Westaflex
| Westaflexwerk
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1933 |
| Seat | Gutersloh |
| management | Peter Westerbarkey |
| Number of employees | approx. 250 (as of 2007) |
| Website | www.westaflex.com |
The Westaflex is a German building technology maker that produces in the fields of air conditioning and ventilation, acoustics, Schornsteintechnik and water filtration and headquartered in Gütersloh in North Rhine-Westphalia has. According to the company, Westaflex employs 2,700 people internationally.
Company history
The family company Westaflex was founded on September 24, 1933 in Gütersloh, Westphalia by Ferdinand Westerbarkey and his brothers Leonhard and Lorenz and existed for a long time as a division of Atlas Handelsgesellschaft mbH. The company began with twelve employees in a former brickworks in Munich-Oberföhring.
Initially, fully flexible pipes were manufactured on our own machines according to an Austrian patent, and in 1953 the completely new pipe types Westerform and Westerflex were added. In the same year, Westaflex developed the first flexible silencers on the technical basis of flexible pipes. So the Westaflex Group emerged from the Atlas Group as an independent business unit in Gütersloh.
In 1935, for spatial reasons, production was relocated from Munich-Oberföhring to Gütersloh, where favorable conditions for flexible pipe production were given on a 10,000 m² site acquired in 1912 in a production hall of the company's own steel furniture factory Westamöbel OHG. In 1955, after the furniture production had been discontinued, all available production rooms of Westaflexwerk L. & F. Westerbarkey OHG is documented by the pipe production and there were already 14 foreign agencies and 8 foreign productions. Westaflex has been owned by the Westerbarkey family since it was founded, now in the fourth generation. The company's claim (slogan) is “Connections that pay off”.
Others
The beginnings of the ATLAS Handelsgesellschaft lie in the first months after the Second World War. Ferdinand Westerbarkey, a political prisoner in the Dachau concentration camp at the end of the war, was called in as an advisor by the American military government in Munich . In a short time branches were established in Hamburg , Cologne , Aachen , Lohne , Krefeld and Minden . The meat trade dominated at all of these Atlas bases in northern Germany, combined administratively in Gütersloh. The establishment of Westafleisch GmbH in 1963 as a network of contract slaughterhouses followed, and in 1950 the establishment of the import wholesaler Frigaliment GmbH, again with Atlas Handelsgesellschaft mbH as a partner.
From 1972 to 1987 LbF Lauterbach and IT noise protection technology also belonged to what was then the Westaflex Group.
Major companies in the Westa Group
The products are sold in 10 countries through our own subsidiaries and in another 22 countries through affiliated licensees. The largest market is Germany with around 41% of sales, followed by the Netherlands , Switzerland and France .
Westaflex produces at a total of two locations in Germany.
The sister company Westaflex-France was founded in France in 1959. Westaflex production was started early in 1961 by a licensee in the USA in order to capture by far the most potent market in the automotive sector. In the following years, further production facilities were added in both European and overseas countries - in production groups or as licensees -: People's Republic of China , Turkey , Greece , England , Hungary , Italy , Portugal , Iran , South Africa , Japan , Argentina and Canada , as well North america .
Divisions
Westaflex is a manufacturer of air conditioning products in new and old buildings and of acoustic and air conditioning applications in industry. The chimney / home ventilation division achieves around 40% of total sales through specialist retailers, commercial projects the remaining 60%. The products are in the upper quality and price segment.
Home automation products
The most important products are chimneys , air ducts , controlled home ventilation , silencers and numerous brands . Other product lines are Zulufttürme ( exhaust towers ) and filter (activated carbon filter, air filter ), Stainless Steel - connecting lines, range hoods , metal moldings (throwing jets , throttle valves, angle valves ) and aluminum -pipes.
