, where a hall has been specially built for this purpose. All in all, there are 100,000 square meters of additional space available for such preassembly work.

At present, 370 workers are onsite, dwarfed by nine cranes. When all the trades are working together, though, this grows to

around 1,500. By comparison, the Evonik staff is tiny, with a mere 19 people on the core team. Weiß is site manager, and Holger Larisch, based in Essen, is project manager. Larisch also has worked on the power plants in Iskenderun and Termopaipa, but Wal-sum 10 is a challenge of a different order: “Those power plants abroad were designed for a steam temperature of 540 degrees Cel-sius, but here we’re going to be operating at 620 degrees. That’s a major step. We’re set-ting new standards for hard coal-fired power plants. And I’m really delighted that we’re doing it right here in Germany!”

As he says, an additional 80 degrees Cel-sius is more than an incremental improve-ment. “It means we’re really breaking new ground as far as the materials are concerned.” And that makes it all the more crucial to stay on schedule. But even the best coordination between Weiß, Larisch, and the Hitachi en-gineers can come to naught, if the weather doesn’t cooperate. Like now, for example.

Another five days will pass before they can start lifting the ceiling into position. And even then, they will have to interrupt work when the wind picks up. Only on the sixth day is the ceiling finally in position — and the alarm bells start to fade. CP

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Folio 3 | 2008

Concrete is poured over a lattice of steel rods to form the ceiling to the turbine house


Taking a closer look: Marcus Stephan, an electronics technician at the test stand at Evonik RohMax in Darmstadt, inspects the camshaft of a test engine

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• RohMax is founded in 1996 as a 50:50 joint venture between Röhm GmbH & Co. KG of Darmstadt, Germany, and Rohm & Haas of Philadelphia, Pa., US.• In 1998, Röhm takes full ownership of the joint venture. This makes it necessary to com-pletely separate the administration and re-search of RohMax and Rohm & Haas; Hor-sham, north of Philadelphia, becomes the new RohMax US location.• RohMax purchases the former Albright and Wilson company’s additives business from the French company Rhodia in 2001.• 2005 sees the opening of the new Technol-ogy Center in Shanghai.• In 2007 work starts on construction of a new production facility in Singapore. The new plant is to come on stream in May 2008.• Also in 2007, RohMax is presented with the “2007 Environmental Innovation Award” of the chemical industry information service ICIS and the Evonik Innovation Prize.

THE FACTS

Keeping the World in Motion” is the motto of Evonik RohMax Additives GmbH. Since it was founded 12 years

ago, the company has established itself as a specialist in oil additives technology — and it also recently won the 2007 Evonik Inno-vation Prize.

But what exactly are oil additives? Well, back in the 1950s, there was a boom in au-tomobile traffic, and especially in industri-alized countries. Vehicle engines became more and more powerful, and the demands that were placed on engine oils increased correspondingly — to the point where the performance that was required could be guaranteed only by using oil additives.

In 1954, Röhm&Haas GmbH — Evonik Röhm GmbH’s predecessor — launched a polyalkylmethacrylate on the market as an oil additive. The product was called VISCO-PLEX. The introduction of VISCOPLEX si-multaneously marked the birth of mod-ern multigrade oil, which can be used for driving throughout the year. The oil re-mains sufficiently thin to rapidly cover all areas of an engine when it is started, while also remaining viscous enough to maintain the vital unbroken lubricating film even when the engine is at high temperature.

Growing togetherDuring the following decades, the research-ers developed increasingly improved addi-tives — not only for engines and transmis-sions, but also for hydraulic fluids and other lubricating oils. But Röhm & Haas in Ger-many weren’t the only ones working to de-velop oil additives based on polyalkylmeth-acrylates. Rohm and Haas in Philadelphia was also active in the field. “It had already launched polyalkylmethacrylate products on the market under the name Acroloyd in 1943.” The companies had nearly identical names — and a common ancestry: the Amer-ican company, originally a subsidiary of the German firm, had become independent in 1917.

