In northern Germany, a very special celebration is happening this year – the 50th anniversary of theGreCon measuring systems and fire prevention technologies business.

The Fagus-GreCon company, based at the historic Fagus factory, a World Heritage site designed by eminent architect Walter Gropius in 1911, is looking back at its pioneering heritage and also looking forward as it seeks to innovate for the future and better serve customers across the world.

Over 50 years ago, brothers Gerd and Ernst Greten realised their vision of an electronics department at the Fagus plant in Alfeld.

Two important business divisions emerged: measurement systems and preventive fire protection, with a key moment being the creation of the spark extinguishing system.

The initial idea of supplying measuring technology systems for the chipboard industry is now also a historical milestone – extending beyond the wood-based materials industry.

The company has gone on to set standards with pioneering inventions and developments.

Over the coming weeks, as well as marking the milestone, the company will look at the challenges and successes of the global production company, talking to former and current managers about their experiences and, of course, celebrating with customers, employees, relatives and all interested parties.

NEW MANAGEMENT TEAM

The management team at the company has taken on a different look recently.

First, Alexander Kuppe was recruited last August to join as a managing director, heading the marketing, sales, after sales and service departments.

Then, Mario Haas, head of the Fire Protection Business Unit, was promoted to the management board as managing director for technical matters, as former technical managing director Dr Michael Gawronski departed the business.

Longstanding managing director Uwe Kahmann is the third member of the management board, responsible for finance, HR, purchasing as well as World Heritage and the subsidiaries.

“We are convinced that we are even better positioned in this constellation to continue the success story of Fagus-GreCon, to further improve our internal processes with our global teams, to increasingly introduce our customer-oriented, technologically leading product and service innovations worldwide and to continuously expand our market share,” said Mr Kahmann.

Another change in 2023 was the spinning off of the historic shoe lasts business in a management buy-out. The decision was largely due to the shoe lasts business being so different to the measuring systems and fire prevention businesses.

The business is still located at Alfeld but is now completely separate from the main GreCon business and has a new name.

Newcomer Mr Kuppe spoke to WBPI to update further on the company’s performance and developments.

He said that he already had great respect for the Fagus-GreCon success story with its pioneering spirit in the short time he has been aboard.

An engineer by education, Mr Kuppe came to the company with 25 years in the business of machinery and plant engineering and with former sales director and managing director experience both at family companies and stock listed operations. His experience in the Andritz Group gave him some familiarity with belt drying technology now used so prolifically in the panels industry.

He was attracted by the family-owned ethos at Fagus-GreCon.

“The way of working at family-owned companies is to think in generations and not in quarters and that’s what I sense here. The purpose why I’m here is we want to drive internationalisation. Striving to be closer to the customers is what the mission is.

“In 2023 we have been quite satisfied with the company performance overall,” he explained.

“We had a good growth and initiated some of the required changes for the future, but also diversified from the core wood-based panels industry, which is still the largest business we are in, both with measuring technology and fire prevention.

“Other sector growth will be in other construction products like insulation and gypsum, but also in recycling due to the need for fire prevention technology.

“Recycling is a hot topic. In recycling processes there is quite a high risk of fire. We have a good foothold in this sector with many references.

“We still want to keep the wood-based panels sector as our core industry but we also see lots of opportunities with our technology and equipment outside of this industry and we want to drive this with more focus than we had in the past.”

A key to growth, added Mr Kuppe, is getting closer to customers in each region, especially in Latin America, China and Asia, where the company expects notable growth in the next 10-15 years.

COMPANY PERFORMANCE

Fagus-GreCon’s full 2023 financial figures have not been finalised yet, but Mr Kuppe said it would reveal double-digit growth.

“We see and hear from our main customers that the wood-based panels industry is under pressure, though there are differences in different regions.

“Europe is under the highest pressure, especially in Germany, with difficult conditions in terms of capacities required from the market. The general state of interest rates worldwide has put a barrier on construction and also on the furniture industries.

“Other parts of the world are doing better and we hear from China that it is still in investment mode, while North America and South America are doing OK.”

The company’s ambition is to grow significantly in 2024, with the year starting well given the current negative market dynamics.

China is expected to represent more than 10% of the company’s business in 2024 and is enjoying a faster growth rate than the average country.

“We hope the [economic] turnaround will be the end of this year but it could easily drag into 2025 before we see change. Interest rates have come down for mortgages but all main countries have decreased their growth projections for 2024. Germany went from 1.3% to 0.2% and France went down to 1%. Hopefully 2025 will be better.”

