Lauda Dr. R. Wobser
| LAUDA Dr. R. Wobser GmbH & Co. KG
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| legal form | GmbH & Co. KG |
| founding | March 1, 1956 |
| Seat | Lauda-Koenigshofen , Baden-Wuerttemberg |
| management | Gunther Wobser, Marc Stricker, Mario Englert |
| Number of employees | 510 (2019) |
| sales | approx. 90 million euros (2019) |
| Branch | Heating and cooling technology |
| Website | www.lauda.de |
The Lauda Dr. R. Wobser GmbH & Co. KG , based in Lauda-Königshofen, is the world's leading manufacturer of temperature control devices and systems. The products include a. Thermostats , circulation coolers, process cooling and secondary circuit systems, viscometers and tensiometers .
history
Rudolf Wobser, originally technical director and chief designer of the GDR VEB test equipment factory from Medingen near Dresden , fled to the West in August 1955. In Lauda, now part of Lauda-Königshofen, he found the support he needed. On March 1, 1956, Wobser and two partners founded the LAUDA Dr. R. Wobser KG with initial capital of DM 92,500.
After initial attempts in the early days of the company to earn money in the course of the spread of the turntable with suitcase-sized recording devices for lacquer-coated postcards ( Cartavox ), the focus was on core competencies: thermostats and cryostats.
At ACHEMA 1958, Wobser was still known from his time at VEB Prüfgerätewerk. An exclusive sales contract with a Dutch partner was concluded at this fair . In particular, the innovation of the modular principle for temperature control baths, through which the actual bath and the control element are separated and on the one hand the control element was not exposed to heat and vapors, and on the other hand the temperature control of dangerous substances could also be controlled from a safe distance, was presented.
At the beginning of the 1960s, the family business was able to expand and by 1963 already employed 50 people. In order to ensure the supply of skilled workers, a separate training workshop was established. In 1964, products for industry and technical centers were added to the product range. Initially in cooperation with Bayer AG , an important customer at the time, production in the measurement technology area was expanded to include film scales and tensiometers. The younger son, Gerhard Wobser , ran his own small development laboratory while studying physics in Stuttgart. New technologies with control elements based on semiconductors and pulsed temperature adjustment were created here. Tabletop cryostats opened up new markets due to their smaller footprint. The development of cooling systems for microtomes also fell during this time and was an important pillar of the company for the next 25 years.
In 1976 the first digital temperature sensors were offered for retrofitting. In 1982, the world's first microprocessor thermostat, the KP20 , was presented at ACHEMA , which thanks to a new digital display also offered a temperature display to a thousandth of a degree Celsius. The older digital devices could now be controlled via connected computers. In the field of cryostats, LAUDA developed proportional cooling, which made energy-intensive counter-heating with maximum cooling superfluous. At the same time, a separate sales network was set up together with other companies. In the course of the 1980s, sales doubled. In 1988 the company was converted into a GmbH & Co. KG with the founder's two sons as managing directors. The name “Messgerätewerk” was dropped and the place name Lauda was registered as a brand name.
Various factors, including the discontinuation of microtome cooling technology due to the merger of the customer and the Gulf War, led to a drop in sales in the early 1990s, which forced the company to make massive restrictions, as losses were made for the first time in 1991. The turning point was finally achieved through the development of new simple devices in the field of circulation coolers, which allowed particularly low-cost production and enabled increased sales through higher quantities. In 1994 the thermostats produced by the company were involved in the discovery of the elements 110 ( Darmstadtium ) and 111 ( Roentgenium ) by the Society for Heavy Ion Research . In 1996 the turning point was made again. New products supported the upward trend: A new series allowed operation without external cooling, as the energy input is kept to a minimum.
In 2000, new special process thermostats for process technology were offered to close the gap between laboratory and large-scale systems. A new technology has been patented for industrial systems that enables a temperature range of −150 to +400 ° C. In 2003 Karlheinz Wobser left the company for reasons of age. His brother bought his shares and sold a part to his son Gunther Wobser, who had been with the company since 1997 and who in turn was appointed managing director. In 2005 the company opened its own foreign subsidiary for the first time, LAUDA France , which was followed in 2006 by LAUDA Wostok in Moscow. LAUDA Singapore was founded in 2007 and LAUDA America-Latina , LAUDA China and LAUDA-Brinkmann in the USA followed in 2008 . With the new production hall with office building and an investment volume of around 3 million euros, the heating and cooling systems business unit gained space for further growth. With effect from April 1, 2010, Gerhard Wobser resigned from his position as managing partner after 39 years with the company and switched to the advisory board. In the same year LAUDA celebrated its most successful business year to date. Group sales grew by almost 40 percent to around 56 million euros and the number of employees exceeded the 300 mark for the first time.
In January 2011 the company bought the industrial circulation cooler business of the American filter manufacturer Donaldson. The former Donaldson company Ultrafilter SL in Terrassa , Spain, was founded in 1966 and today, under the company name LAUDA Ultracool, manufactures industrial circulation chillers with a cooling capacity of up to 500 kilowatts with around 40 employees. It supplies major global manufacturers of z. B. printing machines, injection molding systems, laser processing devices and sorting machines. In addition, a new building project with an investment volume of over 6 million euros at the Lauda-Königshofen location was decided in the same year. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on December 15, 2011, and the new logistics center and the new production hall for temperature control units have meanwhile been moved into. In 2013 LAUDA opened another development and production site in Shanghai , China, and together with the sales company located in the same building, it employs around 30 people. In September 2014, the expanding family company acquired the US manufacturer of thermoelectric temperature control devices based on the Peltier effect, Noah Precision, based in Vancouver / Washington , which will be operating under the name LAUDA-Noah from October 1, 2014. The acquisition of GFL Gesellschaft für Labortechnik mbH was announced in December 2018. GFL employs 50 people at the Burgwedel site . With this takeover, LAUDA increases sales to around 90 million euros and the number of employees to 500.
Competitor
LAUDA's most important competitors include Thermo Fisher Scientific (HAAKE), Huber Kältemaschinenbau and Julabo .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ lauda.de: company data
- ↑ Ulrike Bauer, Cora Finner, Roland Grosse Holtforth and others: Lexicon of German world market leaders. The premier class of German companies in words and pictures . Ed .: Florian Langenscheidt , Bernd Venohr . GABAL / Dt. Standards-Ed., Offenbach / Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-86936-221-2 .
Coordinates: 49 ° 34 '30 " N , 9 ° 42' 3.3" E