The bead is the connection | Newspaper article

The bead is the connection / Eric Waha

Reinvent yourself again and again. Always repositioning yourself. Finding niches. And be the best at it. For 170 years, this has been the aim of a company that can lay claim to the title of a traditional business. Sili in Warmensteinach is currently reorganising itself once again. With new products that no one else in the world makes in this form. Not only to safeguard the company. But also to prepare the company for a dream that Managing Director and shareholder Stefan Trassl has: That the sixth generation, his son Benedikt, is also keen to steer the family business into the future after him.

The exciting thing about Sili is that it is not just the name of the company founder – Sigmund Lindner – that has endured since 1854. It is the sphere that is the connecting element. And it is not only because of the ingenuity of its shape that it still provides the company with its strength today, but also because its potential is clearly far from exhausted. It all started relatively simply, says Stefan Trassl, who turned 60 this year, in an interview with our editorial team. In terms of craftsmanship. Which, by the way, has also been a staple since 1854. ‘It all started with Boddala,’ says Trassl and smiles. Sigmund Lindner, who came from the Lindner brewery in Fichtelberg, first bought into a glassworks in Warmensteinach, of which there were at least five in Warmensteinach at the time, and then opened his own in 1854. In today’s Oberwarmensteinacher Straße 38, where the company still has its headquarters.

In the late 19th century, Sigmund Lindner’s family apparently received more and more visits from Stefan Trassl’s great-great-grandfather. Alfons Trassl had taken a liking to Lindner’s daughter Marie, whom he married – ‘and took over the business in 1920. Still producing glass beads. And glass glitter is made from the waste from the production process, which produces glass dust. In principle, two products that are still with us today. Glitter, of course, has long been made from a different material.’ Until the middle of the 20th century, bead production was dominated by the spindle process in Warmensteinach near Sili, ‘or rather: at Lindner, as we are still called today’. The beads are threaded into necklaces by hand, which many Warmensteinach women do at home.

What is interesting is that Sigmund Lindner’s history shows that the company was very early to diversify – also in terms of craftsmanship, with its own brewery, which was operated alongside the glassworks and agriculture. ‘The brewery has existed since at least 1872,’ says Trassl, including of course at the current company headquarters. As time goes by, it is probably thanks to a woman that the company is still standing today: ‘In 1934, my grandfather Hans Trassl and his wife Gerda took over the company. Because Hans, who was in the First and Second World Wars, wasn’t in Warmensteinach for a long time and was otherwise very involved in winter sports and clubs such as the fire brigade or marksmen, Gerda ran the business: ‘Six children, farming, the company, the brewery – we really owe a lot to her,’ says Stefan Trassl.

Trassl’s father Heinz and his brother Arno joined the company in the 1960s – at the same time, competition also increased: glass beads from the Czech Republic, the Far East and India entered the market, jewellery production and the glitter business began to decline. And Heinz Trassl set a new course, ensuring that ‘solid glass beads became interesting for industrial applications. The reflective beads for Super 8 film screens or for road markings. Or as grinding beads for ball mills.’ The rotary tube process developed by ‘the inventor Heinz Trassl’ is still used today, in an optimised form of course. This step was ‘the decisive one for us, otherwise we would no longer exist today – like all the other glassworks’.

The products sell well in the new niche – and Sili exports to all European countries and even to South Africa, where they have representatives who ‘naturally came to us in Warmensteinach, where my mum cooked up Franconian and the good Trassl beer,’ says Stefan Trassl, who soon came into contact with the company. And he also developed a dream very early on: ‘I wanted to become a master brewer. That was clear.’ That’s why he studied brewing in Weihenstephan, followed by a degree in business administration – and then worked at a large industrial brewery in Munich. Until he gets a call from his aunt, one of the four partners: ‘Our sales manager has left, she said. Just come home.’ Munich?

Warmensteinach! Stefan Trassl started at Sili in 1990 – ‘instead of at the Trassl-Bräu. And I quickly realised: this is going to work.’

It works – because Stefan Trassl quickly recognises niches, such as the ball for the insulin carpule, which is used to mix the vital medication for diabetics. ‘We are the world market leader in this field,’ says Trassl. The company has faced up to the complex quality management process that is required for medical products, ‘I thought that could be an opportunity, we are building on that’.

The situation is similar for another product with which Sili is jumping in at the deep end: ceramic balls. ‘We had no idea about ceramics,’ says Trassl candidly. But the market demands the product for use in ball mills, ‘because ceramic is more wear-resistant and heavier. Otherwise we would have lost all our customers in the grinding sector. That’s why we acquired the expertise and started production after four or five years of development.’ And at the same time, in the early 2000s, Trassl-Bräu closed down – the buildings, such as the brewhouse, are now part of Sili. Exciting: ‘We didn’t have to lay off a single employee. We retrained all the brewers who wanted to become ceramists.’

However, Sili not only grows to around 120 employees at the traditional Warmensteinach site, but also internationally. A first joint venture was founded in the USA in 2001, followed by a second in China in 2005 and 2018 – this time for ceramic beads. ‘We are now the market leader there with this product, which is used for battery production, among other things.’ Sili is also the market leader in bio-glitter, ‘we are the only ones who can comply with the strict EU regulation’, which stipulates the biodegradation of glitter. According to Trassl, the Sili Group currently has around 275 employees worldwide and a turnover of around 50 million euros.

And, as Trassl says with a smile, ‘we feel comfortable in our niche, in which we always try to be the best’. Constantly reinventing ourselves, currently with developments in the ceramic 3D printing sector, is the bridge between tradition, innovation and craftsmanship. And is intended to pave the way for the sixth generation. With the bead as the link.