Voith Austria Holding

Voith Austria Holding
legal form	Aktiengesellschaft (100% subsidiary of Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA )
founding	March 1, 1904
Seat	St. Poelten , Austria
Number of employees	792 September 2013
sales	271.2 million euros
Branch	mechanical engineering
Website	Voith Austria
	Last updated 2012

Main entrance of Voith St. Pölten

The Voith Austria Holding AG is in mechanical active Austrian company with headquarters in St. Pölten . The corporation is a 100% subsidiary of the German Voith Group .

Machines have been manufactured on the 15 hectare factory site southwest of downtown St. Pölten since 1904. Today three of the four Voith corporate divisions are represented there. In September 2013, Voith Paper , with 448 employees, manufactured board and packaging paper machines as well as rolls for most of the paper machines manufactured by the Group worldwide; the Voith Turbo made with 57 employees wheel - and turbo transmission for rail vehicles and Voith Hydro made with 255 employees equipment for hydroelectric power plants such as turbines and generators . In addition, the worldwide competence center for board and packaging paper machines of Voith GmbH and Voith Paper Service is located in St. Pölten . Except for the service companies dominate export orders , the sales of the different areas.

In the first year, 225 people were employed in St. Pölten. As a result, the number rose rapidly and, after slumps during the Great Depression in 1929 and after the Second World War, peaked in 1961 with over 3,000 employees. Since then, the workforce has been reduced at the site, in 1993 around 1,500 people were employed, in 2013 there were only around 800. At the beginning of 2015, when around 500 people were employed at the site, it was announced that in March Voith Paper would also be in St. Pölten is to be closed with 150 employees.

History from 1903 to the present

The JM Voith machine factory in St. Pölten around 1910

The Voithvilla was inhabited by Walther Voith and has been owned by the city of St. Pölten since 1960, 2011

The JM Voith machine factory in St. Pölten around 1912

Voith workers in St. Pölten around 1906

The reason for the establishment of the first foreign subsidiary in St. Pölten, Austria, was a drastic increase in import duties on iron and hardware in the countries of the Habsburg Monarchy . So later the Austro-Hungarian, but also the Russian market was supplied from St. Pölten. In 1906 a major order for water turbines was received, which was completed four years later with delivery to the first Chinese hydropower plant, Shilongba shuidianzhan .

The company VJ Voith, with its headquarters in Heidenheim an der Brenz , looked back on decades of tradition in the construction of large machines around 1900; water turbines and paper machines were to be produced in St. Pölten. Its owner Friedrich Voith passed the management of the new factory to his son Walther Voith . Walther managed the subsidiary from 1904 to 1944 and died in 1947 at the age of 73. The St. Pölten branch was founded on March 1, 1904 as a general partnership with Friedrich and Walther Voith as shareholders. The facilities and land were acquired with money from the assets of the married couple Friedrich and Helene Voith and belonged to Friedrich Voith (Helene Voith was entitled to a severance payment of 50%). Walther's deposit was 100,000 marks . To accommodate the workers, houses were built, such as the building association houses completed in 1911 .

At the end of the 1912/13 financial year, the balance sheet total of JM Voith in St. Pölten on July 1, 1913 was 4,350,471.72 kroner or 3,783,018.80 marks (those of JM Voith in Heidenheim around 15.9 million marks). The liabilities from loans in St. Pölten amounted to around 2,426,343.10 marks (in Heidenheim around 7.2 million marks).

A residential colony was built in the east of the factory, but the construction work could not be completed until after the First World War in the 1920s. The colony consisted of simple, villa-like residential buildings separated by gardens. The settlement was also surrounded by gardens. Walther Voith himself moved into the Voithvilla , which was completed in 1917 .

In 1938, the Voith machine factory was incorporated into the National Socialist Foundry Industry Berlin branch - Southeast branch . After the end of the Second World War , it fell as German property under the administration of the Russian occupiers and remained an operation of the USIA group until it was returned to the Austrian government in 1955 . Under Soviet administration, the metal processing companies Martin Miller in Traismauer and Wiener Neustädter Flugzeugwerke in Ober-Grafendorf as well as the furniture production company Karl Caspers in Schwadorf were incorporated into the Voith company . After the takeover by the USIA, the plant was included in the Soviet five-year plan, which is why dismantled machines were replaced.

