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3 X 3 for Practical Social Responsibility


Text: Guido Klinker Photos: WolkeMedia

Hardly a day goes by without us being made speechless by the news coming from the world’s crisis regions. The most pressing issue is that of forced displacement. According to the UN refugee agency, more than 65 million people were forced to flee in 2015 and half of them were children. Alongside this, many people are thrown into distress situations by natural disasters such as earthquakes and hurricanes. A very important part of the aid in these regions is accommodation. This usually consists of tents, although these only provide limited shelter.

This situation lies heavy on the hearts of Pfleiderer’s CEO Michael Wolff and his fellow board members. They therefore commissioned trainees Inga Wiegand, Thomas Daschner and Johannes Ernst with finding a way that Pfleiderer can use its capabilities to help in this area. The team of three had the idea of creating an emergency accommodation construction kit that would bring about a long-lasting improvement to living conditions in the crisis zones. 

"The aim is to provide
non-profit organisations
with a certain quantity of
construction kits free of
charge.”

Thomas Daschner
In April last year, the three trainees got to work, full of enthusiasm and dedication. In the months that followed, they developed a workable solution. It quickly became evident to everyone involved that this was a significant challenge because the construction kit needed to fulfil several requirements. It needed to be weatherproof and easy for non-experts to put together quickly and without many tools. It needed to be an extensible, modular solution that could be deployed in various ways. It was also important that it was easy to package and transport, and it needed to be ecological and socially sustainable.

The team needed a clear plan in order to fulfil all of these requirements. Thomas Daschner: “We started off by working together with Mr Wolff to define the goals. We then considered which specialist areas, divisions and expertise we would require.” Once these aspects were decided, the team divided the work into three categories. One was marketing and communication with non-profit organisations such as the THW (German Federal Agency for Technical Relief). “First of all, we needed to know what was needed in these crisis zones. We didn’t want to come up with something that isn’t of any use in the areas of operation, or that can’t be transported to those areas,” says Thomas Daschner. The second category focused on the technical development. This was about planning the module in detail, considering the materials and joining elements. The third working area related to logistics and transportation. “Considering how we can package the modules in such a way that they can easily be transported on a lorry, ship or aeroplane,” explains Dascher.

Once the team had decided who was taking responsibility for which area, they each sought out the relevant competent expert partner within the company and then worked on developing their own respective working areas. Once a week, they met the three of them to update one another and decide about the next steps to take.

The material they decided on was MFP P5, a multi-functional panel that fulfils all of the technical requirements and also has an attractively low price. Thomas Daschner: “The aim is to provide non-profit organisations with a certain quantity of construction kits free of charge. The cheaper the material, the more kits we can provide.”

In October, the time had come. The team of trainees presented the construction kit to Michael Wolff, who had provided support throughout the project, and the whole of Pfleiderer’s management board. What they presented was a modular system that fits perfectly on a euro pallet. Ten of these construction kits, each weighing around a tonne, fit inside a container for transportation via ship or plane. Ten of them will fit on a lorry. Three people working together can put it together within three hours. It will then offer shelter for up to three years. The modular design makes it possible to build larger units such as health centres or dining spaces.

Whenever and wherever in the world the first construction kits are put together, the three dedicated young Pfleiderer employees want to be there and take a photo of the construction kit being put together as part of a humanitarian intervention. “Although we are sure that we’ve thought of everything, each acute emergency situation is different in some way,” says Thomas Daschner. “At some point, we would like to get involved directly and help out there and then.”
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