For the past 17 years, CADENAS in Croatia has gone by the motto: "We will master any task!"
One of the first CADENAS branch offices is located in Slavonski Brod, an important pillar to this day
The CADENAS Croatia branch is celebrating its 17th anniversary this year. Ladislav Antić opened a CADENAS representative office on 16 October 2000. Once Croatia joined the EU, the branch office was established as a limited company in 2013. The employees on site are mainly responsible for the 700 CAD product catalogs in the area of 3D modelling as well as the creation and implementation of high-quality engineering data.
Embracing opportunities and seeing potential
Alen Blechinger, Partner and CEO of the CADENAS branch office in Wolfsburg, Germany, is himself from Croatia and has maintained contacts there. Due to the Balkan conflict, thousands of engineers were without a job. CADENAS wanted to gain this untapped know-how, offered resident engineers a great opportunity and received much needed support. "We eventually decided for Croatia for various reasons: We have found the colleagues to be very reliable, the time zone is the same as Germany and the Internet standards are fine. In addition, many of the specialists on site speak German and English very well," Alen Blechinger explains.
If you ask the CEO Ladislav Antić about how the process was back then, he will tell you that it was anything but smooth. It took a while to complete the formalities of founding the company. Software knowledge had to be gained and in the beginning, there was a lack of space. Antić says that the first team started their work in a small room of 10 square meters in his own home until larger rooms could be found. A change in the previous working method was also necessary: "We had to switch from improvising to a highly-organized German corporate concept. Of course improvisation is still needed now and then – we are good at that," he adds with a wink.
In good hands with an international technological pioneer
Currently there are 130 employees at the CADENAS subsidiary in Slavonski Brod. Those employees have a positive attitude towards their work, which carries over into their projects. Ask the colleagues there and they will tell you, for example, how much they appreciate the modern technology as well as the opportunity to work together with world-renowned companies. The relationship among the colleagues is familial and appreciative.
The strength of the Croatian company lies in the continuous further training and over 10 years of experience of the employees. This enables them to implement projects quickly and flexibly. "Our rule of thumb is that we can master any task at hand," says Ladislav Antić. In the beginning, the main task was the implementation and creation of 3D CAD models, over the years the daily activities have been expanded to include software and quality checks, programming, support, consulting and development.
Popular with the young engineer in Slavonski Brod
Even local schools, colleges and universities in Slavonski Brod know CADENAS and its software solutions and use them actively in their training. Students in the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, for example, can choose Strategic Parts Management PARTsolutions as an elective subject. Students are required to have knowledge of PARTsolutions at the technical college for the course "3D Modelling via CAD Systems". Thus, the CADENAS subsidiary in Croatia obtains new specialists annually and can take on well-trained young talent.
Further information about CADENAS in schools: https://www.cadenas.de/news/en/reader/items/cadenas-becomes-a-school-subject
CADENAS in Augsburg wishes to thank the colleagues in Slavonski Brod and looks forward to continuing this wonderful collaboration!