Voith (company)

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Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA

logo
legal form Limited Liability Company & Compagnie Kommanditgesellschaft auf Aktien
founding 1867
Seat Headquarters in Heidenheim an der Brenz , locations in over 60 countries
management
Number of employees 19,410 (2017)
sales 4.3 billion euros (2017)
Branch mechanical engineering
Website voith.com

The Voith Group [ fɔʏ̯t ] is a machine manufacturer for the paper industry , technical equipment for hydropower plants as well as drive and braking systems. The family company , founded in 1867, operates worldwide and has its headquarters in Heidenheim an der Brenz .

history

Basics for industrial paper production

Johann Matthäus Voith took over his father's locksmith's workshop in Heidenheim in 1825 with five employees and mainly carried out repair work on water wheels and paper mills.

Around 1830, over 600 workers were working in 15 factories in Heidenheim, which were mainly textile factories founded by wealthy merchants and publishers. The necessary maintenance of the expensive machines offered a number of craft businesses income opportunities, especially the locksmiths of the then still small town. As early as 1830, Johann Matthäus Voith and his company participated in the construction of a paper machine by Johann Jakob Widmann from Heilbronn.

Voith developed the first wood grinder based on Friedrich Gottlob Keller's patent . In doing so, he laid the foundations for the industrial company Voith. As the company grew, so did the owners' private wealth . According to a local council protocol of September 28, 1849, Johann Matthäus Voith's assets amounted to more than 7,000 florins in 1849, eight years later it was already estimated at 15,000 florins. In 1850 Johann Matthäus Voith was called to the local council, in 1855 he received one from nine other Heidenheim entrepreneurs Scholarship for the trip to the world exhibition in Paris.

Number of employees
year
  		Employee
 
1825 5
1853 7th
1867 about 35

After 1850, the company, which had previously specialized in repairs - like other Heidenheim fitters - increasingly began to rebuild a wide variety of machines imported from England. What the customers just ordered was produced. The move from a craft business to a machine factory was made through contracts for the manufacture of machines for the paper manufacturer Heinrich Voelter . Since 1856 it has been a mechanical wood grinder (based on a patent originally sold by Friedrich Gottlob Keller to Voelter's father in 1846 , which Friedrich Voith was to develop further in 1868 and apply for a new one himself), and since 1861 it has been refining equipment for shredding coarse wood splinters. This was accompanied by an early specialization in machines for the manufacture of paper and wood pulp . In 1863 the company was expanded to include a new locksmith's shop, which was equipped with one of the few steam engines in Heidenheim. Machines were built from cast iron until the development of cast steel. However, transporting it was difficult and so they built their own foundry. There are no figures on sales and profit development, but the company's spatial expansion is used as evidence of good economic development. In 1863, Friedrich Voith bought part of a Lohmühle and set up the first research institute for the production of wood pulp there.

After Voelter's paper factory had been destroyed by fire in 1864, the first major order for the production of eight Dutch paper mills came about , which required another machine house to be added. The name was changed from the simple Mechanicus Voith to Mechanische Werkstätte und Eisengießerei .

Industrial companies

Assembly of giant Voith spiral turbines for an output of 3677 kW, which were intended for the Nore power plant in Norway , in November 1928

January 1, 1867 is the official founding day of JM Voith. At that time about 35 employees were working in the company. On January 1, 1867, the only son of 63-year-old Johann Matthäus Voith, 26-year-old Friedrich Voith, took over the business as the sole owner. Under him, his father's workshop quickly became a larger company and specialized in the areas of paper machine and waterwheel and turbine construction. In 1869 Voith received the first patent for a wood grinder with rack pressure. On November 18, 1869, an application was made to the Royal Higher Regional Court for entry in the commercial register and the company was renamed the machine factory and iron foundry of JM Voith in Heidenheim .

The first subsidiary, the JM Voith machine factory in St. Pölten, opened in 1904 around 1910

In 1871 the roughly eight-year-old foundry was expanded, which in the same year was in the middle of all Württemberg foundries with an annual production of 240 tons and an average workforce of 19 workers per day. In 1880 it was 380 tons with an average of 34 workers, in 1890 1401 tons with 106 workers and in 1900 it was 3098 tons with 220 workers. At the turn of the century, the foundry had risen from midfield to become the second largest foundry in Württemberg.

