Schaeffler Gunzenhausen celebrates its 60th anniversary

Schaeffler honored the establishment of the plant 60 years ago at the Gunzenhausen site. Also present were (top row, from left to right) Georg F. W. Schaeffler, family partner and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Schaeffler AG; Corinna Schittenhelm, Chief Human Resources Officer and Labor Director; Benjamin Koszorus, Plant Manager; Salvatore Vicari, Chairman of the General Works Council; Klaus Rosenfeld, Chairman of the Board of Management of Schaeffler AG, and (front row, from left to right) Karl-Heinz Fitz, First Mayor of Gunzenhausen; Michael Söding, Board Member Automotive Aftermarket; Andreas Schmid, Chairman of the Works Council at Gunzenhausen Plant; Jürgen Wechsler, employee representative and deputy chairman of the supervisory board; Matthias Zink, Board Member Automotive Technologies, and Manuel Westphal, District Administrator of the Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen district

State-of-the-art technologies in use

Fastest ball bearing production in the world

The plant has been part of the Schaeffler Group since 1994

Schaeffler celebrated the founding of the plant 60 years ago at the Gunzenhausen site. On this occasion, the top management around the Supervisory Board Chairman Georg F. W. Schaeffler and the Chairman of the Management Board Klaus Rosenfeld visited.

In 1961 the production of ball bearings started on Industriestrasse in Gunzenhausen as a branch of the Nuremberg company Georg Müller (GMN) in two halls. The company was expanded in the 1970s, the number of employees and the ball bearings produced increased steadily. In the 1990s, the ball bearing industry and GMN ran into economic difficulties.

On July 1, 1994 INA-Schaeffler KG took over the company and thus saved the jobs of 225 employees. “The takeover has proven to be a stroke of luck for both sides. The location flourished in the following years. New products were added to production, for example axial washers for suspension strut bearings in 1996 and belt tensioners two years later. “As a harbinger of a new era, our colleagues here in Gunzenhausen also manufactured deep groove ball bearings for electric motors,” said Georg F. W. Schaeffler, family partner and chairman of the supervisory board of Schaeffler AG, in his celebratory speech.

This was followed by investments in the millions in new machines and technologies such as plastic injection molding to encase deep groove ball bearings. Investments were also made in the infrastructure to make the plant more sustainable, energy efficient and safer. Today, around 440 people are employed at the Schaeffler site in Gunzenhausen, including 15 trainees who are trained for their own needs.

The high-quality products that Schaeffler manufactures in Gunzenhausen are supplied to over 120 customers in the Automotive Technologies and Automotive Aftermarket divisions in Europe, America and Asia. The largest purchaser of the products is Schaeffler itself, because more than 40 percent of the production in Gunzenhausen are components for other plants in all three of the company's divisions.

The Schaeffler Group has been characterized by innovation, top quality, a thorough understanding of the system and manufacturing excellence for decades. These in-house strengths are lived every day at Schaeffler in Gunzenhausen: “The plant plays a pioneering role worldwide, both within the company and in relation to international competition. One example of this is the combination of micrometer-accurate precision in the processes with the lowest cycle times at the same time. It can be seen in the assembly line, which produces ball bearings in a cycle time of just 0.8 seconds. A world record, as far as we know, ”said Klaus Rosenfeld, Chairman of the Board of Management of Schaeffler AG. "The most important success factor, however, are the employees in Gunzenhausen, who have mastered major challenges over the past 60 years with their specialist knowledge, a sense of belonging and excellent cooperation."