In 1996 they were reunited. The German company, now known as Röhm, and the U.S. company Rohm and Haas merged their addi-tives businesses and founded RohMax Addi-tives GmbH. Dr. Rüdiger Jelitte, an original RohMax employee and today’s head of De-velopment & Business Services, remembers: “Both companies had very well-developed ad-ditives businesses, but with different special-ties. Rohm and Haas were focused on develop-ment of flow point improvers, which prevent oil from becoming too viscous when cold, while Röhm had concentrated on developing additives for transmission oils and hydraulic oils. Both partners were in agreement, how-ever, that together they could provide much improved service for the global market in oil additives.”

Growth areaRohMax commenced operations with 350 employees, evenly split between the two partners. The two different cultures had to get used to each other, so the start phase wasn’t perfectly smooth from the outset. Jelitte remembers: “At that time, Rohm and Haas was a well-respected employer, while RohMax was a completely unknown new-comer. That didn’t make it easy, especially for the U.S.-based employees. We have invested a great deal in building up our own RohMax culture over time.”

Two years later, in 1998, came the big step forward. Röhm took over all the shares in the joint venture. Dr. Dirk Reese, Man-aging Director of RohMax explains why: “There were differing visions of how the additives business should develop. Röhm saw it as an obvious growth industry; the Americans had a different opinion. In such a case, it’s sensible to quickly establish who’s in charge.” And the Rohm and Haas employ-ees in the joint venture? “They came flood-ing over into the Röhm camp,” remembers Jelitte with a smile.

The fact that the joint venture had been a great success from the word ‘go’ made it even

Keeping the world in motionEvonik RohMax never needed to become an international company — the manufacturer of oil additives was international from the word “go.” As a German-American joint venture, RohMax was born bilingual. And in its 12 years of existence, it has learned many more new, specialist languages

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Management with a test vehicle: Dr. Rüdiger Jelitte, Dr. Dirk Reese, Waldemar Bartoschik, and Dr. Jean-Luc Herbeaux (from left)

Efficient: Maximum Efficiency Hydraulic Fluid improves the viscosity of hydraulic oils

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easier,” said Reese. Sales volume, revenues, and profit had been increasing almost every year, and RohMax was growing faster than the market as a whole. “We were always an innovative company,” explains Reese. “Re-search and applications technology are our largest area after production. We were al-ready present as a uniform brand with VIS-COPLEX, long before this was usual in the sector. We structured our product manage-ment according to segment very early on, so that we could be competent contact partners for specialist markets such as hydraulics, and manual and automatic transmissions.”

New location in SingaporeInnovation is one of the four success factors that have been defined by RohMax manage-ment. The other three are international pres-ence, cost leadership, and service orienta-tion. “Since our company was founded, our management has had a strong international component on all levels, which will now be emphasized even more thanks to our new lo-cation in Singapore,” says Reese. Singapore is an important step — the establishment of an in-house production facility with associ-ated research center in Asia. “Its central lo-cation is ideal — from here we can supply the growth centers of Japan, China, and Korea.” The plant on Jurong Island is scheduled to go into operation in the second quarter of this year. “Then,” says Reese, “we will be present with production, research, and development in all of the major economic regions that are relevant to us.” Until now, RohMax has car-ried out production and research at Darm-stadt-Weiterstadt, in Germany, Lauterbourg in France, Horsham and Houston, Texas, U.S., and Morrisburg in Canada.

Eastern Europe is another important growth market. Jelitte explains why: “Indi-vidual mobility is growing at an enormous rate, especially in Russia, where the auto-motive market is expanding at an extraor-dinary 20 percent. The big automakers are building plants there, which means local in-

dustry needs quality materials, including lu-bricants.” “Our customers drive us into the markets,” adds Waldemar Bartoschik, head of Customer Relations Management. “When technical demands on lubricants increase, we come onto the field. We advise almost all the large petroleum companies via a key ac-count management team, and we sit down with them and the automakers in joint devel-opment teams. Together, we discuss the tasks and work out solutions.” An equal partner — that’s the role RohMax intends to play, “and to get there it helps to be part of a large com-pany like Evonik,” Reese admits freely.