The company's product areas - paper machines and pulp technology - have been expanded to include another line of business. With the start of water turbine construction with a 100 HP Henschel-Jonval turbine, turbines were now also part of the Voith product range. However, different information can be found in the sources on the figures in question. The reason for this new production division was probably that the Heidenheim companies in Württemberg, which was poor in iron and carbonless, suffered from a lack of propulsion energy and until well into the 19th century the hydropower obtained from the Brenz remained their most important energy supplier. Friedrich Voith had already been confronted with the problem of generating energy through hydropower during his training, and since 1873, in collaboration with Wilhelm von Kankelwitz (1831–1892), mechanical engineering professor at the Stuttgart Polytechnic, further developed Francis turbines were sold to industrial companies in Heidenheim .

At the World Exhibition in Vienna in 1873 , Friedrich Voith and Heinrich Voelter presented the Voith grinder. They received the Medal of Progress for their development. In 1879, the first automatic speed controller for turbines was built based on the designs of Voith engineer Adolf Pfarr . The first turbines were originally intended for the mechanical drive of machines. With electrification, however, water turbines were mainly used to generate electricity.

In 1881 Voith manufactured the first complete Voith PM1 paper machine with a wire width of 2.35 meters for Raithelhuber, Bezner & Cie. in Gemmrigheim . In 1886 the first office building was built. In 1887 a canteen was built, in 1889 another large assembly hall, which enlarged the factory area from 5090 m² to 9590 m². In 1896 a new machine hall for turbine construction was put into operation, which was the first building to the right of the Brenz.

In 1890 Voith began delivering high-pressure free jet turbines . In the same year Friedrich Voith was appointed councilor of commerce by King Karl I of Württemberg . In 1892 King Wilhelm II of Württemberg visited Friedrich Voith's private house. His machine factory was the second largest company in Heidenheim, and the king visited four companies in Heidenheim. In 1892 the company had 330 employees, making it one of the largest companies in the Kingdom of Württemberg .

In other centers of industrialization there were numerous social conflicts between companies and workers at this time. The fact that this was not the case in the large Heidenheim companies is attributed to various causes. This is what research traditionally calls close interrelationships between trade and agriculture and the fact that Heidenheim was only a small town. Furthermore, it is assumed that the high proportion of working women and children in the textile industry could have been a factor in the fact that social democracy and trade unions only slowly gained a foothold in Heidenheim. Even so, the workers began to organize. In 1890 an office of the German Metalworkers' Association was opened in Heidenheim and a local SPD association was founded. For 1904, between 80 and 100 union members were assumed. In the same year, a so-called trade union cartel was founded to connect the various unions that had arisen up to that point (the printers , woodworkers, construction workers and factory workers).

From 1893, the JM Voith company began building Pelton turbines. For Friedrich Voith, the manufacture of the free jet turbines was a further step in economic and technological terms. For him, contact with science and research was essential. In 1903 Voith received an order to build the largest turbines in the world: twelve Francis turbines with 12,000 hp each for the power plants at Niagara Falls in the USA and Canada. As a result, Voith's turbine sector expanded with the construction of new power plants.

In 1904 the 50th paper machine left the Heidenheim plant, in 1913 the 150th. The vibratory sorter, which was able to sort the coarse splinters produced by the grinding machine, was also successful. Since 1902 it has been replaced by a new centrifugal process.

In 1904 the first subsidiary was founded in St. Pölten , Austria (see Voith Austria Holding ), the management of which was transferred to Walther Voith until 1944. In 1906 the factory premises were connected to the Heidenheim train station by an industrial railway.

After Friedrich's eldest son had been managing the factory in Austria since 1904, the second oldest, Hermann, was accepted into the management in 1906. In general, the previously valid practical knowledge was now increasingly being replaced by theoretical knowledge acquired in scientific training, so Voith also built a test station for turbines in Hermaringen in 1907 and another on the Brunnenmühle in 1908. In the same year, the first hydraulic research institute, Brunnenmühle, started operations in Heidenheim, marking another milestone in the company's development. With the research facility, Voith is building Germany's first pumped storage plant. The elevated tank of the system was on the Heidenheimer Schlossberg and had a capacity of 8000 m 3 . The tests of the turbines were carried out almost 100 m deeper in the Brunnenmühle in the Brenz valley.

