29 March 2012
Idea Management in the K+S Group
K+S awarded for its “Best Idea Management 2012”
Idea management within the K+S Group is excellent. The leading service provider in the area of idea and innovation management, the Zentrum Ideenmanagement (ZI) (Centre for Idea Management), has awarded the “Best Idea Management 2012” prize for the category of companies with 7,500 to 15,000 employees working in the chemical and rubber industry to the K+S Group at its annual conference held in Cologne from 14 to 16 March 2012. “With these awards, we promote a vision of idea management that sees it as the driving force behind improvement in companies. We award companies with the best idea management for excellent service in this area,” said Christiane Kersting managing director of the Idea Management Centre of the German Institute for Ideas and Innovation Management in Frankfurt.
An independent jury of five scientists, applying five criteria (strategy and acceptance; targets and marketing; process, organisation and quality; recognition and appreciation; and key figures and reports), rated idea management at K+S as excellent. “You cannot take for granted how intensively employees and their direct superiors on the one hand and the top management level on the other work together in an integrated fashion,” said Dr Hans-Dieter Schat of the Fraunhofer Institute for System and Innovation Research, Karlsruhe, in his laudatory speech. Dr Schat also praised the sustainable system of premiums in-kind in the premium shop, as well as personal communication at K+S.
Ms Kersting, managing director of the ZI-Centre, delivered the award together with Dr Thomas Nöcker, head of HR at K+S and, since March 2012, president of ZI and patron of the project “Ideas build the future”, to Markus Bock. Mr Bock is the Head of Knowledge Management/Continuous Improvement Process (KVP) at the K+S Group. “I accept the award on behalf of all idea managers, employees and executives, who are committed to implementing idea management a small and large scale,” said Mr Bock in his acceptance speech.
“We are proud of this award, it is a clear signal to our employees that the path we have taken with Idea Management/KVP at K+S is the right path,” added Dr Nöcker.
In 2001, a Continuous Improvement Process was introduced within the K+S Group. Since then, employees of German sites have presented more than 100,000 improvement suggestions. Last year alone, there were just under 17,500 suggestions. With KVP, the K+S Group has now generated a profit of more than € 60 billion.
About K+S
The K+S Group is one of the world's leading suppliers of standard and speciality fertilisers. In the salt business, K+S is the world’s leading producer with sites in Europe as well as North and South America. K+S offers a comprehensive range of goods and services for agriculture, industry, and private consumers, which provides growth opportunities in virtually every sphere of daily life. The K+S Group employs more than 14,000 people. The K+S share – the only commodities stock on the German DAX index – is listed on all German stock exchanges (ISIN: DE000KSAG888, symbol: SDF). More information about K+S at www.k-plus-s.com.
