Müller, a 31 year-old mechatronics engineer, and Guth, a mechanical engineer aged 35, have been appointed joint successors to Erik Roßmeißl, who has transferred to the WITTENSTEIN AG headquarters in Igersheim-Harthausen as Head of the Service Centre.

The decision to introduce a "twin peaks" model at the WITTENSTEIN Group's gearing specialist was a conscious one in favour of two young, "home-grown" executives: Michael Müller was previously Manager Industrial Systems at WITTENSTEIN motion control while Philipp Guth was Head of Technology Management at WITTENSTEIN bastian. Both Müller and Guth have worked at WAG for many years and will ensure the necessary continuity at WITTENSTEIN bastian in a time of constant change. Their combined, longstanding experience at WITTENSTEIN and their impressive successes in their respective previous positions will hopefully prove to be a good omen for the firm's bastian Business Unit – particularly against the background of the recent move to a new production and administrative building in Liese-Meitner-Strasse 10 in Fellbach.

Michael Müller embarked on a degree course in Mechatronics back in 2001 in cooperation with WITTENSTEIN AG. Following several different positions at the WITTENSTEIN headquarters in Development, Product Management and International Sales, he was promoted to Manager Industrial Systems at WITTENSTEIN motion control in 2010. The experience gained in these diverse roles was further broadened by a product management assignment at the group's Japanese regional office in 2006. Parallel to being in the driver's seat at Industrial Systems he is also taking part in an Executive MBA programme at the University of Würzburg.

Philipp Guth began his career in 2001 as a development engineer at WITTENSTEIN bastian after graduating in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Stuttgart. His work during the first few years chiefly involved setting up a testing station and dealing with development orders. In 2008, he was charged with forming and running bastian's new Technology Management department. As a result of this, production process development became an increasingly important focus of his job.

Whereas Michael Müller will be mainly responsible for Marketing and Sales, Philipp Guth will oversee Production and Logistics Management as well as Technology Management. The Fellbach facility's two new General Managers are certainly ambitious: "Our aim is to build on the achievements of Erik Roßmeißl with the support of the WITTENSTEIN bastian team while leveraging our existing potential to strengthen bastian's position as a world class global partner for customers of its gearing technology". They have inherited a solid foundation for this strategy from their predecessor: WITTENSTEIN bastian has just moved into a new production and administrative building, which will be officially opened on June 19, 2012.