Three questions for Rainer Rindfleisch, managing director Kern GmbH

What do you think is the biggest challenge for customers?

First of all, the good news: the volume of envelopes in Germany remains constant at a high level. However, there are shifts between regular communication and marketing and advertising mailings. While the volume of document mailings is falling slightly, the volume of direct mail is increasing. We see ever smaller job sizes as the biggest challenge for our customers, which leads to frequent job changes on the systems. This is where we score particularly highly with our two multi-format systems with simple and fast job changes. With the Kern 3200, this can even be done fully automatically without an operator having to make a physical change.

The Kern systems are particularly successful because...

we always manage to combine functionality and design. We have always worked with an external design agency. Their employees simply know what makes us, the operators and our service technicians tick. Design and technical feasibility are feasible - just take a look at the systems in detail. The overall package is just right.
But something decisive has also happened "inside the system": all systems have a cross-system platform strategy. This means that each individual module has been and is being developed across all products. A good example of this is a newly developed stitching module for our major customer Atruvia AG in Karlsruhe. With the ability to process group stitching of up to 80 sheets, this IT service provider is fulfilling an often-cherished wish of its existing customers and opening the door to new customer groups.

In your opinion, what are the strengths of the Kern Service?

The first machine is sold by Sales, the second by Service. That has always been the case and will remain so. With 65 service technicians and product specialists for second-level support, we are so well positioned that we can guarantee response times of less than 4 hours in some metropolitan areas, even if the customer does not have a service contract. Our customers have recently been given the opportunity to submit their own support request around the clock via a ticket system. The service technician can then accept and process the ticket via the mobile application, for example. Once the ticket has been successfully completed, he reports it back. The customer is informed of the successful completion and the ticket is subsequently closed. It's really simple.

Rainer Rindfleisch started his career in 1992 as a product manager and was appointed to the management of Kern GmbH two years later. On 1 January 2023, he took over as Head of Marketing for the Kern Group and is responsible for global activities. He is also a founding member and board member of DOXNET e.V. - the trade association for document professionals. In his spare time, he is active as a joint tenant in a hunting ground near Bensheim.