Development is ongoing at Hungary’s leading safe manufacturer, Strauss Metal Ltd., which, over the course of its 35 years in business, has introduced more than 600 proprietary product types to the market under the Strauss Metal brand. According to owner and CEO János Strausz, professional, technical, and economic development are essential to the company’s stability.
“The demands of the economy require that we shift as much as possible toward the production of high-volume products, which is clearly achievable through mechanization and automation. Today, we work with machines capable of performing two bends per minute; our goal is to acquire machines capable of performing 72 bends in the same amount of time.” However, it is not enough to strengthen just one phase of production; at the same time, we must strengthen all supporting processes—they must develop in tandem. Some capacity can be increased by hiring more staff, while other aspects can only be expanded through investment and automation. As a result of automation, we would be able to produce 24 hours a day.
– Is mass production—large-volume manufacturing—what the market expects?
– For long-term contracts, we definitely need to establish large-volume production; we currently focus primarily on small-batch production. Thirty-five years ago, I set the goal for us to supply the country with specialized, high-quality security technology products. We’ve stuck to that. But we’ve realized that this requires a large inventory, making it harder for us to respond flexibly to demand. We’ve also expanded into foreign markets, where there’s an opportunity to sell larger quantities.
– The world is changing rapidly and in many ways; how can we adapt to expectations in the field of security technology?
– New information reaches us through conversations and business relationships, but we also constantly browse various trade journals and websites to stay up to date. We experienced the biggest change during the 2008 global economic crisis; that’s when new machines were introduced. Hacking—even ethical hacking—is a profession in its own right; Hungarians travel to Germany to study it, because whatever is locked must be unlocked. That’s when you can see what kind of technical advances are needed to ensure that safes can’t be opened using the methods devised there. We have to constantly adapt to this.
– How does artificial intelligence play a role in everyday life?
– Fortunately, artificial intelligence hasn’t made its way into security technology yet, though it has in manufacturing, and we’re applying it as much as we can. Security technology depends mostly on trust. The best way to convince anyone is to demonstrate what the product can do, or if word has gotten out about the methods that make a particular safe impossible to break into.
Just like with cars, when buying a safe, customers check its certification: whether it has been updated, what its aesthetics and appearance are like; and the informed buyer also looks at the product’s size, interior, and usability. In our development efforts, we strive to create a compact safe that is still quite spacious on the inside. We’re already using AI in the design process as well.
– How do today’s economic conditions affect the company’s operations? What are the challenges?
– We’re constantly striving to improve, and we always keep in mind how we can become even better. We have to manufacture a wide variety of products, which requires continuous investment and continuous development. This also requires adapting the knowledge of our staff. Unlike at multinational companies, our employees generally don’t just perform a single task; instead, we need professionals with diverse skills. Someone might do one type of work until noon and then switch to another, or the nature of the work might even change from hour to hour. Our long-time employees understand this, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to teach new hires to adapt to it. We also have to account for generational differences; for younger employees, work-life balance is more important than it was in our day.
– How can you retain, motivate, and attract good employees?
– At the city level, through good pay and technological advancement. But the company’s reputation is also important, because people won’t go to work somewhere where the work environment is very strict.
– What goals is Strauss Metal aiming for in the coming years?
– We’ll continue to prioritize continuous improvement, locking security, technological presence, and technological accessibility—this is essentially the mandatory path forward. Once we design a component, we strive to integrate it everywhere possible, which optimizes both production and logistics. We would like to remain a small company in the future with our team of about 30 employees; our goal is robotization, which will enable us to manufacture safety products at an even higher standard.
09.07.2026
Source: DDG Magazine