But even with fewer new panel line investments currently, the nature of fire prevention technology is that it is also often retrofitted to existing sites.

“The good news is that we see projects that were already started still being carried on. There’s no question of stopping or delaying running projects. The thing you can see is there aren’t so many new build projects coming up and in the pipeline.”

Decisions are also taking longer before investment is made.

Fagus-GreCon reports that supply chain issues for parts and components have eased and “relatively normal conditions” now exist for almost all of the parts it uses.

MEASURING SYSTEMS AND FIRE PREVENTION

Ligna’s return in 2023 after the Covid interruption was a big success for Fagus- GreCon. Mr Kuppe reported a huge number of leads from the show, referencing high interest levels following worldwide roll-out of the latest generation of spark detectors and automatic extinguishing systems.

This includes in the spark detector generation GreCon DLD 1/9 as well as for the Intelligent Extinguishing Module(IEM), both of which were awarded the Factory Mutual Certificate in 2023.

The DLD 1/9 detects sparks, glow nests and other hot particles with its patented detector optics and the intelligent detection technology IDT.

The technology is designed to detect in any environment – with or without daylight, in complete darkness or using other light sources. With its adaptive detection technology, it not only distinguishes between dangerous sparks and other, harmless extraneous lights, it also avoids, for example, false alarms and costly, groundless production stoppages.

Meanwhile, the IEM detects components by precisely monitoring the extinguishing process and detecting wear at early stages.

With this smartly collected data, not only clogged nozzles or insufficient flow pressure of the extinguishing water can be detected but increasing wear on nozzles or valves is reported in advance so that necessary maintenance can be planned specifically and efficiently. Before this smart technological leap, plant operators had to regularly interrupt production to check wear and ensure operational capability.

“We not only produce industrial spark detection and extinguishing systems, but also develop our products in line with customer requirements and exceed expectations with affordable state-of-the-art technology,” said Mario Haas, head of the Fire Protection Business Unit and member of the Management Board.

To date, over 600,000 detectors have been sold, with around 75,000 customised protection solutions for industrial plants.

Looking to the future, Mr Haas sees the advancement of industrial digitalisation as the main focus in fire prevention technologies.

“We want to facilitate this digitalisation with the help of our products – developing ever more intelligent technology and constantly simplifying the operating process. This is how technological change can be achieved with secure GreCon technology.”

On the measurement systems side, Fagus- GreCon has become a valuable partner for the wood-based panels industry over the last 50 years, with its systems for process monitoring, control and evaluation.

More than 1,000 measuring systems have been sold to date, such as the GreCon thickness measurement system or the ultrasonic delamination control system.

At Ligna, the measuring technology EdgeInspect with 3D laser to inspect the edges of wood-based panels was a focal point. This is important as edge properties of panel-shaped materials are important quality characteristics, with defective edges leading not only to visual impairments, but also to subsequent material weakening.

“We have recently set standards, particularly in the areas of formaldehyde emission, particle measurement and scattering accuracy,” said Dr Jörg Hasener, head of the Measurement Technology Business Unit at Fagus-GreCon.

“We are also investing in the future in other areas in order to constantly challenge the competition with new concepts.”

Compared with 50 years ago, Mr Hasener said production output and process optimisation in particular have progressed at an unstoppable pace. For the future of measurement technology, this means developing systems that will anticipate this development.

“For example, with artificial intelligence, which will have a significant impact on computer-controlled data processing in the coming years,” said Dr Hasener

He added that the future is pointing towards “fully automated production based on measured data and measurement technology solutions based on this data – for example in the areas of drying, spreading, press moulding or laboratory testing.”

THE FUTURE

WBPI asked Mr Kuppe what he thought the business would look like in five years’ time.

“Hopefully, the company will be a lot bigger, as we see the demand in the market for our products,” he said.

“In five years’ time the share of our business in the wood-based panels industry will be a little less than it is now. We should also have a much larger footprint in the world in terms of sales and service, being closer to customers, whether that it our own sources or our partners.

“At the end of the day, only the customers will tell whether we are a good company or not and they will decide whether we are successful or not. But the desire for getting our services is extremely high.”

Coming back to the 50th anniversary theme, Mr Kuppe said it was amazing to think about the pioneering thinking, entrepreneurship and innovation of the Greten family founders.

“For me, coming from outside the woodbased panels industry, it’s been amazing to see this success story but also learn about the story of the wood-based panels manufacturers around the world – what they have done over the last 60-70 years.”