A global company needs global manage-ment. At RohMax, two Americans — Robert Woodruff and Gregory Bialy — are respon-sible for the areas of innovation and produc-tion respectively. Dr. Jean-Luc Herbeaux, who is responsible for strategic marketing, is representative of the global RohMax cul-ture. Born in Meaux, France, where the fa-mous Brie cheese is made, Herbeaux left his homeland at the age of 21, was awarded his doctorate in the U.S., lived and worked in Ja-pan for a considerable time, is married to an American woman, and joined RohMax in 2000. After a number of years in Southeast Asia, his current office is in Darmstadt. Her-beaux has not had a base in France for a long time — as he says, he’s at home wherever he is currently living.

Speaking many languagesWhat does the motto “Keeping the world in motion” mean for the marketing profession-als? “We’re represented on all markets,” em-phasizes Herbeaux. “We might not be as big as some of the oil industry’s other suppliers, and we don’t supply huge quantities, but we do deliver a key technology.” In the process, RohMax must always achieve a balance be-tween high technology and cost effective-ness, and it’s a point that sometimes swings in one direction and sometimes in the other. “The Japanese market is very high-technol-ogy oriented,” Herbeaux says, “so it’s often

the platform for new technologies. In the United States, the topic of cost effectiveness plays an important role.”

That’s why RohMax marketing and sales employees need to be fluent in many lan-guages. Their “native tongue” is the language of chemistry. Then there’s the language spo-ken by the direct customers, the oil formula-tors and the petroleum companies. And the language of the equipment manufacturers — the so-called OEMs — plus English and Ger-man, of course. They also need a comprehen-sive range of knowledge if their customers are going to take them seriously. They have to be able to enumerate economic advantages with absolute clarity, because the OEMs, the auto-makers at the end of the supply chain, are ex-tremely cost-conscious.

They talk at trade fairs and conferences, and in seminar and customer meetings, where direct, face-to-face contact plays a decisive role. After all, trust is the lifeblood of the de-velopment partnerships that RohMax has en-tered into with most of its large customers. “And trust,” Herbeaux says, “can only be built up over years of personal relationships.”

Things have been steadily improving for RohMax over the past 12 years. But how can further growth be achieved? It’s an impor-tant question for the company because the pioneer in the development of multigrade hydraulic fluids can only boost growth to a limited extent. The restricting factor is the growth rate of the market for hydraulic fluids as a whole, which is itself limited. Herbeaux explains: “Our organic growth is at around 1.5 percent; we are achieving above-aver-age growth in projects in new business ar-eas such as biodiesel or oilfields.” To put it another way: It’s necessary to demonstrate to the users of hydraulic fluids that multigrade hydraulic fluids can offer advantages that re-main untapped for the time being.

Growth can also come from new prod-ucts or the conquest of new markets. Along-side the OEMs and the petroleum companies, RohMax is currently taking a good look at

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“With Singapore, we will be present in all major economic regions”Dr. Dirk Reese, Managing Director of Evonik RohMax Additives GmbH

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The names VISCOPLEX® and DynaVis® are protected brands of Evonik Industries AG or its subsidiaries

mine operators. “They could well offer a new area for us,” says Dr. Bernhard Will of Cus-tomer Relations Management. Very promis-ing discussions are currently under way, and Will is hoping to see concrete results in the course of the year.

Reese adds: “Intelligent solutions can also help to come out on top in the additive mar-ket, which is no longer growing as strongly as it used to.” Maximum Efficiency Hydraulic Fluid — MEHF — is one such solution. The rea-son is that the RohMax researchers had dem-onstrated that hydraulic fluids with RohMax additives can improve the performance of hydraulic systems by double-digit percent-ages — which represents significant amounts. This means the additive can ensure that the viscosity of a hydraulic fluid falls off less with increasing temperature, when excavating, for example. That boosts performance, and thereby also the effectiveness of the hydrau-lic force transfer. The additives from RohMax thus increase the productivity of the hydrau-lic system, reduce operating costs, and make it possible to achieve considerable fuel sav-ings (more than 10 percent) — as well as cor-respondingly lower CO2 emissions.

