Knorr-Bremse Aldersbach celebrates 30th anniversary
February 10, 2010 [Knorr-Bremse Group]
For thirty years now, the Knorr-Bremse plant in Aldersbach has been a key feature of the economic landscape in the district of Passau, where the company is one of the largest employers. Over recent years the factory has developed into the largest European production site for disc brakes and electronic braking systems for commercial vehicles. In an address to the assembled workforce to mark the anniversary, Klaus Deller, Executive Board Member of Knorr-Bremse AG responsible for the Commercial Vehicle Systems division, referred to the plant as an exemplary facility within the Group. The methods and processes developed in Aldersbach for the production of disc brakes and electronic braking systems are employed around the world.
The history of the Aldersbach plant goes back to February 1, 1980, when Süddeutsche Bremsen AG, at the time a Knorr-Bremse company, took a short-term lease on a facility that had been shut-down the previous year in the small town (4,300 inhabitants). One year later, the company bought the site with its 2,500 square meters of production space. In particular it was the availability of skilled labor in and around Aldersbach that played a major part in the decision to set up a branch here. In the early days, the 35 employees at Knorr-Bremse in Aldersbach manufactured brake valves for rail vehicles.
As the plant was expanded until 1984, the product range too was gradually enlarged to include parts and equipment from across the portfolio. In 1988, as Knorr-Bremse began to separate its Rail Vehicle Systems and Commercial Vehicle Systems production activities, full-scale expansion of the Aldersbach site commenced. Representing an investment of what was then almost DM 50 million Knorr-Bremse set up a separate production facility for commercial vehicle braking systems covering almost 150,000 square-meters, to which all such activities were transferred from the company’s Munich headquarters in the period up to 1993. By 2008 the plant employed 1,130 people and accounted for sales of around EUR 750 million.
While last year the global economic crisis and the worldwide slump in the output of commercial vehicles made themselves felt in Aldersbach too, Plant Manager Franz-Josef Birkeneder considers the site well equipped to face the future. “The development and success of this plant over the past 30 years have been founded on two factors: the great potential of our innovative products and the superior commitment of our employees. The expertise and loyalty of the Aldersbach workforce is a key factor as we master the crisis and gear up the plant for the future.”
For safety-critical products like brakes in particular, a quality-conscious mindset among the employees is decisive. That explains why a zero-defect philosophy is binding for every member of the Aldersbach workforce and laid down in the appropriate procedures. For the past 26 years, Aldersbach has trained a proportion of the skilled workers it needs for its advanced production operations at its own training workshop. Courses are run for specialists in mechatronics or electronics for industrial engineering, industrial and machining mechanics, and industrial and commercial clerks. The importance of the plant as a vocational training facility, employer, tax-payer and patron of the arts was underlined by Deputy Mayor Robert Bauer in his anniversary address. The community, he said, would continue to do its utmost to ensure the successful future of Knorr-Bremse in Aldersbach.
The Knorr-Bremse Group is the world’s leading manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles. For more than 100 years now the company has pioneered the development, production, marketing and servicing of state-of-the-art braking systems. Other lines of business in the rail vehicle systems sector include automatic, electro-pneumatic or electric door systems, air conditioning systems, control components and windscreen wiper systems, as well as platform screen doors. In the commercial vehicle systems sector, the product range includes complete braking systems with driver assistance systems, as well as torsional vibration dampers and powertrain-related solutions such as the Pneumatic Booster System (PBS) and transmission control system for enhanced energy efficiency and fuel economy.
