Rhein-Nadel automation
| Rhein-Nadel Automation (RNA) | |
|---|---|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1898 |
| Seat | Aachen |
| management | Christopher Pavel |
| Number of employees | approx. 330 |
| sales | 44 million |
| Branch | mechanical engineering |
| Website | https://www.rna.de/ |
The Rhein-needle Automation GmbH (RNA) is a German engineering company headquartered in Aachen , Reichsweg 19-23, in Aachener Ostviertel . The family-run company developed in 1972 from the Rheinische Nadelfabrik AG , founded in 1898 , which was one of the largest needle manufacturers in the world with around 2000 employees in the early 1920s. Due to the gradual decline of the traditional Aachen needle industry from the middle of the 20th century, which led to the discontinuation of machine needle production at Rhein-Nadel in 2004, the company specialized in the areas of automation and feeding technology , in which it is meanwhile to belongs to the market leaders.
The former main building of the needle factory, which was closed in 2004 and was built in 1924 according to plans by Josef Pirlet , was sold to the city of Aachen between 2010 and 2012, which converted it into the "House of Identity and Integration" (colloquially known as the "needle factory"). It then housed the Aachen City Archives, the Aachen City Sports Association's office and the Aachen municipal integration center as well as several socio-educational associations and institutions.
history
Since the late Middle Ages, needle production has been one of the most influential and flourishing commercial enterprises in Aachen, alongside the cloth making trade, and the needles have organized themselves in their own guild. In the 19th century in particular, there were a large number of new foundations and one of these was the needleworks opened by Hermann Josef Neuss in 1830 on the Pletschmühle in front of the Adalbertstor . On April 5, 1898, his son Hubert Friedrich (Fritz) converted this family business, which he ran with one of his brothers and two sons, into a stock corporation and from then on operated as Rheinische Nadelfabriken AG . At that time there were 34 needle factories in Aachen with more than 4,000 employees and the Rhine needle had to assert itself in this mixed situation. Therefore, from 1906, the company also invested in the bicycle and automobile manufacturer Falke & Co. in Mönchengladbach , but was still mainly responsible for the production and sale of sewing, pin and badge needles as well as household sewing machine needles.
With that, however, Rheinnadel took over and in 1911 the banks forced the external entrepreneur Walter Hesse to head the company. His concept was to reduce production overcapacity through takeovers, to maintain brands, to take over machines and to cut staff. During the First World War , Rheinnadel took over numerous other needle factories, including the Burtscheider company Philipp Heinrich, Pastors Söhne and later the Thuringian company Wolff, Knippenberg & Co in Ichtershausen . From 1919 the company took over shares in the Fafnir works in Aachen and took over the production of spokes and nipples there. This is the first time the company has expanded its product range outside of needle manufacture. Hesse's restructuring concept worked and the most successful years were again with more than 2000 employees.
In 1926 the company moved to Aachener Reichsweg after the new building designed by Josef Pirlet had been completed there. By 1939 Rheinnadel was able to expand by 14 divisions for the production of different types of needles, zippers, motorcycle wreaths, hair clippers and packaging tapes. During the Second World War , most of the production had to be stopped or outsourced. Rheinnadel mainly relocated its machines to Eupen in Belgium , where they were withdrawn by the Belgian government towards the end of the war and transferred to the wire manufacturer Bekaert (BEKA).
In 1945 Hesse received permission from the American military government in Aachen to rebuild his production facilities in Aachen and at the same time renamed his company Rheinische Nadelfabriken GmbH . Ten years later, the brothers Herbert and Horst Pavel took over the company, with Herbert Pavel becoming the managing partner. Further acquisitions and new investments followed, as well as the takeover of the long-established company Hugo Heusch & Co , in which Laurenz Jecker's needle factory had already been absorbed . After the company had increasingly invested in the mechanical engineering sector, it was renamed Rheinnadel Maschinenbau again in 1968 . In 1972, Klaus Pavel , son of Herbert Pavel, took over his position as managing partner and gave the company the name Rhein-Nadel Automation GmbH, which is still in existence today .
Due to the gradual decline of the traditional Aachen needle industry, Pavel completed the structural change that his father had already initiated in the following years and specialized his company primarily in the field of feeding technology, which enabled the company to become one of the market leaders in the industry. Several takeovers of mechanical engineering companies as well as the establishment of subsidiaries and branches in Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain and Spain followed. Although he had taken over several needle factories until 1994, including BEKA from Eupen and Lammertz from Aachen, in 2003 Pavel closed the last remaining needle production division at Rhein-Nadel and thus the last corresponding production facility in the city of Aachen. A year later, the Singer special needle factory in Würselen near Aachen ended its production and only William Prym in neighboring Stolberg continued to maintain part of the needle production in the Aachen area.
From then on, Rhein-Nadel concentrated exclusively on the areas of automation and feeding technology and opened up new markets in East Asia and Eastern Europe. At the beginning of 2014, Klaus Pavel's son Christopher Pavel took over the management in the third generation. He initially invested in the expansion of the company premises and in the construction of a new main building as well as a new production hall and followed the corporate philosophy of his father.
Pavel sold the former main building for needle manufacture, now no longer required and under monument protection , to the city of Aachen, which converted the complex into an attractive socio-educational and cultural district center and urban office building. The main user is the Aachen City Archive, which was able to billet there with its holdings under contemporary conditions, as the requirements at the previous location in the Aachen grass house were no longer met.
Subsidiaries, branches and orientations
At the headquarters in Aachen and the two external works in Lüdenscheid and Ergolding , which were set up in the 1980s , the main focus is on the development and construction of standard feeding systems, flexible linear high-performance feeding systems and flexible feeding systems with integrated robot technology . In line with this, the subsidiaries are structured as follows:
- HSH in Herzogenbuchsee in the canton of Bern in Switzerland was founded in the 1980s. It focuses on the production of multi-lane sorting systems and large devices;
- RNA-UK in Birmingham in the United Kingdom was also founded in the 1980s. It primarily develops feeding technology apart from vibration technology , such as bag feeders, centrifuges or tablet inspection systems using vibratory spiral conveyors, with which up to 1000 tablets per minute can be examined and sorted;
- Vibrant in Barcelona , Spain was acquired in the 1990s and acquired specialist expertise in packaging applications.
- PSA in Schwäbisch Hall was founded in 2011 and is responsible for feeding systems for the pharmaceutical industry .
In addition, almost twenty authorized dealers worldwide work as cooperation partners with RNA as well as the RNA Sales Office in Milan , Italy .
All of the company's systems are certified in accordance with DIN EN ISO 9001: 2008, CSA Certificate of Compliance Class 3882 01 - Conveyors and Class 3882 81 - Conveyors US standards .
literature
- Wolfgang Müller: Aachen through the ages. The rise, existence and decline of the Aachen needle industry . Aachen 2012 (PDF; 274 KB).
Web links
- Official website of the company
- From the Reichsweg to the whole world - Rheinische needle factories . Archives of the month April 2016 from the Aachen City Archives
- The history of the needles . Multiple mentions of the Aachen needle industry in the text
Individual evidence
- ↑ Needle factory . Rubric on the website of the city of Aachen.
- ↑ Carolin Cremer-Kruff: Rhein-Nadel Automation: Clear commitment to the Aachen location . In: Aachener Zeitung from March 1, 2016.
- ↑ The PPE - targeted solutions for demanding tasks! ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The 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. . PSA Zuführtechnik GmbH.
