Electrification at the world’s largest fire equipment supplier

Electrification has reached heavy vehicles: The Rosenbauer Group is building “Revolutionary Technology”.

The Upper Austrian Rosenbauer Group has been one of the world’s leading fire service suppliers for decades. Constant innovation is one of the secrets of the company’s success, which develops and produces vehicles, extinguishing technology, equipment and digital solutions for professional, company, works and voluntary fire brigades, as well as systems for preventive fire protection. Products from European, US and Asian production cover all important standards. With a turnover of 972.2 million euros, around 4,100 employees (as of 2022) and a sales and service network in about 120 countries, the group is the largest fire equipment supplier in the world. The listed family business is run by the sixth generation and has been serving fire services for more than 150 years. CEO Sebastian Wolf on the electrification of firefighting vehicles, future challenges and a massive cyberattack that affected the company in spring 2023.

The Rosenbauer company has been around for more than 150 years. What are the ‘main ingredients’ that have made Rosenbauer a successful international group?
Sebastian Wolf: Recognising trends at an early stage and transforming them into real products is clearly one of our strengths. For example, back in 2016, at our 150th anniversary celebrations, we presented the Concept Fire Truck, a fire truck with a fully electric drive. This evolved into the RT (Revolutionary Technology), which went into test operation with selected customers in 2020. Since May 2023, we have been producing the RT in series and are supplying customers in Europe, the US, Australia and Canada. At the ‘Interschutz’ trade fair in June 2022, we were the only manufacturer to present a complete, fully electric line-up of emergency vehicles for the municipal sector: In addition to our RT, municipal fire-fighting vehicles, turntable ladders and logistics vehicles on electric truck chassis, we also presented the first prototype of our airport fire-fighting vehicle, the Panther electric. Emergency vehicles with alternative drives will play an important role in the years to come because they make a valuable contribution to cities and municipalities achieving their climate targets.

You have production facilities in Europe, the US and Asia. Which of the locations is particularly important and why?
Wolf: The locations have been chosen so that we can operate close to the customer, keep delivery routes short and contribute to the value creation of the respective countries. By producing at different locations, we also cover the required standards. A vehicle for the European market is subject to completely different specifications than a vehicle that is put into service in America or Asia. In addition to production in Europe, North America – one of the largest single markets for fire fighting vehicles – is one of our most important sales regions; accordingly, we also pay great attention to the expansion of our dealer and service network.

Despite its international orientation, the head office is in Austria. What advantages does this location offer you?
Wolf: The headquarters in Leonding near Linz is our largest production site. Among other things, our highest-volume municipal vehicle, the AT (NB: Advanced Technology), the Panther, an airport fire-fighting vehicle and the fire-fighting components for the entire group are manufactured here. The majority of our product development is also based in Leonding. It is important for us to create as much value as possible in our own country. In addition, the domestic labour market also offers us the qualifications we need in our demanding business.

Your company was the target of a cyberattack at the end of February. What damage did that cause and what consequences will you draw from it?
Wolf: The question today is not whether you are attacked, but when. We were well prepared, and our IT team reacted quickly and took all servers offline as an immediate measure. After that, the team started a controlled recovery process. Within a very short time, around 300 servers and more than 3,000 notebooks were reset, and the IT systems were gradually brought back online with a focus on production and logistics. Nevertheless, production at the Leonding site was disrupted for about two weeks, while other sites such as America or Spain were able to continue production. We assume that the economic damage was in the low, single-digit million euros range. The damage assessment could not be completed for a long time and took many weeks. The attack clearly showed how important it is to have a well-established recovery process and to sensitise employees to the issue. As a consequence, we have significantly tightened our security precautions throughout the Group.

Cyberattacks are just one challenge in these turbulent times. How much are you affected by the rise in energy prices and supply chain problems – such as those caused by the war in Ukraine?
Wolf: Since our energy costs account for less than one percent of our turnover, we are hardly affected directly by the rise in energy prices. However, we are very strongly affected by energy price-induced inflation via the supply chain. For example, aluminium sheet, which is important for us, has become 37 percent more expensive in 2022 compared to 2021. Despite increasing rays of hope, the supply chains are still very fragile and react highly sensitively to the slightest change. Longer delivery times for many large components, especially for the important chassis, have become the ‘new normal’ for us and we are adjusting our processes to accommodate this.

Do you notice any problems in recruiting new skilled workers and what measures are you taking to have enough skilled staff available in the future?
Wolf: The shortage of skilled staff now affects all industries, and increasingly it is not just skilled workers who are lacking – there is a general shortage of labour. At Rosenbauer, training apprentices is therefore a very high priority. We train around 100 apprentices, and it is particularly pleasing that there are also more and more girls. In September 2022, for example, 32 new apprentices started their training at the Leonding and Neidling sites, and a quarter of them were young women. Through our initiative women@rosenbauer. com, we are also trying to specifically recruit women for Rosenbauer, because we want to increase the share of women in our workforce to 15 percent by 2025; it is currently around 13.5 percent across the Group.

Speaking of sustainability and circular economy – what steps is Rosenbauer currently taking to produce in a greener or more sustainable way?
Wolf: In 2022, as part of our long-term Group strategy ‘Rosenbauer City 2030’, we drew up a climate strategy based on the specifications of the ‘Science Based Targets’ initiative and submitted it for evaluation. For this purpose, a comprehensive greenhouse gas inventory was carried out for the first time and both direct and indirect CO2 emissions were determined. This showed us that as an “I would like to see politicians promote alternative drive systems equally in all areas.” Sebastian Wo l f The Rosenbauer site in Leonding with its own PV system assembler we only cause a very small part of the emissions attributable to us. The majority comes from indirect emissions through the use of our vehicles.
We have set ourselves the goal of reducing our direct emissions by 46.2 percent and our indirect emissions by 27.5 percent by 2030 compared to 2019. On the way to achieving this goal, we are focusing on our own programme for greater energy efficiency and on alternative vehicle drives, in addition to other measures.

What challenges does your company face in the coming months?
Wolf: Our customers are almost exclusively from the public sector. They are used to concluding fixed-price contracts through tenders. We have to convince our customers of indexed contracts and at the same time reduce our manufacturing costs to counteract inflation. This is hitting us particularly hard, as breached delivery times have led to longer lead times. After a difficult year in 2022, we have set ourselves the goal of achieving sales of over one billion euros in 2023 and a clearly positive result again with an EBIT margin of three percent. To achieve this, we already initiated a programme to reduce manufacturing costs and adjust our pricing policy in late summer 2022.

What measures would you like to see from politicians to make Austria more attractive as a business location? Or is it all bliss?
Wolf: What I would like to see from politics is that alternative drives are really promoted equally in all areas. Because we notice again and again that the special needs of the fire brigades are not adequately reflected in the funding guidelines. With adapted criteria, we could quickly create the basis for a shift in mobility towards electric vehicles. Our vehicles in particular are often in use for 20 years or more – which means, on the one hand, that they are very durable, and on the other hand, we would have to execute a technology change today in order to achieve the Paris climate goals in 2030.