In this year, the SaarGummi Group was among the winners and the only company who received the Daimler Supplier Award in the division Mercedes Benz Cars & Vans in the category “Quality”. SaarGummi has been especially recognized for ensuring a smooth start of production through the management of necessary industrializations in the material group “Seals”.

CEO Larry Johnson represented the SaarGummi Group during the award ceremony and was delighted when receiving the trophy from Dr. Gunnar Güthenke, Vice President Procurement & Supplier Quality Mercedes Benz Cars.

Daimler invited over 450 guests to this global annual event in which they express their appreciation for the good cooperation with their partners of the supply industry.

The highlight of the evening at the Mercedes Event Center in Sindelfingen was the celebration of ten recognized suppliers of the three Daimler divisions “Mercedes-Benz Cars”, “Daimler Trucks & Buses“ and “International Procurement Services“. The best suppliers are awarded in the categories quality, innovation, sustainability and inspiration.

Evaluation criteria include economic efficiency, delivery performance, sustainability and open communication.During the ceremony SaarGummi was recognized as a supplier of body-seals for Mercedes Benz Cars who is highly focused on customer requirements, with an excellent industrialization management at all production sites. The very flexible handling of adaptations to the body shell and doors as well as top quality delivery are key strengths of SaarGummi.

SaarGummi delivers the entire sealing package for the Mercedes-Benz A- and B-Class and this project is one of the most important international success stories within the SaarGummi Group. Challenges such as worldwide coordination of the project and the internationality of the involved teams were mastered through an excellent cooperation and open communication. The adherence to schedule and part quality was another essential success factor.

Larry Johnson: “The message is talking about collaboration. We just launched the A- and B- Class on a global basis in China, Europe and Mexico. What helped was the collaboration between SaarGummi and Daimler’s departments purchase, R&D, engineering, quality and most important the operations. We were able to make changes quickly and to assure that the quality that we supply is picture perfect”.

Five of the total 18 SaarGummi production sites on three continents were involved: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, China and Mexico.