ANALYSIS
U.S. Electronics Producer
Makes Itself at Home in Macedonia
In the fall of 2012, Kemet Electronics Macedonia
marked the official opening of its new €15 million
film plant in Skopje’s Technological Industrial Development Zone, Bunardzik. The organization has spent
much of the last 1.5 years equipping and settling into
the facility, stabilizing its staff and processes as well
as obtaining all the necessary certifications required
by its many global clients. Emerging Macedonia met
recently with Kemet’s Senior Managing Director
for the Balkans, Guido Galleni to discuss the plant’s
progress thus far and its potential.
another area of the country. It’s taken some time for
us to solidify our operations, but we plan to begin developing concrete R&D projects with local universities in the near term.
EM: A key driver of your decision to invest in Macedonia must have been the relatively inexpensive
labor costs here. What has the recruiting, onboarding and training process been like thus far?
EM: Kemet’s Chief Executive Officer, Per Loof, said
that “this state-of-the-art manufacturing facility
marks a major milestone in the restructuring of
[the company’s] Film and Electrolytic business.”
Can you elaborate?
Galleni: We now employ over 240 total staff whose
average age is 33 years old. As is the case in all of our
plants around the world, Kemet has invested a great
deal of resources to recruit, onboard and train the
right people for our Macedonia plant. For example,
we’ve sent a number of key people to extended training courses in locations such as Italy, Germany and
Portugal.
Galleni: We really view the Macedonia plant as the
most important site for developing and producing
our products distributed throughout Europe. That’s
one of the main reasons we chose to build our plant
close to the country’s major universities, rather than
While formal education is important, experience is
also a major component of what makes a successful production professional. Given that many of our
employees are new to working in this type of operation, there is a relatively big learning curve. This
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Emerging Macedonia Spring 2014 Issue 41