The rapidly increasing number of employees at Voith is seen as one of the main reasons why there were already 800 union members in Heidenheim in 1908. If one speaks of a previously good relationship between workers and manufacturers in Heidenheim, this changed with the establishment of the German Metalworkers' Association. For the fact that the conflicts at Voith began to pile up before the First World War, the company's management practice is more responsible than - as is also claimed - the metalworkers' association functionary Sebastian Geiger.

In 1910 a building was built for a model hall and a fettling shop, and in 1911 a new foundry. In 1911 Voith built the fastest and widest paper machine for rotary printing paper at its Austrian location in St. Pölten . In 1912, Friedrich transformed the company into a general partnership and endorsed the two sons much of his shares. Friedrich Voith left behind a flourishing company and his sons shared management responsibilities. Walther was in charge of the St. Pölten location, Hermann was in charge of commercial matters at the Heidenheim headquarters and Hanns was in charge of the technical department.

Friedrich Voith died in 1913 and only a month later the third son, Hanns, was accepted into the management. In 1913 the company employed over 3000 people in Heidenheim and St. Pölten. In the same year Voith built the largest paper machine for newspaper printing to date with a wire width of 5.2 meters for Holmen Bruks in Hallstavik, Sweden.

The balance sheet at the end of the 1912/1913 financial year is retained in Friedrich Voith's estate. The balance sheet total of JM Voith in Heidenheim was around 15.9 million marks on July 1, 1913, that of JM Voith in St. Pölten around 4.4 million crowns or 3.8 million marks. The liabilities from loans amounted to around 7.2 million marks in Heidenheim and around 2.4 million marks in St. Pölten. The contributions of the open and silent partners in Heidenheim totaled 7.3 million marks. As the company grew, so did the owners' private wealth . According to a local council protocol of September 28, 1849, Johann Matthäus Voith's assets amounted to over 7,000 guilders in 1849  , eight years later it was already estimated at 15,000 guilders. In 1909 Friedrich Voith, as a physical person, taxed a private income of 913,405 marks in Württemberg and paid 5% of that, namely 45,670 marks in taxes.

Interwar period

After the First World War , the brothers decided to strategically expand the company and set up the drive technology sector. In 1922 Voith began manufacturing gearboxes; Voith benefited from the long-standing knowledge of fluid dynamics from turbine construction . The breakthrough came with the help of Hermann Föttinger and his invention of hydrodynamic power transmission. In the same year the first Kaplan turbine, named after its inventor Viktor Kaplan , left the Voith factory.

In 1927, the engineer Ernst Schneider and the Voith company in Sankt Pölten applied for a patent for the Voith Schneider propeller , which had been developed the year before based on the plans of the Viennese engineer. The special thing about it: the ship's propulsion system, which also takes over control, allows ships to be maneuverable that was previously impossible. Voith thus started another product area that made the Voith name known worldwide over the next few decades. This invention by the Viennese engineer Ernst Schneider was further developed at Voith.

In 1929 Voith developed the first hydrodynamic couplings according to Föttinger , which were used in the Koepchenwerk , a pumped storage power plant in Herdecke . New drives for rail and road vehicles followed . The company also made a name for itself with hydrodynamic gears and couplings for industrial systems.

After the successful voyage of the test boat “Torqueo”, which was equipped for the first time with a Voith-Schneider propeller, the first Voith-Schneider propeller use for passenger traffic in Venice's narrow canals began in Italy in 1937 . At the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris, Voith was awarded the Grand Prix three times. Voith-Schneider propellers and Voith turbo transmissions were exhibited. A year later, two fire boats with VSP went into operation on the Seine in Paris .

In 1939 the Second World War began , which deprived Voith of its business basis. Foreign business came to a standstill. The overall production decreased drastically, especially the paper machine construction was on the floor. 600 of the 4,000 employees had died in the war or were missing.

After Hermann Voith's death in 1942, Hanns Voith took over the overall management of the Voith plant in Heidenheim. On April 24, 1945, the US Army occupied Heidenheim and issued an ultimatum that the city had to be surrendered within an hour. Since the deputy mayor could not be found, Hanns Voith personally carried out the peaceful handover of the city to the Americans.

Reconstruction and internationalization

Hanns Voith and Hugo Rupf brought the Voith company to bloom again after the Second World War. The Voith turbine delivery to Norway in 1947 was the first post-war foreign order in Baden-Württemberg. Other important orders included the delivery of eight Voith Schneider propellers for United Africa Co. in 1949 as well as 46 Voith turbo transmissions to Brazil and a paper machine to Holland in 1951. In 1951, the first Voith water tractor "Biene" was also launched Stack.

