Interview: Almost 30 years of developments at Elektrosil

Martin Oppermann on development work at Elektrosil and how the company has changed over the last 30 years

Martin, you are ‘Product Manager Development’ at Elektrosil, what are your responsibilities?

I have always worked in the development department. In the past, in addition to pure development tasks, I also took over logistics and production planning for the developed products. Since our projects and the company have grown considerably, I focus only on development.

When customers come to us with existing product that has a problem, I focus on optimising existing solutions rather than just developing new products. I still enjoy this challenge.

How did you come to Elektrosil?

I used to work for a partner company of Elektrosil in Lübeck, which unfortunately had to file for bankruptcy. To ensure that our customers were not left in the lurch at the time, I started working for Elektrosil for six months to continue and complete the projects. When the first projects were finished, and further challenges arose, I decided to stay with Elektrosil. That was around 1996.

Martin Oppermann in his realm.

How has Elektrosil changed since then?

In the beginning, our office was near Volkspark Stadium, and we were a team of about eight people. We were already selling fans, cables, keyboards, and displays, but without any major production of our own. We sold the products that others had manufactured and for example customized cables and plugs for fans.

Then we moved to our current office in Altona and have been growing continuously. Today, we no longer just sell finished products but also develop, produce and customise solutions for our customers.

Our capacities have grown considerably, and we can now also take on series production. We have a global production and are now primarily active as a manufacturer.

Customers come to us with a problem or an idea and leave us with a tailor-made product.

Which projects do you enjoy the most?

At the moment, I really enjoy the smaller projects.

One particularly interesting project was developing a drive for electric water skis. I find such individual challenges very exciting.

Otherwise, we work a lot with fans, which is also varied and interesting.

Electrical tests of components, here a short-circuit test.