Commercial products
Westaflex Projekt, Westaflex department for commercial equipment, mainly produces automotive accessories (for acoustics, climate and heat protection), heat-insulated pipes, square and triangular pipe cross-sections (for rail vehicles, trucks, buses, boats, mobile homes , aircraft construction and special vehicles), commercial silencers ( for applications in building construction, organ construction), cleaning and water filters (for medical practices, clinics and laboratories) as well as special solutions for other industrial applications, such as the operating theater and clean room technology in semiconductor technology and the life sciences .
mechanical engineering
All foreign companies originate from machines and systems for stationary or mobile pipe production. Standardized system components enable automated pipe end processing, upsetting and stretching. The sawing tools complement the wide range of ready-made production, labeling and packaging. The following table of properties provides an overview of the Westaflex machine types.
| Tube shape | feature | properties | Areas of application |
|---|---|---|---|
| Westerflex | rotating coils | fully flexible | Chemistry, pharmaceuticals |
| Multi-layer flexible pipe. Made of plastic, aluminum, paper or inox. Gastight. Also perforated as a silencer. | |||
| Westerform | pre-profiled roller conveyor | bendable | Automotive and aircraft construction |
| Multi-lane pipe. Made of inox, GRP or aluminum. Extremely resilient. Also in a magnetic version. | |||
| Westercompact | profiled roller conveyor | stretchable and compressible | Kitchen and dryer exhaust air |
| Multi-layer pipe. In many pipe cross-sections. Low logistics costs. | |||
| Westerquadro | rotating profile core | any tube shape | Wagon and shipbuilding, residential and commercial construction |
| Any pipe cross-section possible: round, oval, square, triangular, diamond-shaped. Perforated (for silencers) and unperforated. | |||
Previous product lines
The Second World War as a section and even before that, furniture in the form of cots , bicycles and their handlebars were also produced. In addition, the food trade and slaughterhouses were operated in the past. This is how the first cash-and-carry store for resellers in Germany came into being in the summer of 1961, at the headquarters of the Frigalement branch in Bochum .
Start of the Westa Group
With the acquisition of new land in the Verl- Sürenheide industrial park in the East Westphalia-Lippe region , extensive development was initiated on May 5, 1974, which was provisionally completed with three new halls.
In July 1991, the Westa Group was created through the establishment of the ERO Edelstahl-Rohrtechnik GmbH and CARBONIT Filtertechnik GmbH subsidiaries in Salzwedel . The product range for wholesalers now also includes plastic exhaust pipes as well as water treatment for private households and industrial process water (e.g. food, pharmaceuticals, medical technology). In addition, there is the production of regenerative energy systems such as heat pumps for renewable raw materials at the Salzwedel site.
Brand logo & word origin
Derived from the family name Westerbarkey, all Westaflex products begin with the abbreviation WESTER (e.g. WesterTherm, WesterQuadro, WesterSilent). Trademark, logo is the curved pipe loop . As a result of increasing product diversification, Westa-Holding was placed upstream of all companies. This gave the impetus for today's corporate branding Westa Group ( formerly Westaflex Group ).
literature
- Bert Trutenau: Traditions in the Gütersloh district, Gütersloh, 1994, Monron Marketing, page 75 ff.
- Publisher ATLAS Handelsgesellschaft mbH: 25 years of Atlas Handelsgesellschaft mbH; Verlag Hoppenstedts Wirtschafts-Archiv, printed in 1972
- Festschrift Westaflexwerk Gütersloh, 1983 Verlag Flöttmman-Verlag, Gütersloh
- Club of Wuppertal (ed.): Pioneers of Change - Commitment to a sustainable economy, oekom Munich, 2006, ISBN 3-86581-022-5
- District of Gütersloh (Ed.): With Lust & Laune, 2006 Communication & Economy Verlag Oldenburg, ISBN 978-3-88363-267-4
- Special exhibition Stadt museum Gütersloh, especially valuable: products from Gütersloh yesterday & today, spring 2007
- Rudolf Herrman, Rolf Westheider (eds.): Gütersloh, Zeitzüge, 2005 Sutton Verlag Erfurt, ISBN 3-89702-833-6
- Florian Langenscheidt, Peter May: Lexicon of German Family Businesses, 2009, Bibliographisches Institut Brockhaus, page 890 ff .; ISBN 978-3-8349-1640-2
- Thomas Pleil, Institute for Communication at Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (ed.): Creating more value. Social Media in B2B Communication, 2010, pages 67-77, ISBN 978-3-8391-8184-3
- Frank Roebers, Manfred Leisenberg, COMPUTERWOCHE (ed.): Web 2.0 in the company, course book for executives, 2010, page 172-180, ISBN 978-3-86850-634-1
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ ATLAS history ( Memento from April 12, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
Coordinates: 51 ° 52 ′ 50 ″ N , 8 ° 27 ′ 12 ″ E