In 1949, some footballers approached the general management with a proposal to found a company sports club . The games of the BSV Voith were played on the Voithplatz , which opened in 1951 and is still played on today , for which the Voith company provided the reason. The BSV Voith rose after a few titles to the second highest Austrian league, where they were runner- up in the 1960/61 season. In 1973, the BSV Voith merged with another St. Pölten club to form VSE St. Pölten ( Voith-Schwarze Elf St. Pölten ), which later played in the top league for a few years and stopped playing in 1998.

On December 1, 1958, the company was constituted as a stock corporation with significant participation by Länderbank .

The order intake of the St. Pölten subgroup in 2012 was 334.1 million euros.

The location has coordinated trade with the communist countries of Eastern Europe and the Balkans for the group since the end of World War II.

Location, construction and expansion of the factory

The 155,000 m² factory area was originally located southwest of the city of St. Pölten, whose settlement area has now expanded beyond the Voith site. The streets surrounding the company premises are Linzer Strasse to the north, Dr.-Theodor-Körner-Strasse to the east, Voithgasse and Viktor-Adler-Strasse and Grillparzerstrasse to the south. In the west, the tracks of the Alpine train station form the border.

Construction began in 1903, and after nine months of construction, the machine factory for water turbines and paper machines was operational in 1904. The nucleus of the facility, which has since grown significantly, was a machine building hall (30 × 112 m) and a foundry (26 × 76 m). The two iron constructions were planned by the Swiss civil engineer Brunner.

The increased use of water power and the establishment of paper mills in the Habsburg Monarchy led to a continuous expansion of the factory facility from the time it was founded until around 1915/16 construction activity was interrupted for a few years during the First World War . A second expansion phase began in the 1920s and ended with the Great Depression in 1929. A third expansion phase lasted from around 1939 - in the course of the armament of the Third Reich - to an abrupt end of 1942/43. After 1945 damage was repaired and a model carpentry shop was built. Another phase of expansion of the plant began after the end of the occupation in 1955 and has continued to the present day.

Since the plant was only slightly destroyed during the Second World War and was never completely rebuilt, today there are different hall constructions from different periods of the 20th century. There are reinforced concrete structures , iron skeleton constructions with brick infills (for example the fettling shop completed in 1924 and expanded in 1943) and more recent precast systems (such as the roller repair workshop built in 1991 by the Oberndorfer precast concrete company ). The old single glazed iron lattice windows in the halls have largely been replaced by aluminum and plastic framed windows to this day.

Number of employees

Development of the number of employees
year		Employees
1904	225
1908	500
1914	700
1920	1,200
1929	1,500
1930	(Great Depression) 500
1938	1,200
1944	1,800
1945	(End of war) 854
1949	2,500
1961	3,031
1971	2,000
1993	1,500
2012	870
2013	792
Data source: see running text.

In the opening year 1904, 225 workers and employees were employed in St. Pölten, in 1908 already around 500, before the beginning of the First World War in 1914 there were around 700. By around 1920 the number of employees rose to over 1,200.

Before the Great Depression in 1929, 1,500 employees crossed the line to become a large company, as a result of the crisis the number fell to around 500 workers, but climbed back to over 1,200 before the Anschluss in 1938. In 1944 there were 1,800 employees, with the end of the war production declined, in 1945 there were only 854 employees. Under Soviet administration, the workforce had already climbed to over 2,500 in 1949. The previous high was reached in 1961 with 3,031 employees, but the numbers have been falling since then. In 1971 there were around 2,000 employees; in 1993 there were 1,500 and in May 2012 only 870 employees at the St. Pölten, Wimpassing im Schwarzatale and Laakirchen locations .

