Sergiu Rosianu, Schaeffler Romania: “We need help from the authorities to succeed in keeping talented people in the country”

“Finding talent is a topic of interest to all of us and especially in the R&D community. R&D in Romania is developing because there were and there are skilled people. There are talented engineers, there are engineers with an innovative spirit. We have taken on this mission, and we are to further cultivate this engineering, creative, innovative spirit, respectively to develop talents.

75 percent of Schaeffler products worldwide are intended for the automotive sector, and 25 percent are industrial products.

In Brasov, the percentage is somehow the opposite. 75 percent of what we produce are industrial products, namely bearings, and 25 percent are automotive products.

And when I talk about industrial products, I mean heavy duty bearings. Four tons, diameters of four meters, which are delivered for various projects such as wind farms.

We have the same challenges on the software and technology side. The role of R&D is to come up with innovative solutions,” Sergiu Rosianu, R&D manager, Schaeffler Romania said at Automotive R&D Power Breakfast organized by Automotive Today.

“Schaeffler has 5,000 employees in Brasov. The R&D community consists of 200 engineers, and we have developed alongside production. We developed to improve the products we make in Brasov, and to ensure the know-how for the technologies we have.

To ensure our development in Brasov, we started with Professional Dual Education, which was the first project done in Romania: German vocational school Kronstadt. At the moment, we have two professional schools, which are grouped in one campus. There are more than 800 students, at the moment, of which 300 are trained by Schaeffler. We want these schools to continue to grow, to develop, so that we can ensure our qualified workforce.

We are looking to bring not only the basic technology skills that a manufacturing operator needs to have, but we are also looking to bring digital skills. And then, we have various programs, we use various technologies, with virtual reality. The students manage very easily at the moment, using these technologies, to learn the basics.

We have to adapt to the new generations, pay attention to their needs and, for this reason, we are always present in the dialogue with them. We are trying to convince them that R&D can be done in Romania, that engineering can be done at the highest level.

We need help from the authorities and the state to succeed in keeping talented people in the country. We have companies and projects as important and as interesting as they are in Western Europe.

The merger with Vitesco Technologies will transform Schaeffler into a stronger company, with 120,000 employees worldwide. In Romania we will have 8,000 employees: 5,000 from Schaeffler and 3,000 from Vitesco. This will allow us to become a leader in mobility technology, which is also our goal. We have challenges, but we are optimistic.”