The three-converter transmission for multi-part long-distance railcars and the Diwabus transmission led Voith to the forefront of technical development in 1952. In 1953 the development and construction of paper machines reached a new high point. Voith built the fastest paper machine for the production of newsprint in Europe for Feldmühle AG . With a speed of 600 m / min, it achieved a production output of 200 tons per day.

In 1956 Voith opened a branch in Crailsheim and produced turbo couplings there. In the same year Voith exported the first turbo transmission to the United States. In 1957 Hugo Rupf became managing director at the side of Hanns Voith. Hugo Rupf was the first company manager who did not belong to the Voith family. At the World Exhibition in Brussels in 1958, Voith received a gold medal for the first turbo transmissions for diesel-hydraulic locomotive drives for the German Federal Railroad.

In the 1960s Voith grew into an internationally operating group. Voith was one of the pioneers in paper recycling. Together with the Palm and Haindl paper mills, the company developed a new flotation deinking process for recovering paper pulp from waste paper. This process made it possible to remove the printing inks from waste paper and produce new, high-quality paper. In 1961 Voith delivered the largest newsprint machine in Europe to date with a wire width of 8.3 meters to the publishing house Ahlström in Warkaus, Finland. Meanwhile, the first Voith Turbo variable speed clutch was developed in Crailsheim.

In 1962, the company acquired two spiral turbines , four storage pumps and two pump turbines in what was then Europe's largest pumped storage plant in Vianden, Luxembourg . The expansion in production capacities was necessary for the expansion of the drive technology. In 1963 the plant in Garching near Munich started producing automatic transmissions for buses. In 1964 Voith established a branch in São Paulo , Brazil.

Between 1962 and 1966 there were investments in the Indian Utkal Machinery and in Talleres de Tolosa in Spain, the takeover of the machine and paper machine manufacturer Dörries and the establishment of sales companies in Great Britain and France . In 1966 Voith delivered the widest newspaper printing paper machine in the world to Sweden. This was followed by an order from the USA for two of the largest free jet turbines in the world with an output of 226,000 hp. The four Francis turbines that Voith delivered to Estreito in Brazil were just as powerful.

In the 1970s, Voith developed the Zentrimatic coupling and the Voith retarder for buses and trucks. In 1974 Voith founded a company in Appleton (Wisconsin) and in the same year took over the majority of "Morden Machines" in Portland (Oregon) . Two years later, the first subsidiary was founded in Japan . After Hanns Voith's death, Hugo Rupf took over the chairmanship of the management in 1971 . From 1973 he headed the company as chairman of the supervisory board.

Acquisitions and Joint Ventures

With the takeover of Appleton Mills in 1983, Voith began entering clothing technology. In 1986, Voith also took over the hydro business from US market leader Allis-Chalmers in York , Pennsylvania. Within a few years, the number of employees in the USA rose from almost 200 to over 1,300. In 1985 Voith opened a production facility in Hyderabad, India . At the beginning of the 1990s, different standpoints of the family lines led to the real division of the company. The family line Hermann Voith left and received a large part of the financial investments and the machine tool construction division. The heirs of Hanns Voith kept the core businesses of paper machines, clothing, drive technology, turbine and ship technology. The paralyzing stalemate in the group of shareholders was eliminated through the division of real estate. At Voith, the focus of expansion shifted to the Far East, with a focus on China . In 1994 Voith fitted the world's largest pumped storage power plant, Guangzhou II, with turbines. Two years later, Voith received the order to supply the world's largest fine paper machine to Gold East Paper in Dagang . In 1996, new production facilities were opened in Kunshan and Liaoyang . Under the leadership of Michael Rogowski , who had been spokesman for the management since 1986, the parent company principle was replaced by a holding structure with independent corporate divisions. Further milestones were the introduction of the R 115 integration retarder in 1988 and the commissioning of Europe's largest deinking plant in Schongau in 1989. In 1994, Voith and the Swiss Sulzer Group combined their paper technology activities to form Voith-Sulzer Papertec; with this came the paper activities of the Krefeld Kleinewefers group, which Sulzer had only acquired in 1992. 1998 Voith takes over the shares from Sulzer. In 1999 Voith acquired the paper technology business units of the British company Scapa, making it one of the leading companies in clothing technology. In 2000, Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation , a joint venture between the two leading manufacturers of turbine and generator technology, was established. At the top of the group, Michael Rogowski handed over operational responsibility to Hermut Kormann in 2000 . Under his leadership, the group has since grown into a global corporation with 4 billion euros in incoming orders and 34,000 employees.