As for the German Voith plants, the reduction of 71 jobs in the board and packaging paper division was announced in 2012 despite the increase in sales. Investments are to be made in the same area in Heidenheim and China, among others. Voith cited a decline in orders for graphic paper machines as a result of increasing digitalization as the reason for shedding a total of 710 jobs across the entire group. In general, large systems with high investment costs, such as those manufactured in Germany and Austria, are less in demand today. In Asia there is a growing demand for medium-sized systems that they want to manufacture there in the future. After negotiations with the works council, the company announced in September 2012 that it would cut only 670 jobs in Germany and Austria instead of 710.

In the following year, it was decided to cut another 290 jobs in the paper division, which amounts to a partial closure of this division in St. Pölten. In September 2013, the division employed 448 people, so the reduction affects around two thirds of the St. Pölten paper division and is expected to be completed in 2014.

Products

Match machine manufactured in St. Pölten, Technical Fair 1953 in Leipzig .

In the course of time, turbines, equipment for paper, wood pulp and asbestos slate production , match tuner machines , transmissions and toothed gears as well as cylinder and housing castings were manufactured in St. Pölten .

Walther Voith signed a contract with Viktor Kaplan who secured the Voith company the exploitation of his turbine patent in Austria. The Kaplan turbine was successful and was widely used in the period that followed.

An example of a piece of equipment that has been supplied to the paper industry is a machine sold in 1911 to Ignaz Spiro & Sons in Český Krumlov . With a working width of 4.20 m and a maximum speed of 200 meters per second, it was considered the largest paper machine on the continent.

Plate machines were produced for the asbestos slate panel industry that had been developing in Austria since the beginning of the 20th century. The first was delivered to the Hatschek company in Vöcklabruck in 1908 . The first pipe machine built by Voith was sold to the same plant in 1923 .

The first turbo transmission was produced in 1933 and series production began in collaboration with Steyr Daimler Puch AG . The hydraulic turbo transmissions have been purchased from the Austrian Federal Railways since 1935 .

1952 began with the production of central control stations in connection with electro-hydraulic control systems for the operation, operational monitoring and self-control of water power machines. The switchboard construction and turbo transmission production of the branch plants in Obergrafendorf and Traismauer were relocated to St. Pölten in 1963 and 1968.

Due to the discontinuation of the paper division as well as the reorganization of the turbo division within the group, the electrical division was separated from the turbo division at the location and brought into the digital solutions division (DS). From now on, the DS deals with the development and construction of power converters for rail-bound vehicles. St. Pölten represents the competence center in the group. The products from this area are all completely developed, produced and tested for the global market in St. Pölten.

The machines of the factory in St. Pölten

The original machine park came from the production of the Heidenheim company mother. Today (2006) the machines in Voith's production units in St. Pölten are largely automated , such as a CNC- controlled boring machine from the Czech company äkoda in the machine building hall or the machines used in gear manufacturing for grinding and milling. The cupola furnace in the foundry is older, for example , where the use of manual labor is still relatively large.

In order to be able to move the heavy workpieces, the assembly halls are equipped with traveling cranes. Most of them come from Austrian producers such as Waagner-Biró AG , Simmering-Graz-Pauker-AG , Herbert Tulipan and Voith in Traun , but also from German producers such as Deutsche Maschinenfabrik AG , Künz and Kranbau GesmbH .

Offices and administration

The three different production areas each have a design office: one for turbine construction, one for the construction of paper machines and one for the construction of special machines. In 1986 a new administration building was completed according to plans by the architect Henry Wright. The five-storey building was placed on top of an existing property as a steel frame construction.

Corporate divisions represented in St. Pölten

Three corporate divisions are represented at the St. Pölten location:

Voith Paper (paper technology) - Voith Paper GmbH & Co KG, Voith Paper Service GmbH & Co KG as well as the consolidated companies of Voith Paper Service GmbH & Co. KG in Wimpassing, Austria, with their 100% subsidiary Voith Paper Service GmbH & Co KG Laakirchen, Austria. St. Pölten is the group-internal competence center for board and packaging paper machines as well as the product center for rolls and is therefore responsible for most of the group’s roll production.
Voith Turbo (drive technology) - Voith Turbo GmbH & Co KG
Voith Hydro (power plant technology) - joint venture between Voith and Siemens . St. Pölten is the group-internal competence center for the production of Pelton turbines .
Voith Digital Solutions (automation technology) - Voith Digital Solutions Austria GmbH & Co KG

