The planner
Michael Weiß, Germany
Michael Weiß is the epitome of a silent employee. Even though the 63-year-old would have good reasons to show off: he is responsible for numerous innovations and further developments in the Train knitted fabric’s basic weave. His name will therefore always be connected with the 6th and 7th GenuTrain generations in particular. Most recently, he helped develop the knitted fabric of the ManuTrain 8. In September, Michael Weiß will retire. He will have worked for Bauerfeind for 41 years.
In 1981, Michael Weiß began as a mechanic at VEB Strickbandagen Zeulenroda, a Publicly Owned Enterprise producing knitted supports. He had to be trained completely from scratch. After all, as a trained heating engineer, configuring and repairing knitting equipment was new for him. But this career-changer looked to be talented. No surprise really, since he’s from a family of handymen with brothers who are plumbers and electricians. With the German reunification in 1990, the VEB became Franz Anton KG, and in 1991 Hans B. Bauerfeind took over. Michael Weiß continued to develop: he became a Knitting Equipment Mechanic for Bauerfeind in the Flat Knit Department, was awarded his trainer license by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in 1993, and became Flat Knit Team Leader in 1994.
In 1997, Michael Weiß joined the Development Department, which, at that time, was located in Hohe Straße in Zeulenroda. His very first task: to develop a knitting program so the GenuTrain’s seam can be closed on the side. No sooner said than done. When the BIC was opened in 1999 in Triebeser Straße, the Product Developer was already fully focused on supports. He dealt with the knitted fabric, with yarn, equipment, and its programming. His boss stretched and supported him, and sent him to advanced training in Switzerland where the knitting machine manufacturer was located. Michael Weiß also had to go to Leipzig and Nuremberg to train. But the man from Läwitz, a district of Zeulenroda, will never forget his visit to a major textile equipment exhibition in Paris in 1999. A business trip to France? That was so far away and unthinkable in the past, in 1981, when he was no longer able to install radiators because of back problems.
Michael Weiß, who, in 2005, came up with the high-low knitted fabric for the sixth GenuTrain generation that characterizes all the subsequent Bauerfeind supports, is sitting in the BIC at a computer. What looks like a nice and colorful screen saver to a novice is a knitting program. The computer is used to develop the way the equipment knits when changes are made to the product. “I know what the equipment and the knitting yarns can do. Then I program a new basic weave and adapt it to the anatomical shape,” Michael Weiß explains. Well, for anyone who has been doing it for as long as he has, it may sound easy – and the results are no coincidence either, according to Michael Weiß. “Development work has to be planned,” he says. Then he lists numerous items he has to check off when a new product needs to be developed. He doesn’t forget to mention his colleagues whom he will miss when he’s retired and only pursues his own plans. Michael Weiß would never grab the limelight, even after 41 years of successful work.