The field camp will soon be tested at the Arctic Circle
The individual pieces of the jigsaw puzzle have started to reveal the final picture: the modular air-transportable field camp (FLM) takes form. And right in the centre stands Siegfried Pock, product manager for mobile catering systems and field camps at KÄRCHER Futuretech. The former captain, who had been in the ‘troop’ for 13 years, including six months spent in a mission abroad with ‘Task Force FOX” in Macedonia, knows what he is talking about.
For more than a year, he worked out a field camp concept suitable for the foreign deployments of the German Federal Armed Forces. Now, his plans have become reality. Where? At the WTD 51 Technical Center in Koblenz. At the end of November, representatives of the Federal Office of Defense Technology and Procurement (BWB) and the Technical Center, soldiers of the Logistics School of the German Federal Armed Forces, special pioneers and a large number of representatives from the different corpses came to Koblenz to set up and operate the individual components of the field camp for the first time.
The team of project leader Siegfried Pock with the innovative ‘kitchen pro’ Peter Zimmermann and ‘water expert’ Dr Patrick Marcus pulled the strings during the set-up exercise on site. This further milestone was set by the KÄRCHER Futuretech trio under difficult conditions and at temperatures around the freezing point.
Since the first components of the field camp (trailers, universal transport pallets, transport containers, as weapon storage cabinet, water purification systems and the complete sanitary element) were already handed over to the Bundeswehr at the beginning of 2008, the elements for catering and laundering have now been added.
Also present during the set-up in Koblenz: Narr Isoliersysteme from Balingen which produced the container room modules – the shell of the catering component – which form an essential factor for meeting the highest hygiene standards, and Rieber, the kitchen expert company from Reutlingen, who provided the electrical cooking units. Even if he felt a little bit chilly during the set-up execise in Koblenz, this was just a slight foretaste of what FLM specialist Siegfried Pock will experience in February 2009.
Sixty kilometres north of Rovaniemi in Finland, close to the Northern Polar Circle, the entire system will be winter-tested. Training and instructions under extreme conditions. Icy times for Siegfried Pock, who won’t leave anything to chance even at this place. A real challenge for the well-organised 38 year old project manager. Now all he needs is to wrap up well…