VDMA to be led by Paus

Franz-Josef Paus has been elected chairman of the VDMA, the German trade association for construction equipment and building material machinery, for the next three years.

Paus, who is executive director of Hermann Paus Maschinenfabrik in Emsbüren, Germany, has been a member of the association’s board since 2002.

He told the VDMA general assembly in Düsseldorf that he would continue to promote joint research, as he deemed it to be of particular importance when it came to implementing Industry 4.0 (the fourth industrial revolution) concepts on building sites. This would, therefore, support the innovation potential of the individual member companies and the entire sector.

Paus said that digitalisation would have far-reaching effects on the construction and building material machinery industry in the decades to come. “We are facing enormous challenges,” he said.

The VDMA feels that as an industry, many of these can only be mastered at a European level and in collaboration with the construction associations. The idea is to co-ordinate the subject of digitalisation, to bundle forces and to take the correct steps, it said.

Other subjects discussed at the VDMA general assembly included energy transition, which it said was having a particular impact on the framework conditions for the production of cement, glass and ceramics. The association said it had to play a creative role in this regard.

Emissions legislation and exhaust gas reduction remained important topics for the construction equipment industry, it said, adding that it was important to build on what had been previously achieved. The aim is to persevere with public relations and lobbying work, the association said.

It was also important to Franz-Josef Paus “to represent the interests of small, family-owned companies, so that the freedom to innovate will not be lost as a result of ever increasing regulation”.

Paus will succeed Johann Sailer, executive director of GEDA-Dechentreiter in Asbach-Bäumenheim, who did not stand for re-election after six years as chairman of the VDMA board.

As their term had ended, the entire board of the association was newly elected at the meeting in Düsseldorf. The new deputy chairs will be Joachim Strobel, sales director of Liebherr EMtec in Kirchdorf, for the construction equipment group, and Herrmann Weckenmann, executive director of Weckenmann Anlagentechnik in Dormettingen, for the building material plants group.

Paus will represent 330 companies in the construction, building material, glass and ceramics machinery industry, most of them medium-sized, which form the VDMA. The sector had a turnover of €13.9 billion in 2016.