At the end of 2001 Voith took over Jagenberg Papiertechnik in Neuss through Voith Paper Holding from Jagenberg, to which the product areas of winder, sheeter and paper coating machines belonged, as well as its manufacturing subsidiary Jagenberg Maschinenbau and its foreign subsidiaries Jagenberg Inc. Enfield in the USA and Basagoitia in Tolosa, Spain . In 2002, the subsidiary in Austria returned to the Group as Voith Austria Holding AG . In 1945 it was incorporated into the network of USIA companies as German property by Soviet troops . After the state treaty in 1955, it was briefly an Austrian state enterprise before Voith was able to take back its shares over the years. Voith developed particularly in the area of ​​technical industrial services. With a controlling stake in DIW Deutsche Industriewartung from Stuttgart, the foundation stone is laid for the Voith Industrial Services division. In the following years, this division grew and further acquisitions were made such as B. the Imo Hüther Group, the US American Premier Group and Hörmann Industrietechnik. At the end of May 2005, Voith Industrial Services expanded its leading position in the market for technical services and acquired the American Premier Group. In November 2008 Voith Hydro took over the Austrian small hydropower plant company Kössler based in St. Georgen.

In May 2006 in Heidenheim which opened paper research center Voith Paper Technology Center. In Scotland , the Wavegen subsidiary operated the world's first wave power plant that feeds electricity into a network. Research activities in Inverness ceased in 2013. In 2008 Voith celebrated the 100th anniversary of the “Brunnenmühle” in Heidenheim with 200 customers and partners from all over the world, which had previously been modernized with an investment of more than 20 million euros. The "Brunnenmühle" is the global research and development center for hydropower technology at Voith Hydro and one of the most modern test centers for hydropower components worldwide. Around 300 engineers work not only at the headquarters in Heidenheim, but also at four other locations: in São Paulo, Brazil; in York, Pennsylvania, USA; in Noida, India; and in Västerås, Sweden. In the "Brunnenmühle" u. a. Generators, turbines, control technology and shut-off valves developed. At Shipbuilding, Machinery & Marine Technology 2010, Voith Turbo and another competitor presented a ring propeller for the shipping industry for the first time . The Voith Maxima, the most powerful single-engine diesel-hydraulic locomotive in the world, was developed in an 18-month construction period . The Voith Gravita shunting locomotive has also been in use in large numbers at Deutsche Bahn since 2010 . In the same year, Voith celebrated the official opening of its new production and service center for the paper industry in Asia, Voith Paper City, in Kunshan, China .

In the summer of 2010, the world's first wave power plant went into commercial operation in Mutriku on the Basque coast . Voith supplied the equipment for the 16 Wells turbine units for the Spanish energy supplier Ente Vasco de la Energia (EVE) . They have a total output of 300 kilowatts and produce enough electricity for 250 households. With the "oscillating water column" technique used in Mutriku, the turbines do not come into contact with water. Instead, a column of air is set in motion that drives the machines. The kinetic energy of ocean currents is converted into electrical energy with the help of three-blade horizontal-axis turbines that flow around freely. Physically, such ocean current turbines are similar to wind power turbines. After the successful completion and intensive evaluation of the one-year test run in a model power plant near the South Korean island of Jindo , Voith consistently continued the tidal current program with the construction of a one-megawatt machine on a 1: 1 scale and developed the new low-maintenance current turbine technology at the European Marine Energy Center ( EMEC) in Scotland on to commercial size. Voith built a test turbine at the Heidenheim site, which was installed off the Scottish Orkney island of Eday from 2013 to 2015 .

On October 1, 2010, the previous Voith AG renamed Voith GmbH .

