Running (company)

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Laufen Bathrooms AG

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1892
Seat Laufen , Switzerland
management Antonio Linares (Senior Managing Director), Klaus Schneider
( Chairman of the Board )
Number of employees 2,500
sales 250 million euros
Branch Sanitary engineering, ceramics
Website www.lauf.com

The Laufen Group (under the Laufen Bathrooms AG holding company ), based in Laufen, is an international Swiss manufacturer of sanitary ceramics , bathroom furniture, bathtubs, complete bathrooms and bathroom accessories. The group has been part of the Spanish Roca group since 1999 . Laufen employs around 2,500 people worldwide and has sales offices in 44 countries as well as five production sites in Switzerland, Austria and the Czech Republic.

history

founding

The company was founded on July 4, 1892 as a pottery factory in Laufen, Switzerland (then canton Bern , today canton Basel-Landschaft ) as a Swiss stock corporation . The company was founded by the manufacturer Joseph Gerster-Roth together with Johann Spielmann and Albert Borer. Gerster-Roth became the first managing director and director of the new company. Since 1925, Keramik Laufen AG has been the first local company to produce ceramics for the Swiss sanitary ware market. The Swiss subsidiary of the group still operates under the name of Keramik Laufen AG today.

Expansion and growth

Laufen laid the foundation for internationalization in 1952 when it took over a tile factory in Brazil. In 1967, with Wilhelmsburg and Gmunden in Austria, two more production sites came to the Laufen Group. Laufen expanded in the 1990s, including two production sites in the Czech Republic and a factory in Bulgaria. The aggressive expansion with 18 acquisitions in six years led to a deep corporate crisis at the end of the 1990s, which was countered with a profound restructuring in 1998/99 and the subsequent sale of the company by the owner family to the Spanish Roca group in 1999.

Laufen is currently mainly producing ceramic parts for the bathroom at a total of seven production sites in Central Europe. Through the merger with Roca Sanitario in 1999, the company became part of the Roca Group, which it claims to be the largest manufacturer of bathroom ceramics in the world. In 2006 Laufen invested in a logistics center and a high-bay warehouse at its headquarters. In 2009 the Laufen Forum was built, an exhibition, customer and visitor center in Laufener Wahlenstrasse.

Innovation and design

In 1985 the company introduced ceramic high-pressure casting, a process that significantly accelerates the production processes for sanitary ceramics. This casting process was developed for high production output and is now used under license by many companies in the ceramic industry . The classic plaster mold is replaced by a porous plastic mold. The slip is injected at high pressure and drained by filtration .

Complete bathrooms are created in collaboration with designers and architects such as Stefano Giovannoni (Il Bagno Alessi one), Ludovica and Roberto Palomba (Palomba Collection), Wiel Arets (Il Bagno Alessi dot), Hartmut Esslinger (Frog Design), Phoenix Design (Stuttgart) and others -Concepts.

In 2013, Laufen introduced Saphirkeramik, a new type of ceramic material in the bathroom. Corundum is added to the ceramic mass , which makes the shards harder - similar to the glasses of wristwatches (sapphire glass) . The ceramic variant allows products with thin walls and narrow radii, also saves material and is therefore more environmentally friendly.

Running in Germany

Roca GmbH sells the Laufen brand in Germany. The company is based in Staudt in the Westerwald.

Running in Austria

Notice board in the Gmunden museum

Laufen operates under the name Laufen Austria AG in Austria. The company is based in Wilhelmsburg in Lower Austria. It employs around 350 people. Long after the takeover by the Laufen Group in 1967, the company name ÖSPAG (Österreichische Sanitär-, Keramik- und Porzellan-Industrie AG) was retained. The traditional manufacturer of sanitary ware was founded in 1795 to produce English earthenware.

Thanks to its longstanding association with the “ceramic town of Gmunden ”, where the company also produces, it supports the Klo & So Sanitary Museum .

Production sites

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BitSign GmbH: Antonio Linares appointed Senior Managing Director of Laufen. Retrieved February 14, 2020 .
  2. ↑ A REVOLUTION IN CERAMICS. Retrieved February 14, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Portrait | LAUFEN Bathrooms. Retrieved February 14, 2020 .
  4. ↑ http://www.baselland.ch/PA_6190.313541.0.html
  5. ↑ On the diversity of ceramics: Festschrift 100 Years of Ceramics Laufen. (around 1992)
  6. ↑ Article “Uncertainty about ceramics is over”, FUW of September 1, 1999
  7. ↑ http://www.architonic.com/de/ntsht/neue-perspektiven-saphirkeramik-revolutioniert-die-sanitaereinrichtungen/7000808