Inkjet & Digital Printing
60 years Edelmann Printing machines
Thursday 07. November 2013 - Company Anniversary - The printing machines manufacturer from South Germany, EDELMANN Printing Machines celebrates its 60th anniversary.
The Beerfelden-based company has an eventful past behind it. Insolvency, job losses and, in spite of everything, a strong spark of life are all waymarkers along the company’s journey
The company EDELMANN Printing Machines stands for reliability, speed of service and original spare parts – and has done this for the last 60 years. “The company is my life’s work. We have had good times and bad, but the machines have been with us every day from when we get up to when we go to bed”, says Managing Director Norbert Wilhelm, who has been with the company since 1968. He went on to explain that the company’s development has also largely reflected that of the sector, which is why Edelmann is now trying to position itself on other markets.
The company’s journey has also had its share of good times and bad: The company, which was founded in 1953, did not originally produce printing machines. Under the management of founder Ernst-Ludwig Edelmann, five employees repaired broken sewing machines and produced component parts for them. Just one year later, the company moved into what is now its main line of business: Producing components for printing machines, as a supplier to ROLAND. This was followed by the production of assembly units for knitting machines for the company MAYER-CIE in Tailfingen, which continued up to 1970. Following the death of founder Ernst-Ludwig Edelmann, the company was taken over by his son-in-law, Dr. Walter Wasserbäch, in 1966.
Under his management, the company experienced its boom years. Dr. Walter Wasserbäch succeeded in considerably increasing staff levels. By 1991, the company employed 300 people. The annual turnover also rose, to 100 million DM. As well as holidays for the staff in Ötztal, the Dolomites and the Adriatic, the company also arranged weekend trips and barbecue parties. The owner also concluded a deal in 1967 for the production under licence of gathering machines for US companies and in 1975, created FORM ALL GmbH for form printing and processing machines. This company was built up worldwide and eventually had 52 representations. In the 1970s, EDELMANN started attending the world’s largest printing machine trade fair, “DRUPA”, with stands covering a surface area of up to 500 m². The company has also attended other trade fairs over the year, such as Label-Expo, IPEX and many more.
In 1979, the production under licence of “Practica”-type sheetfed offset machines for Roland began, with more than 10,000 printing units sold worldwide. In the absence of a successor, EDELMANN was sold to the US company DIDDE in 1991. Dr Wasserbäch paid out 7 million DM in dividends to his staff out of the sale price. He then went to enjoy his retirement and was made an honorary citizen of the town of Beerfelden in 2013 for his actions.
After five years of DIDDE, the first insolvency hit and between 1996 and 2003, the company was run by liquidator Dirk Pfeil, who built up an internal company management board during that time. In 2003, the management and the staff founded EDELMANN Graphics, which took the form of a holding company, with just 100 employees by this time. This company went into insolvency for the second time eight years later. With just 17 staff members, EDELMANN Printing Machines was set up in 2011 by its current Turkish owner, UMUR. The UMUR Group, which has its headquarters in Istanbul, is one of the 500 largest companies in Turkey with around 1000 staff members. Its main area of activity is the production of printed matter and the sales of school and office equipment. With more than 25 years’ experience in the printing industry, the takeover of EDELMANN has allowed the UMUR Group to increase its foothold in the sector still further. It was also very important to the group for EDELMANN to continue under the structures which have grown up organically, which is why it has made almost no changes in the supplier industry sector. Any restructuring took place at management level: Local managing director is Norbert Wilhelm; the representative of the Turkish owner is Alp Evrenoso?lu and Frank Seibert is responsible for Sales & Construction. Finally, EDELMANN Printing Machines has been able to recruit Dr. Stefan Wilhelm to its marketing team. Between 1976 and 2011, the company has developed around 14 machines.
As well as the production of narrow-web offset printing machines and off-line machines, the company is also concentrating on the acquisition, repairs and sales of second-hand machines and the spare parts business. There is also an increasing focus on public relations work, which has involved attending trade fairs including Label Expo in Brussels and IPEX in London.