MEHF quality standardIt is on this basis that RohMax has developed the new quality standard MEHF. In the words of Michael Zink, Global Business Manager for hydraulic fluids: “This enables lubri-cant and machine manufacturers, and fleet operators, to profit from our results. Tak-ing into account our current results, we ex-pect this innovation will further increase our revenues from oil additives in the com-ing years.” The additive system is marketed under the brand name DynaVis — as a pro-tected brand solution for manufacturers of hydraulic fluids who would like to de-velop MEHF products. RohMax never stops working to keep the world in motion. CHE

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New location in 3D: A depiction of what the Singapore production facility will look like when it comes on stream in May of this year

Visit from the Far East: During a three-week visit to Darmstadt and Lauterbourg, employees of the new plant currently under construction in Singapore were trained in SAP and learned the production processes that will be carried out at the new location. Cheng Heng Ng, Joo Fai Lo, Johnny Loke, Wei Choong Cheng, Jaclyn Moh, Senthil Kumar, Alice Lee, Daniel Hong, Sahrif Rahman, Desmond Lim, and Dr. Dennis Thong (from left) listen to Roland Schweder of Technical Service Europe (at far right)

Folio 3 | 2008


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Folio 3 | 2008

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When it comes to quality, some car-makers are prepared to go the extra mile. And when it comes to

supplying quality carmakers, there are com-panies that are prepared to travel around the world — or, to be more precise, to Toyota Mo-tor Corporation, headquartered in Toyota, a city of 400,000 on Honshu, the largest of Ja-pan’s four main islands. That’s right: to Toy-ota in Toyota.

But let’s begin at the beginning. Evonik Industries’ Automotive Industry Team (AIT), including experts from five different busi-ness units, had jetted in to show the giant car-maker what the very latest chemicals can do for the automotive industry. The idea behind such Customer Days is to provide custom-ers like Toyota with a personal showcase of all the latest Evonik innovations in the fields of fuel economy, lightweight construction, surface technology, and lighting technol-ogy. Last year, the concept was already en-thusiastically adopted by other big automo-bile names, including Chrysler, Daimler, and

Big in JapanEvonik was recently in Japan to win over Toyota Motor Corporation managers. “And we certainly succeeded,” reports Klaus Hedrich, head of the Automotive Industry team, after exclusive Customer Days at the headquarters of the auto industry giant

Lotus. Klaus Hedrich, head of AIT, says the aim of such events is “to connect with the customer in order to develop common solu-tions, applications, and products — naturally, with the intention of realizing growth in our own business.” Such Customer Days have al-ready proved to be very successful, with last year’s events having spawned a number of joint development projects in the fields of lithium ion batteries, lightweight body en-gineering, and plastic glazing.

Painstaking preparationsThe two Toyota Customer Days were jointly organized by AIT and its Japan regional team, led by Hitoshi Hamaguchi, with major assis-tance from Evonik Japan. The event involved painstaking preparations, launched a good four months previously, right after receiv-ing the green light from Toyota.

In the end, the Toyota managers were treated to a show featuring seven different materials for automotive production, a total of 55 exhibits, including ROHACELL body

parts, 38 themed posters, and eight presen-tations, some in English, some in Japanese. Also on hand were Evonik experts in a broad spectrum of areas, who flew into town, along with 30 Japanese colleagues, to field whatever questions visitors at the Customer Days might throw at them. “One of the highlights was hav-ing the opportunity to make contact with peo-ple working in the different departments at Toyota,” confirms Hedrich. The Customer Days were attended by more than 400 repre-sentatives from Toyota and its suppliers.

Ulrich Sieler, head of Evonik Japan, also used the occasion to meet with Toyota man-agers and to underscore his company’s long experience: “Our professional automotive solutions and Toyota’s quality manufactur-ing — it’s simply a great match.” In fact, Toy-ota is already an Evonik customer. And hope-fully the two companies’ ties will be even stronger following AIT’s visit to Japan. MH

The name ROHACELL® is a registered trademark of Evonik Industries AG or its subsidiaries and is written in capitals in the text.

In the automotive industry, Toyota is considered the world’s best manufacturer

— with regard to both quality and the company’s vehicle concepts. The Auto-

motive Industry Team (AIT) from Evonik Industries seized the opportunity to

showcase its expertise at exclusive Customer Days attended by 400 industry experts

C U S T O M E R D A Y S


Five entrants with the right answers will receive iPods

You could win: In every issue of Folio we will be drawing the winners of five Apple iPod nanos with 4 GB of storage capacity from the employees worldwide who send in the correct solution.

