Glowing Prospects

"The key to our success lies not alone in weaving speed, but also in the shortness of our innovation cycles", says Ingo Kufferath, Managing Partner of GKD - Gebr. Kufferath AG, commenting on the best gross profit from sales in the history of the company. In 2004, the non-listed joint stock company increased its group-wide turnover by 7.4 percent to 52.5 million Euro. GKD attributes this increase solely to exports to countries outside Europe. The owner-run technical weaving mill employs a staff of 499, 372 of them in the company's headquarters in Dueren. As is evident in the traditionally higher than average training quota, the company has a strongly rooted sense of responsibility for the training of the next generation of technicians: currently, 27 trainees are serving apprenticeships at the parent company's works.

Worldwide market leader

With its three business units - SOLID WEAVE for filtration and separation, WEAVE IN MOTION for process belt technology, and CREATIVE WEAVE for architecture and design - the company is a worldwide market leader. The German parent company GKD AG grew by 9.5 percent. In spite of exchange-rate related losses of minus 6 percent in the USA, currency- adjusted figures still showed a plus in front of the results. Outstanding growth was registered by the company's South African subsidiary, GKD RSA: in local currency the increase in turnover amounted to 18 percent, in Euro even 27 percent.

Changing pattern of value-adding

"Roll material in itself no longer play an important role", says Ingo Kufferath, explaining the changing pattern of value-adding in the company's products. The company's enormous range of weaving and processing techniques like sintering, calendering or clean-room production has generated increased added value for its high-quality metal and plastic woven meshes. The three business units have consistently and dynamically adapted to changing market demands. With numerous ultra-modern products and applications, they have successfully defied globalization-related attacks. For example, the business unit SOLID WEAVE, in the field of filtration and separation, has achieved a steep increase in business by stringently rejecting the faceless mass market and concentrating on intensive value-adding high- tech products. These include micro-meshes for all conventional filtration tasks as well as GKD's innovative product range of the YMAX® filter mesh family, or, as one of the latest developments, the bypass filter unit MAX- Flow® for honing oil filtration which requires no filter aids. Faster, cheaper, more efficient and more flexible in its application than conventional equipment widely in use, for example, in the automotive industry, this compact unit filters process oils from all sorts of honing processes. The broad performance spectrum of this business unit explains its success: from filtration know-how through to supplying the market with filter media and complete systems for all relevant industrial applications, SOLID WEAVE is in high demand as a problem solver.

At the heart of countless industrial applications

In the field of process belt technology, GKD has been experiencing continuous positive developments for quite some time. With its innovative products and applications, this sector of the business has also kept up its previous growth. Pressure belts especially developed for corrugated cardboard production provide sustained support for the market leadership of GKD customers. With its blended mesh belt CONDUCTO®, which ensures safe discharging of electrostatic charges, the company presented the nonwovens industry with a long sought-after solution for a safe production process at the world's largest nonwovens trade fair, the INDEX in Geneva, in April 2005. Further novel products like metal and plastic process meshes with non-stick coating, or magnetically guided upper belts in two-belt dryers, underline the innovative strength of WEAVE IN MOTION^TM process belts. Almost at the same time, at the IFAT in Munich, the trade fair for water, waste water, disposal and recycling, GKD presented for the first time six different mesh types for use in the latest sewage sludge treatment plants and sewage sludge dryers. And the process belt sector is also optimally organized for the successful transfer of the fruit-juice industry to China, which is today the world's biggest fruit-juice producer. With a local branch and production unit, GKD provides the necessary infrastructure to ensure that it can also promptly and reliably fulfil after-sales business like repairs, finishing and seams.

The Peking Opera - a new milestone

For years now, the third business unit, Architecture and Design, has been setting world standards with spectacular products and product applications. Three outstanding commissions for sports stadiums crowned the year 2004 for GKD. The Dueren-based metal weavers were responsible for the façades of the Wankdorf Stadium and Wembley Stadium as well as the staircase cladding at the Ascot Race Course. The contract for two large- scale projects in China - the Peking Opera and the school for gifted children, the Children's Palace Guangzhou - mark a new chapter for GKD, which will be responsible for the complete project logistics from wire production in the Far East through technical weaving in Germany to final installation and site management. Three product innovations combine aesthetics and functionality at the highest level of quality: Crystal Weave, a metallic mesh with Swarovski crystals woven into it; Fiber Optics, a combination of metallic mesh with optical fibers; and Fusiomesh, which, thanks to a novel connection of material to frame, not only drastically reduces attachment costs but also opens up unprecedented prospects for application.

Maintaining a lead through timely investments

"In spite of currency shifts and great expenses due to increased raw material prices for steel, stainless steel and plastics, we have managed to keep net operating results more or less at the satisfactory level of the previous year," says Dr. Stephan Kufferath, also Managing Partner of GKD AG, summarizing the development of last year's business. He is convinced that, "Without our massive investments over several years into machines and infrastructure, this would not have been possible." The huge investments into machinery in Dueren are a clear sign of the company's commitment to Germany as a production location. As a result, equipment and production were transferred to the neighbouring works in Wassenberg and to South Africa.

As a simultaneous gesture of commitment to the US market, where GKD expects growth in all three business sectors, the new production works in Maryland/USA was opened. In South Africa, production was enlarged by 25 percent. With a new branch in Dubai and the opening of its own production unit in China, GKD has reinforced its strategic line of attack for the exploitation of the most important key markets.

Expectations for the year 2005 are optimistic. Through further internationalization of business, Stephan Kufferath expects an increase in turnover of 9 percent. A glance at this year's first quarter results already shows a plus of 12 percent over last year.

"We are not afraid of materials," insists Ingo Kufferath and continues, "We'll weave anything that can be woven!" For GKD, the tried and tested key to sustainable business success is a creative and unconventional approach to technology combined with a focus on technically demanding, clearly defined niche markets and on modern management methods which facilitate rapid change. With seven works, two of them in Germany, the others in the USA, England, Spain, South Africa and China, as well as a branch in Dubai and agents all over the world, this internationally leading technical weaving mill is well represented with great market proximity all around the globe.