Welcome to Löhne, the “Global Kitchen Capital”, as it is described in black letters against the green background of the modern stele just a few metres behind the place-name sign that greets visitors. It is a rather grand name for a town with 40,000 inhabitants located in East Westphalia Lippe, in the northeast of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. As a matter of fact, this region accounted for 2.5 million euros – two-thirds – of the German kitchen furniture industry’s earnings in 2010. That makes East Westphalia Lippe the global kitchen universe’s most important location, home to giants like Nobilia, which churns out about 2,200 kitchens a day here. Another local firm is Poggenpohl, whose innovations over the past 120 years have constantly set new trends. The region is also home to sub-contractors like Danielmeyer, a medium-sized business dealing in worktops. The factories at company headquarters in Löhne and near Hameln produce 1,200 worktops per day. “When we switched from mouldings to worktops in 1990, we turned out 40 units a day,” says CEO Regina Danielmeyer. Today, her clients include a large Swedish furniture group as well as the regional kitchen manufacturers.
East Westphalia Lippe’s road to becoming Germany’s most important furniture hub is rooted in history, and two facts in particular: The proximity to both raw materials and important markets. The dense forests of East Westphalia and the Sauerland region provided sufficient timber during the period of industrialization and the railway between Cologne and Minden afforded access to the Ruhr District, which was experiencing a huge population explosion at the time. Today, highways 2 and 30 are the main traffic arteries serving East Westphalia’s furniture cluster. Most of the furnishings produced here are no longer earmarked for the domestic market but are sent all over the world. Poggenpohl, for example, exports 75% of its output and has sales offices in more than 70 countries worldwide. Production, however, is and will remain in East Westphalia. “The ‘Made in Germany’ seal is extremely important on the international stage. Our experience shows that clients abroad greatly value the quality,” says Thomas Oberle, head of public relations at Poggenpohl. As for Regina Danielmeyer, she values the short decision-making paths and direct personal relationships with key decision-makers in other companies. “The furniture cluster is of vital importance to us. Employees are well trained and most of our suppliers are located within a 50-kilometre radius,” Oberle says. Poggenpohl has its headquarters in Herford, the quasi-capital of Germany’s furniture industry. All the important associations have their offices here, not in Berlin.
Leo Lübke, CEO of Interlübke and COR, sits behind his massive black desk in Rheda-Wiedenbrück. His office is just a few hundred metres away from the production line for Interlübke products, so-called “box furniture”. That’s a term Lübke doesn’t really like. After all, the East Westphalian premium brand offers top-quality beds, dressers, shelving units, room dividers and wardrobes with distinctive designs and in all imaginable colours. Visitors to the company quickly learn that white does not just mean white. There is crystal white, snow white, off-white and pearly white. But before the finishing can be applied to the chip- or MDF boards, the latter first have to be cut down to size. That is the task of a giant green machine that saws the work pieces into size and later applies the necessary edges – a job that requires perfection down to the last millimetre. “If the transition from the board to the edge is not perfect, it will show all the more once the paint is applied,” says Harald Boffenmeyer, who regularly conducts guided tours of Interlübke’s factories. One station down, drilling specialist Peter Böhm is using a computerized driller to put holes into the boards. Böhm has almost 300 different drilling machines at his work station. There is, after all, a sheer endless combination of designs. The work does not show on the final piece, but he is proud of it nonetheless. “Customers pay good money for furniture bearing the Interlübke logo. They deserve good workmanship,” he says.
The first section of the factory smells of carpentry, small particles of wood dust have gathered in several spots. Just a few steps down, the wood-laden air becomes permeated with the smell of paint. This is where “crystal white” turns into M02, where workers spend time hunting even the last dust particle down with fine combs, section devices and air-pressurized blowers. Dust is their greatest enemy. The painters then apply several layers of base coats and colour. “Each single piece of dust impairs the end result,” Boffenmeyer says. To ensure that only top-quality varnished boards leave the factory, Helmut Döinghaus goes through up to 600 different worktops every day – touching, polishing and scrutinizing each one. He considers himself to be “finicky” or “extremely accurate”. “I am diligent in my inspection in order to maintain our standards,” the expert painter says.
To Leo Lübke, it is employees like Böhm and Döinghaus who make a real difference. Both are reliable and highly qualified, largely thanks to the training opportunities available in East Westphalia, including the carpentry college in Detmold, the wood engineering school in Beckum as well as other nearby colleges, including those in Paderborn and Bielefeld. “Another one of the furniture cluster’s advantages is the tight-knit network,” says Lübke, who values interactions with related businesses. He regularly attends meetings, including the ones organized by the trade association in Herford, to exchange views and experience. That is why he cannot imagine moving his plant elsewhere. But why doesn’t he use the company’s location in its advertising? “We do exactly that,” Leo Lübke says – but with the entire country. Ultimately, international clients still prefer the logo “Made in Germany” to “Made in East Westphalia Lippe”.///