In 2013, the most powerful generator-turbine unit in Voith's history went into operation in the Chinese hydropower plant Xiluodu on the Jinsha River . After a 72-hour test run, Voith handed over the first of a total of three of these machines to the China Three Gorges Corporation . With 784 megawatts, the generator-turbine unit generates more power than that of the largest hydroelectric power plants in the world . After completion, the total output of the three Voith units for Xiluodu will roughly correspond to the most powerful nuclear power plant in Germany in Gundremmingen . At the beginning of 2014 Voith Turbo announced that it would give up building new locomotives. A total of 20 Maxima and 165 Gravita were manufactured in the Kiel plant. The Voith China Training Center was inaugurated in April 2014. The training center in Kunshan (around 80 km north-west of Shanghai) is the company's largest training facility outside of Germany. In the same year, Voith also celebrated the official opening of a new training center in Heidenheim, in which ten apprenticeships from commercial to technical professions are trained every year. The company trains a total of 1,294 apprentices and students worldwide. In February 2015 it was announced that Voith is cutting a total of around 800 jobs in the paper machine division in Germany and Austria, and the Voith Paper locations in Krefeld, Neuwied and St. Pölten will be closed. The sale of the Industrial Services division was completed in 2016. Under the new owner Triton Partners , the business was split into two independent brands: the service business for the automotive sector has been operating as Leadec since 2017, and the division for the process and power plant industry has been called Veltec since then . Also in 2016, a new corporate division was founded with Voith Digital Solutions.

On August 1, 2017, Voith GmbH changed its name to Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA . With over 260 employee and family celebrations at over 160 locations, 2017 was all about the company's 150th anniversary. In the 2017 financial year, the shares in KUKA were completely sold. In the same year Voith took a majority stake in the German digital service provider Ray Sono. In 2018 Voith founded the new joint venture Voith Robotics together with Franka Emika. Voith took a stake in Franka Emika GmbH.

Companies

Voith is represented in around 60 countries around the world with sales, service, production, research and development or administrative locations. The company relied on global business relationships at an early stage: as early as 1903, Voith supplied turbines for a hydropower plant on the American Niagara Falls and for the first Chinese hydropower plant, Shi Long Ba, and in 1923 the group supplied its first paper machine to India. In 1903 the first location abroad was established in St. Pölten, Austria, and ten years later the first subsidiary in the USA. Voith has been present in Brazil and India since the 1960s, and in China since the early 1990s. The focus regions are Brazil, China, Germany, Europe, India and the USA. The group is still 100% family-owned today, but the heirs have been ousted from the most important management positions since the 1960s. The Voith family is one of the richest families in Germany today; the assets of the 40 or so owners of the global corporation rose to 3.2 billion euros in 2012, according to Manager Magazin estimates, but fell to 2.2 billion in 2013.

Voith is committed to education, social issues, sports and culture. Social commitment ranges from financial support for aid and funding projects to corporate volunteering activities. They are realized on the one hand by Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA - partly in cooperation with non-profit organizations - and on the other hand by the Hanns Voith Foundation, established in 1953, and the Fundação Voith , founded in Brazil in 2004 .

Photo of the main entrance to the Voith headquarters.
Main entrance to the Voith headquarters in Heidenheim

With its portfolio of systems, products and industrial services, Voith serves five markets: energy, oil & gas, paper, raw materials and transport & automotive. Voith is represented in over 60 countries worldwide.

Chairman of the Board. has been Toralf Haag since October 24, 2018. The chairman of the supervisory board is Siegfried Russwurm. His deputy is Gerd Schaible, head of the office of the group works council.

The Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA , headquartered in Heidenheim an der Brenz is the operative management holding company of the Group. The management of Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA is responsible for the strategic control and operational management of the group. Advisory and supervisory bodies are the shareholders' committee and the supervisory board. The latter is also the controlling authority vis-à-vis the management. Voith's operational business is bundled into four Group Divisions: Voith Digital Ventures, Voith Hydro, Voith Paper and Voith Turbo. The business of the subsidiaries of the corporate divisions is each managed by a legally independent management company. In addition, Voith held 9.14% in SGL Carbon in Wiesbaden and between December 2014 and July 2016 with 25.1% in KUKA AG . The share in SGL Carbon decreased to just under 3% by December 2016.

Voith Hydro

Voith Hydro, formerly Voith Siemens Hydro Power Generation , is a joint venture between Voith and Siemens (capital share 35%). Voith Hydro is a full-range supplier for equipping hydropower plants of all sizes. The product range extends from generators and turbines to pumps through to measurement, regulation and control technology, automation, modernization of hydropower plants and services such as maintenance and spare parts.