In February 2015 it was announced that Voith-Paper is closing the St. Pölten site and cutting 150 jobs.

literature

Ernst Bezemek : Documentation of the operations of the USIA group. In: The USIA companies in Lower Austria. (= Studies and research from the Lower Austrian Institute for Regional Studies 5 ). Self-published by the Lower Austrian Institute for Regional Studies, Vienna 1983, pp. 219–222.
Thomas Karl among other things: The art monuments of the city of St. Pölten and its incorporated localities. Berger, Horn 1999, ISBN 3-85028-310-0 , pp. 377-379.
Franz Mathis : Big Business in Austria. Austrian large companies in brief presentations. Oldenbourg, Vienna 1987, ISBN 3-486-53771-7 , pp. 341-343.
Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the German Empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. (= series of publications for the magazine for corporate history 9 ). Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49630-X .
Gerhard A. Stadler: The industrial heritage of Lower Austria. History-technology-architecture. Böhlau, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-205-77460-4 , pp. 609-613.

Web links

Commons : Voith St. Pölten - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Voith St. Pölten
Own presentation of the history of Voith (PDF; 4.7 MB)

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, p. 61.

↑ Own presentation at www.sanktpoelten.voith.com (accessed on July 9, 2013).

↑ Voith closes plant in St. Pölten on ORF on February 2, 2015 accessed on February 2, 2015

^ Gerhard A. Stadler: The industrial heritage of Lower Austria. History-technology-architecture. Böhlau, Vienna 2006, pp. 609–613, here: p. 609; Thomas Karl among other things: The art monuments of the city of St. Pölten and its incorporated localities. Berger, Horn 1999, pp. 377-379, here: p. 377.

↑ Voith GmbH (ed.): Moving forward with good ideas - since 1867. The Voith history. Heidenheim 2013, p. 32.

^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, p. 62.

^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, p. 34.

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j Gerhard A. Stadler: The industrial heritage of Lower Austria. History-technology-architecture. Böhlau, Vienna 2006, pp. 609–613, here: p. 610.

↑ ^a ^b Thomas Karl among others: The art monuments of the city of St. Pölten and its incorporated localities. Berger, Horn 1999, pp. 377-379, here: p. 378.

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ Gerhard A. Stadler: The industrial heritage of Lower Austria. History-technology-architecture. Böhlau, Vienna 2006, pp. 609–613, here: p. 611.

↑ Erich Auer, Gerhard Weber, Helmut Lackinger: The wolves. A team with a bite , Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus, St. Pölten / Vienna 1989, p. 12.

↑ Erich Auer, Gerhard Weber, Helmut Lackinger: The wolves. A team with a bite , Niederösterreichisches Pressehaus, St. Pölten / Vienna 1989, p. 19.

↑ Own presentation at www.sanktpoelten.voith.com (accessed on July 9, 2013).

↑ Voith: Group Annual Report 2011 ( Memento of the original dated June 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / voith.com archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (pdf; 8.54 MB), p. 71.

↑ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h Gerhard A. Stadler: The industrial heritage of Lower Austria. History-technology-architecture. Böhlau, Vienna 2006, pp. 609–613, here: p. 612.

↑ Thomas Karl among others: The art monuments of the city of St. Pölten and its incorporated localities. Berger, Horn 1999, pp. 377-379, here: pp. 378-379.

^ ^A ^b ^c ^d ^e Franz Mathis: Big Business in Austria. Austrian large companies in brief descriptions , Oldenbourg, Vienna 1987, p. 341f.

↑ ORF Lower Austria: Voith is cutting 70 jobs in St. Pölten , May 22, 2012.

↑ See ORF Lower Austria: Voith is cutting 70 jobs in St. Pölten , May 22, 2012; Standard: Voith Paper to build 70 jobs in St. Pölten from May 22, 2012; NÖN: Voith-Paper is reducing 70 of its 500 employees , May 28, 2012; Wirtschaftsblatt: Mechanical engineering company Voith cuts 670 jobs ( Memento from November 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) , September 12, 2012.