… we are a close-knit and tolerant team. My name is Mustafa Iljazi, and I have been with Rotodur since 2006. I always say: “If you leave, it’s your own loss.” My job involves the manual and automated pressing of the powder mixture – the very first step in our production process. If something isn’t right at this stage, there’s no point in continuing. My training as a metalworker comes in useful, especially when it comes to measuring and ensuring the high level of precision that is essential for our components. However, I first had to get used to the significant differences between carbide and other metals. One of our guiding principles is: good things take time. When you work under too much time pressure, things usually go wrong.
I still remember my first – and last – “mishap”: I had just finished pressing a component and opened the side clamping columns, but without realizing it, I hadn’t opened one of them far enough. As the 80-ton press moved down, it caught on the column and sent the support underneath it flying with a loud bang.
I only found it again a few days later – behind a surface-mounted cable conduit!”