Looks like it’s bye-bye Bblingen, so long Sindelfingen, no more Mainz: yesterday’s Der Spiegel magazine quoted IBM Deutschland GmbH chairman Olaf Henkel saying that IBM’s German plans are a millstone around the company’s neck and that it would make more sense to transfer production abroad and operate in Germany only as a marketing company. Major complaint is the short working hours, restrictions on weekend working and high taxes. The magazine identified the plants in Sindelfingen, Berlin, Bblingen and Mainz as candidates for scaling back. IBM makes big disks at Mainz, mainframe chips at Sindelfingen, circuit boards at Bblingen and financial terminals in Berlin and despite the chairman’s outburst, it seems unlikely that IBM is yet ready to alter its traditional policy of manufacturing in all countries where it is a major player and trying to get as near as possible net neutral in terms of imports and exports in each. IBM said only that the chairman was quoted out of context but acknowledged that employment at the plants had been reduced over the past two years. Any move by IBM to manufacture only in the cheapest European countries would likely benefit the UK disproportionately.
