Jörg Pläster on 47 years in turnaround management, skilled labor shortages, and why people always come first in industry.
What makes a turnaround manager who has spent nearly five decades in industry stand out? Jörg Pläster knows the answer from first-hand experience: curiosity, a people-first mindset, and the ability to find new paths in the face of every crisis.
In Issue 66 of GOOD TO KNOW!, Pläster reflects on a remarkable career that began as a trainee fitter and led through assembly and site management all the way to department head for plant shutdowns and turnaround management. He offers candid insights into the growing complexity of industrial plant operations, the skilled labor shortage, and the intensifying time and cost pressures in the process industry.
One thing becomes clear: turnaround management has always been – and remains – a deeply human discipline, even as digitalization, automation, and AI reshape the work. Pläster offers a critical assessment of the current state of the chemical industry and explains why genuine optimism is not a matter of market conditions, but of mindset.