In her first two months at Opel, she rarely saw her desk, says Maike Seeber. After starting as plant manager in September, she spent almost every day in a different department. The forty-two-year-old says she was particularly impressed by the workforce at a time that seemed “not so rosy” for the automotive industry when looking at the media: “The team is very open and has a lot of commitment and passion. There are great ideas and initiatives, people want to change something, they want to improve.” A lot has changed at the plant in the past few years; electric cars have also been rolling off the assembly line in Rüsselsheim since 2023, alternating with hybrids and pure combustion engines. “All employees can build whatever is next,” says Seeber. “They’re super flexible.” This means that Opel can easily respond to fluctuations in demand for electric cars. However, the Opel model that is manufactured in Rüsselsheim – the Astra – is not selling particularly well across all drive types this year. According to the Federal Motor Vehicle Authority, around 33,000 Astras were newly registered by the end of November, and more than 40,000 in the first eleven months of 2024. Although the Opel parent company Stellantis in Rüsselsheim also has a model from the French brand DS manufactured in addition to the Astra, the numbers here are generally low: around 25,000 DS vehicles were registered across Europe in the first ten months of this year, according to figures from the European manufacturers’ association ACEA. Next year will bring a new AstraSeeber hopes that the new Astra, which will come onto the market in 2026, will bring more orders to their factory. She herself received the new model – in the fully electric version – in mid-December. “Having your own Astra in production is great,” she says happily. Before moving to Opel, Seeber worked for a supplier, the US company Tenneco. She managed its factory in Edenkoben in Rhineland-Palatinate. Seeber, who grew up just a few kilometers away in the wine village of Sankt Martin, did an internship at Tenneco immediately after graduating from high school – and was then offered the opportunity to complete the practical part of a dual course of study at the factory. Seeber learned the theory of this at the business faculty at the University of Mannheim. After a trip to a medical device manufacturer, Seeber returned to the automotive industry in 2014, first working for the French supplier Forvia, then again at Tenneco from 2016 onwards. Exhaust systems are manufactured in the factory in Edenkoben, which she took over management in 2023. A look at production: Assembling an electric drive on the chassis Frank Röth When there were delivery problems with suppliers in her previous roles, she quickly had to look for solutions for her customers at the time – i.e. car manufacturers – Seeber remembers. Now that she is sitting on the other side of the table, she can “ask the right questions” in similar situations. Most problems, she adds, can be solved “before it really impacts production.” Especially since the industry has been tried and tested after the blockage of the Suez Canal or the corona pandemic with the problems in the procurement of semiconductor chips. Insourcing is intended to secure jobs. Adaptability is of course also required of the employees by the production of electric cars. This doesn’t change anything about the work in the press shop or the paint shop, says Seeber. But all employees who come into contact with drive batteries have undergone at least one training course. “If at some point we mainly produce electric vehicles, then we will of course need fewer components, for example no more exhaust systems or engine components,” she adds. In order to secure jobs – around 1,650 of the more than 7,650 Opel and Stellantis employees in Rüsselsheim are employed at the factory – the management is relying on “vertical integration”: some of the work that would previously have been carried out by external service providers is now carried out directly at Opel. An example of this is the Battery Shop, in which there is no battery cell production, but the final assembly of the high-voltage batteries for fully electric vehicles takes place. The Battery Shop in Rüsselsheim also supplies a Stellantis factory in Mulhouse, where Peugeot vehicles are manufactured. There is also a Battery Refurbishment Center at the Opel main plant, where defective batteries are repaired – even more jobs could be created here in the future.More on the topicSeeber says that maintaining industrial jobs is extremely important to her. “I am someone who is passionate about the topic of ‘made in Germany’. I also tell my team: If we do our job well and correctly, then we can ensure that jobs are retained in Germany, namely in the manufacturing sector.” She has known him her entire professional life. 20 years ago, the manager remembers, she was occasionally asked what she actually wanted as a woman in industrial production. That no longer happens today – but the proportion of women in the Opel plant in Rüsselsheim is only five percent. Seeber particularly singles out one of the few female colleagues because her work is one of the innovations that impressed her when she moved to Opel: The young woman “fancied” her way into working with the 3D printer and can use it to produce handles for left-handers in a very short time, for example, if something like that is needed in production. “In the past you would have made a sketch for a supplier, now your colleague simply makes a sketch, goes to her 3D printer, programs it – and the beer is peeled, as we say in the Palatinate.” Seeber has remained loyal to her home region; although she spends two nights a week in Rüsselsheim, her main residence is Sankt Martin.
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