Fortuna works

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Fortuna Spezialmaschinen GmbH
legal form GmbH
founding 1903
Seat Because of the city , Germany
management Narith Meksavanh (Managing Director)
Number of employees 73
Branch mechanical engineering
Website www.fortuna-gmbh.de
As of December 31, 2018

The Fortuna-Werke are an engineering company , which through the production of precision grinding machines , grinding spindles and measuring instruments gained a worldwide reputation. The company was founded in 1903 on Pragstrasse in Cannstatt , which is now a district of the Baden-Württemberg state capital, Stuttgart . Today's location is Weil der Stadt , the company operates as Fortuna Spezialmaschinen GmbH .

history

In 1903 Albert Hirth , an inventor and engineer and father of the two well-known flight pioneers Hellmuth and Wolf Hirth , took over a mechanical engineering company in Cannstatt that specialized in leather processing and was henceforth called "Fortuna-Werke Albert Hirth". He converted this into an oHG five years later . Shortly afterwards, Emil Lilienfein became a partner and commercial manager of the company. After the introduction of bottled beer, this led the bottle sealing and labeling machine "Rapid" to success. The company received orders in particular from Robert Leichts , a brewery company known today as Schwabenbräu . Further successful productions were the "Fortuna cold saw" and the "Fortuna leather sharpening machine". The breakthrough came with sharpening machines because the shoe industry grew significantly. Its development according to the modular principle was a production method that was ahead of its time and guaranteed the export of precisely fitting machine components for old machines in the 1950s.

In 1906, the "Fortuna precision grinding spindle" added the portfolio Hirth's because for Norma also Hirth Mini meter , a sensor lever meter for precision measurements, was produced. From 1907 he organized the distribution of the spindles in Great Britain through Fortuna Machine Co. Ltd. Leicester . Since Hirth had all the patents , he was able to quickly acquire a monopoly position. A patent law, which was introduced at the same time, led to the obligation to implement the machines, which was tantamount to an obligation to establish production facilities in Great Britain. In order to keep the location costs low, they were kept with a low vertical range of manufacture; the individual parts were manufactured in Stuttgart and delivered to the British plants for final assembly. The British factories were liquidated during the First World War .

In 1913 the company was converted into a GmbH . The 1920s were characterized by the outsourcing of production to independent companies. Fortuna Werke AG was founded at the end of the decade . The Second World War led to the destruction of the production facilities; however, they were rebuilt. An innovation was the first leather sharpening and splitting machine. Their assembly was carried out in Weil der Stadt in the mid-1960s. In 1975 the company went to the Getrag Group, and in the 1990s all production. From 1996 the areas for leather processing equipment and for spindles were separated, so that today there is Fischer Fortuna GmbH for spindles and Fortuna Spezialmaschinen GmbH for leather. Many other market innovations shaped the company's history from the 1970s to the present day.

Market environment in Stuttgart

The machine and apparatus construction industry, especially the special machine industry, was mainly in the hands of foreign companies until the middle of the 19th century. The Stuttgart location, on the other hand, sought to be able to compete. The unfavorable production conditions in terms of raw material location and distribution (transport links) did not allow heavy industry in the true sense, so that one initially had to limit oneself to the production of simple machines. Growing needs in the population, as well as the increasingly complex conditions of industrialization progress, required the establishment of a special machine market that favored companies such as Fortuna-Werke or Werner & Pfleiderer , or circular knitting machine manufacturers such as the "Factory of the Haaga Brothers" or "C.Terrot Sons" .

Trivia

Robert Bosch said of Hirth:

“Do you know who we basically owe the rapid development of the mass production of precision parts? Only the Hirth minimeter and the Fortuna ball grinding spindle. "

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Annual financial statements as of December 31, 2018 in the electronic Federal Gazette
  2. ↑ Jürgen Hagel, Cannstatt und seine Geschichte, p. 87 (see LIT.)
  3. ^ Astrid Gehring: National Socialist Armaments Policy and Entrepreneurial Decision-Making Scope (Comparative Case Studies on the Württemberg mechanical engineering industry) . Oldenbourg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-486-56255-X , p. 42
  4. ↑ Gert Behrsing:  Hirth, Albert. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 236 f. ( Digitized version ).
  5. ↑ a b Gabriele Kreuzberger, p. 178 and 230 (see lit.)
  6. ^ German Direct Investment in Great Britain, 1871-1918
  7. ↑ Company history
  8. ↑ Baden-Württemberg Economic Archive of the University of Hohenheim ( Memento from February 10, 2015 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

literature

  • Jürgen Hagel, Cannstatt and its history, Silberburgverlag, 2002, ISBN 3-87407-529-X
  • The machine tool 37, 1933; 50 J. Fortuna works, 1953
  • Gabriele Kreuzberger, factory buildings in Stuttgart, their development from the middle of the 19th century to the First World War , Klett-Cotta 1993, ISBN 3-608-91629-6