Around a quarter of the energy generated by hydropower worldwide comes from power plants that are operated with Voith technology. The products are used in numerous large hydropower plants, e.g. B. Niagara (1903), Itaipú (1976) or the Three Gorges Dam (2003). Construction of the Belo Monte Dam in the Brazilian part of the Amazon basin , in which Voith Hydro is also involved, began in January 2012. Experts assume that when it is completed it will flood up to 516 km² of land, mostly forest, and displace 20,000 people could.

Voith Paper

Voith Paper is a system supplier for the international paper industry that covers the entire paper manufacturing process. Most of the world's paper production is made on Voith Paper plants.

Voith Paper offers

  • Solutions for processing primary and secondary fibers (e.g. from waste paper)
  • Delivery of entire paper machines for all types of paper, as well as conversion of individual sections of a paper machine
  • Automation solutions for the entire paper production process, such as process and quality control systems, sensors and measuring frames
  • Paper machine clothing (e.g. forming fabrics), press sleeves, rolls and roll covers
  • Services from product service to the optimization of entire systems
  • Technologies for the efficient use of all resources, such as water, energy or fibers e.g. B. by using the residues and wastewater to generate energy
  • Air conditioning and process air systems as well as drying and cooling technology

Voith Turbo

Voith Turbo is a provider of mechanical, hydrodynamic, electrical, hydraulic and electronic drive and braking systems. In the field of hydrodynamic transmission Voith Turbo is the market leader. The main areas of focus in the group are:

Voith Digital Ventures

Voith Digital Ventures is an in -house incubator that bundles automation and IT experience in the fields of hydropower, paper machines and drive technology. This division develops existing and new digital products and services. Voith Digital Ventures was founded in 2016.

  • Automation systems
  • Electric drives and electrification
  • Control solutions
  • Internet of Things solutions
  • Actuators and sensors

Integrated companies:

Research and Development

In the 2018/2019 financial year, Voith invested a total of EUR 222 million in strengthening productivity and in the strategic alignment of the Voith Group. The investment ratio measured in terms of sales reached 5.0% of consolidated sales in the reporting year (2018/2019) (previous year: 5.3%). Of the total R&D expenditure, 14 million euros were capitalized. At the same time, write-downs of EUR 5 million were made on capitalized development items.

Voith's research and development activities are internationally oriented. The focus is on Germany; Centers in America, Asia and the rest of Europe make specialized research and development contributions in the respective corporate divisions. The Tissue Innovation Center in São Paulo , founded in 1994, was reopened in November 2011 after a major renovation. In the 2016/2017 financial year, Voith opened its own Voith Innovation Lab in Berlin to strengthen the innovation process in the company.

literature

  • Matthias Georgi, Tobias Birken, Anna Pezold: Voith: 150 Years of German Economic History , Siedler Verlag 2017, ISBN 978-3-827501-11-0 .
  • 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 journal for corporate history 9 ), Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49630-X .
  • Hermann Schweickert: The water turbine construction at Voith between 1913 and 1939 and the history of the integration of new flow machines. Dissertation from the University of Stuttgart , Siedentop, Heidenheim 2002, ISBN 978-3-925887-19-2 .
  • Voith GmbH: Moving forward with good ideas - since 1867: The Voith history. Company brochure, Heidenheim, January 2013/2016 as a PDF file; 76 p., 1.7 MB or on docplayer.org .

Web links

Commons : Voith  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Voith GmbH & Co. KGaA Annual Report 2018 (PDF; 3.7 MB)
  2. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, p. 26, note 11., excerpts in Google books .
  3. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, pp. 25-27.
  4. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, p. 25.
  5. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, p. 26 Note 11.
  6. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, p. 30. Another source speaks of 25 workers in 1867. See p. 56 note 11.
  7. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, pp. 32-33.
  8. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. , Beck, Munich 2003, pp. 26-30.
  9. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, pp. 29-30.
  10. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 33.
  11. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 28, note 20.
  12. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 32, note 41.
  13. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 32, note 40.
  14. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 57.
  15. ^ A b c Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 34.
  16. ^ A b Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 35.
  17. ↑ Michael Krüger: Heidenheim. The city and its industry in the 19th century. Heidenheim 1984, p. 138.
  18. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, pp. 30-32.
  19. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 32.
  20. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, pp. 33-34.
  21. ↑ On Walther Voith see Anne Nieberding: Corporate Culture in the Empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 62.
  22. ^ Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 28, note 20.
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