Fit for Fifty – Machine builder MBH gears up for the future with an agile organisational concept

Technology evolves – culture evolves

MBH Maschinenbau & Blechtechnik GmbH, a family business founded in 1977, has 230 employees and is an expert in mechanical engineering, sheet metal technology and sheet metal processing. In recent years, the company has invested in a large high-tech machine park in order to be able to realise individual parts, small, medium and large series even faster and more efficiently – and thus to provide customers with competitive advantages.

The technical demands and possibilities for MBH are constantly evolving. Faster and greater market demands, however, also determine the business and so in future an "even leaner management and responsibility culture is indispensable", is how the management gives direction to the future development of the MBH culture.

The corporate culture consultants from noventum consulting were to moderate this development and brought the concepts for a corresponding development workshop, which brought more than 20 executives to the table on the topic of corporate culture development.

Managers should inspire

Particularly on the wish list of the management was to enable the management circle to inspire all MBH employees across generations with personal responsibility and role model function in order to be able to develop the full performance potential. External moderation and the use of some agile methods were also intended to strengthen the cooperation culture already during the project work.

In the first step, noventum’s tried and tested Hercules method was implemented. The individual steps are

• Clarification of goals with the main persons responsible
• Carrying out an online corporate culture check
• Developing theses that envision a desirable future
• Entertaining reflection on the theses with the business game Eigenland®.
• Filling an action memory (backlog) to approximate the desired future
• Participatory ownership by leaders and multipliers for the most relevant actions
• Agile change management to check the progress of the measures introduced and to successively implement further measures.

Corporate culture is leadership culture

In a two-day workshop with managers and other multipliers in the company, the foundations were laid for further committed project work. Leadership development proved to be a special field of action. To this end, the desired topics were identified with 22 managers from production and administration and trained in team workshops. The training topics were collected and condensed in a participatory and systematic way using the noventum FK-E analysis tool. This mix of digital group tools and the trusting individual and small group exchange on site has greatly contributed to the leadership team growing further together and establishing common standards. The shear focus topics trained were:

• Change Management
• Communication I & II
• Decision-making
• Result and goal orientation
• Intergenerational cooperation

MBH’s preparations for the 2027 anniversary year in particular and the future of the company in general have gained direction and momentum thanks to the "Fit for Fifty" project. noventum Managing Director Uwe Rotermund, who was personally involved in the MBH project, is pleased: "I would like to thank Björn Hassink and Heike Hassink-Lah and their management team for embracing the agile way of working that is new to MBH and trusting us to test this path together."

Read the interview with Björn Hassink on how agility and participation are used to retain employees and attract new ones. The interview on the noventum info platform nc360°!