Congratulations! The solution to the quiz in Folio 1/2008 was TRAVABON. The winners will be published on “Evonik today.”

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The solution is the name of a dietary supplement:

The letters of the correct answers make up the solution. There are two ways to enter the competition: either by sending a postcard to Evonik Industries AG, Folio-Quiz, Postfach 10 32 62, 45117 Essen, Germany, or by e-mail (don’t for-get your postal address!) to [email protected]. The deadline is April 11, 2008. Participation is limited to employees of Evonik Group companies.

Rally puzzle Check out the following statements: true or false? The right answers will lead you from start to finish by way of eight letters. Read in order, they spell out the answer

DIn the Chinese calendar, 2008 is the Year of the Rat.

A I

RThe month’s last trading day is called the “exitus.”

Sydney is the capital of Australia.

The Walsum 10 power plant will be in the 750 megawatt category and feature an efficiency rating of 45 percent.

Levi Strauss is the inven-tor of jeans.

The sum of all an-gles in a square is 360 degrees.

True

False

The U.S. State of Wash-ington is named after George Washington, the first American president.

SOS is the abbre-viation for “Save Our Souls.”

Henkel honored the Consumer Specialties Business Unit in 2007 as best supplier in the Laundry and Homecare business sector.

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Now all you have to do is enter the letters of the answers into the boxes in order.

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The alcohol 2-propylhep-tanol (2-PH), a starting material for the production of plasticizers for PVC, is manufactured in Marl.

A water molecule consists of three hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom.

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Red Square in Moscow is named after the red fire-retardant paint on the Kremlin Wall.

Bacteria are mi-croscopic, single-cell organisms without a true cell nucleus.

One of the automaker Toyota’s production locations is in the Japanese city of the same name, with 15 million inhabitants.

From 2022, Evonik will build designer showers under the name “Purple Rain.”

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Evonik methacrylate performance monomers provided strong support in the reconstruction of the Dresden Frauenkirche.

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“Keeping the world in motion” is the slogan of Evonik RohMax Additives GmbH.

The official currency of Thailand is the Siam dollar.

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Folio 3 | 2008


Always on the runIn a single sentence, how would you describe your home town of Habitzheim to a colleague from a foreign location?It’s a small, tranquil village in the Vorderer Odenwald region that has a lot of good paths for running.

What will you always remember about your first day on the job?That was too long ago. But thinking back to my first day on my current job, I would have to say it was the friendly welcome back.

What advice would you give to a trainee on his or her first day at the company?Be flexible and willing to learn.

Which lesson in life have you been glad to learn?You can achieve a lot on your own, but it’s more fun in a team.

Which lesson would you rather not have had to learn?That you sometimes just have to accept the way some things are in life, because you can’t change them.

If you had €500 to spend as you like, what would you buy? A vacation with my wife and dog.

As a kid, who did you want to be like?The German soccer player Günter Netzer — but unfortunately, I don’t even have his hair.

You never leave for work without ...?… saying goodbye to my wife — and I have to have my BlackBerry.

Whenever you come home really tense, what’s the fastest way for you to relax?I go jogging — with or without my dog.

What do you like best about the people you meet on your business trips?I like the relaxed way Americans and Australians treat one another, the friendliness of the Asians, the reliability of Europeans, and the Africans’ love of life.

What is the last experience that left you speechless?When the real Paul Rusesabagina from the film Hotel Rwanda gave a presentation at an IMD seminar in Switzerland and talked about his role.

We all have our extravagances. What’s your weakness?I only wear ties with carrots on them. After all, my second name is Rübenkönig — which means “carrot king” in German.

MY NAME IS

Michael G. RübenkönigBUSINESS UNIT Performance Polymers, DarmstadtPOSITION Director Global Sales at Acrylic MonomersNATIONALITY German AGE 47 according to my passport, but I don’t feel that old… ;-)PLACE OF RESIDENCE HabitzheimMARITAL STATUS Married, with one adult son

… I never travel without my running shoes

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