From mobile café to apartment of hospital on wheels – Company from Knic produces extensions popular in all of Europe

We have already written about how a small company from Serbia has made a breakthrough in the West by turning vans into campers. However, there is another company in Serbia, although, to be honest, a much bigger one, which has also achieved considerable success in the West, also thanks to its unusual products. The difference is that the latter deals with much bigger vehicles, and its customers are usually not natural persons, but companies – and often large ones at that.

And if you happen to spot on a street, but most likely while on a trip to a western European country, a truck with an extension shaped like a can, with a café inside, or see a film being shot with a movable trailer – office, make-up room, wardrobe or apartment on wheels, or some other unusual extension, there’s a good chance that it’s a product made by the company we are writing about. And the company is Ema from Knic, which has existed for more than a quarter of a century, but which has dealt in special extensions in the past ten years or so. Precisely thanks to them, their innovative nature and meeting the needs and demands of their customers, this company exports more than 80% of its products to EU countries.

80% products exported to EU

Annually, they produce around 800 various products, as Bozidar Djurdjevic, the sales director at Ema from Knic, said in his interview for eKapija. Even with the global events which have a negative impact on the truck industry as well, this company, even with around 30 of its employees, often has the need to hire subcontractors in the area – Knic and Kragujevac.

– The current annual production capacities of our company are around 800 different products from our program, and nearly 80% of our products are exported to EU countries, predominantly to Austria, Slovenia, Germany and Switzerland. The farthest market that our products reach is Ireland – Djurdjevic says in the interview with eKapija.



According to him, these results are mostly down to their flexibility, as well as their innovative nature, and the results have certainly not come overnight.

– As we produce our panels ourselves, we sometimes like to experiment during the production process, so we came to the idea to make curved panels and use them to make trailers shaped like cans, which are meant for street food sale and which are fully equipped internally with the elements for it. Around 2016, we started dealing in special projects of various purposes, and some of our most popular extensions are film industry trailers (movable apartments, movable offices, wardrobes, make-up rooms), extensions for the transport of explosives, for the transport of artworks, movable hospitals, pharmacies, mammograms, CT scanners, as well as a special type of a traction vehicle, trucks and trailers for HAVI Logistics, McDonald’s transport company – says Djurdjevic.

Customers address them when they want something unusual

It is precisely these extensions that they are currently focusing on the most at Ema, he says.

– These are mostly prototypes and I can safely say that, in Europe, at the moment, we have created an image of a company which customers address when they are planning something new and unusual. It is precisely this that sets us apart the most from our colleagues from Europe – our flexibility, as well as our innovative approach, when it comes to the customers’ wishes. Other producers mostly have standardized products, and it often happens that the customer’s wish is somewhere between two standards. Then it’s impossible or too expensive to find that, because it deviates from the standards. That is why our customers love our products and keep returning, because to us, what the customer wants is the standard. I don’t want to talk about the quality of our products, because that goes without saying if you want to export to the EU and compete with the biggest companies in the market – points out Djurdjevic.

He adds that the person responsible for the establishment of this company is certainly his father, Dragan Djurdjevic, who founded Ema back in 1991 with great support from his wife Vesna and father Ljuban. Initially, the company was a representative of the international trailer giant Schmitz Cargobull, all the way until 1999, and for all former Yugoslav countries at that.



– The cooperation was then stopped in 2000 and the decision was made for us to start our own production and our own brand Ema, which has been present for 24 years now in the market of the Republic of Serbia, as well as in the markets of the EU member states. The thing that makes us the proudest is that, through all these years, despite all the global events, we have managed to maintain our company and keep opening new markets and realizing cooperation with new strategic partners – Djurdjevic says with pride.

All this time, the company has always tried to be present at all the European fairs which concern trucks and the automotive industry, because that is an opportunity to meet new customers, maintain the contact with the existing ones and follow the latest achievements in the industry. Also, as he says, these fairs are an opportunity for them to meet new potential suppliers and learn about new-generation materials, which Ema strives to implement in its products.

Aerodynamic extensions which save fuel

– We have exhibited at the biggest truck fair IAA in Hanover, which is held every two years. Also, in cooperation with DAF trucks, at the truck fair in Moscow, we presented, for the first time, our extensions with an aerodynamic roof. That was the first prototype which immediately attracted attention from certain transportation “giants”. Our aerodynamic roof saves between 3-5% for transport companies when it comes to the consumption of fuel at speeds of over 60 km/h. For two years now, HAVI Logistics has been testing the prototype of the traction vehicle that we have made for them and we hope that it will become a standard product in their huge vehicle fleet – says Djurdjevic.

For its results, Ema was awarded for two years in a row as the best medium enterprise in Serbia after around ten years of operations, and in 2010, they received the “Kapetan Misa Anastasijevic” Charter for innovative business. In order to continue achieving such successes, at Ema, Djurdjevic adds, they also plan to expand the production capacities and invest in the automation of panel production.

– We also plan to procure various equipment which will enable us to process, on our own, the materials we need for production, as well as the robots for the welding and painting of the products. That will enable us to enter new markets and master new products that we will offer to those markets – announces eKapija’s interviewee.

And until then, this company is also busy due to the project which it is currently implementing in cooperation with the World Health Organization and the World Bank, about which, due to the confidentiality of information, Djurdjevic cannot say anything more, but he believes that it will cause interest from the media in the future.

Danijela Stanimirovic-Gavrilov

EMA d.o.o. Knić

Svetska Banka-WB Beograd

Ema Knić

World Health Organization

Schmitz Cargobull

Havi Logistics

McDonalds

World Bank

Kapetan Miša Anastasijević

Božidar Đurđević

Dragan Đurđević

production of extensions

trucks

film industry

movable offices

movable hospitals

hospital on wheels

truck fair Hanover

special extensions

transport companies

movable pharmacies

mammograms

CT scanner

trailers