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Scrap reduction a strategic priority for HUBER+SUHNER  

Responsibility and Sustainability
09.10.2026

Written by 

Corporate Communications

In line with HUBER+SUHNER’s ongoing efforts to combine its ambitious sustainability goals with its business activities, the company’s sites in Switzerland, India and Poland have been focusing on scrap reduction. While a certain amount of production scrap is inherent to manufacturing processes, we continuously work to reduce material losses through process optimisation, technological improvements, and efficient resource management. This helps conserve valuable resources and supports our broader sustainability objectives.  

In Pfäffikon, Switzerland, the primary HUBER+SUHNER competence centre for low-frequency technology and cable manufacturing, implemented process improvements between January and November 2025 which led to significant reductions in start-up scrap, production costs, and greenhouse gas emissions. The project was a direct response to unreported start-up scrap and oxidation losses from the flooding process in the cooling channel of large machine used to extrude insulation for copper cables for the automotive industry, according to Martin Bächli, Head of Global Lean Program/Operational Excellence. 

Scrap reduction in Päffikon
One of the large extruders in our Pfäffikon cable production served as a test case to measure and reduce start-up scrap and assess the effect of sequential flooded cooling in preventing oxidation in automotive cables.

Big win for quality and sustainability

Bächli explained that the production of HUBER+SUHNER’s precision-engineered copper cables entails feeding proprietary, granulated insulation compound into an extruder where it is preheated and pressed onto copper wire, eliminating air gaps and locking the insulation firmly onto the copper conductor. The insulated copper cable is then cooled with circulating water in a closed loop system, rapidly solidifying the molten polymer to ensure dimensional stability and internal thermal robustness.  


In the Pfäffikon project, one large extrusion machine was singled out to measure the potential benefits of improved start-up procedure and highly controlled sequential flooding of the insulated copper cables during the water-cooling phase as well as routing cables over fewer guide rollers to improve residence time in water. The result was a resounding success: oxidation – a known threat to high-quality copper cables – was eliminated and scrap per spool of copper cable was lowered by over 50%, resulting in important financial savings and a reduction of our environmental footprint of 190 tonnes CO2 equivalent. 


Other key contributors to these achievements were the introduction of precise scrap recording and employee training, Bächli said. 

“Our project team led by Pedro Azevedo Brito, live Lean Six Sigma thinking and continuously work to improve our processes and meet our sustainability objectives,” he explained, adding that the project’s success could be applied to other production equipment. 


At our location in India, further improvements in material efficiency have been achieved through ongoing process optimisation, while HUBER+SUHNER Poland continues to implement initiatives aimed at enhancing resource efficiency and reducing material losses. 

Gemba walk scrap reduction
Our colleagues in India during a Gemba walk, analysing cable-cutting data.. What started as a scrap-reduction project has become a joint supply-chain improvement project.

Impressive results from the start in India

At our facility in Gurgao, India, HUBER+SUHNER, produces radio frequency (RF) and fiber optics (FO) components and solutions. Quality Manager Rajiv Sharma said the team in employed the Lean Six Sigma process improvement method to quickly rein in scrap from the cable-cutting process – and why that’s so important in the larger context of sustainability. 


“Scrap is any material that cannot be used for its intended purpose,” he noted, adding that scrap goes beyond the cost of wasted materials to encompass additional costs like disposal, transport, fuel, space to store it, and excess inventory, along with associated sustainability concerns such as emissions and consumption of natural resources. “At our site, we have a cable-cutting process that results in some leftover pieces of cable. During our shop floor Gemba walks, we saw that there was scrap for every work order and that prompted us to think about our scrap rate and how we can reduce it.” 

 

Beyond Gemba walks, the team collected cable-cutting data, used Pareto analysis to prioritise the main cable scrap contributors, and found a need to match customer-required cable lengths with varying supplier coil lengths to avoid cable remnants during the cutting process.  


The project that began as a scrap reduction priority has become a joint supply-chain improvement project, with HUBER+SUHNER and its cable supplier exchanging best practices and working together to create a scrap-reduction. 


To date, the project in India has reduced cable scrap below the target of 0.5 % – while achieving both cost savings and reduced environmental impact. Other dividends include a stronger supplier relationship and potential project replication at other HUBER+SUHNER sites. Together these benefits illustrate how small changes in supply-chain standardization can deliver significant improvements in efficiency and sustainability. 

Poland: pursuing an ambitious target 

At the Tczew site in Poland, where HUBER+SUHNER manufactures RF components, automotive cable systems and systems for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), cost competitiveness and sustainability across the wider supply chain were the chief drivers of its scrap-reduction process. HUBER+SUHNER Poland’s former Managing Director and today's VP Operations for Polatis Poland,  Lukasz Lukiewicz described the site’s scrap-reduction project as an opportunity.  

 

“Our delivery and quality performance were already being managed at a reasonable level, so we examined cost competitiveness and identified scrap as a significant improvement opportunity,” he said, pointing out that his team focused not only on valuable RF components such as cables, connectors, and antenna components made of copper, aluminium, plastics, and plated materials but on the financial cost of producing, processing and replacing them. 

 

While the team in Poland has analysed its own scrap production for years, individual operations used their own approaches. During the 2026 budgeting process, the team agreed to introduce a standardized, centrally aligned approach to scrap reduction. Local Lean Six Sigma Champion Jaroslaw Piotrowski said the team in Poland aligned finance and operation departments around a common language of scrap codes, high-quality scrap data, and defined ownership to improve root-cause analysis and decision-making. 



Scrap reduction meeting in Poland
Cross-functional team meetings attended by the Finance and Operations departments establish a common language for scrap codes, high-quality scrap data and result in clearly defined ownership.

The team’s work so far has yielded an ambitious – but achievable goal for 2026. By introducing common failure codes across the two Polish sites and their different technologies, the team has created a common language for engineering, production, quality, procurement and other function. Other project components include rigorous data verification along with transparent ownership and reporting and a dashboard showing scrap data across several categories along with the associated CO2 impact to give colleagues a view of the larger environmental impact of scrap. 


Reliable, shared data enables HUBER+SUHNER and its suppliers to investigate defects together and take corrective action, Piotrowski explained.  


“It’s a win-win situation when we and our suppliers can save costs, energy and environmental impact," he added. 

 

Ultimately, HUBER+SUHNER Poland’s efforts will not only prevent scrap but build a local culture of continuous improvement. From daily employee actions and preventive practices to improved cable cutting and recognition of employees who advance propose scrap-reduction ideas, the strategic priority is already having an impact: August showed a positive trend, a pace the site needs to maintain in order to declare success. 

 

“Our scrap reduction goal is ambitious but it’s good to have an ambitious goal,” Lukiewicz said. “As a result of the work we’ve done this year, we have a dedicated team that is willing to achieve it.” 

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