EuroWire March 2018

Corporate News

▲ ▲ The offices Uhing moved into in 2017

75 th anniversary celebrations for Uhing IT is difficult to know if Joachim Uhing, the company‘s founder, ever dreamed of how successful the business would be, but when he founded the company bearing his name in 1943, the engineer focused on market niches that would provide the basis for numerous inventions and long-term success. For 75 years, the innovations developed by Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co KG have been supporting machine and plant manufacturers worldwide. On 23 rd March 1943, Joachim Uhing founded the company as an engineering office at Holtenauer Straße in Kiel, Germany. Having close connections to knitting machine manufacturers, he developed a device to automate the traversing movements of the knitting carriage that until then required manual operation. He devised a housing with rolling rings travelling on a plain shaft at a variable pitch angle. This device was to be his international breakthrough: the rolling ring drive had been invented. Since then, it has been used in an ever-growing number of varied industrial applications. Its main use is the winding of wires, cables and ribbon-shaped material on coils. Recently, it has also been integrated in drip irrigation systems, where it facilitates the process of laying out and removing tubes and flexible pipes. With many niche products in its portfolio – for example, non-contact flange detection, guide systems, linear drive nuts, toothed belt drives as well as clamping and retaining elements – the company has gained international renown. Manufacturers of machines operated in many sectors and even in the food industry, where special hygiene requirements must be met, appreciate the quality and reliability of Uhing products. The company‘s constant growth required a move to more spacious premises at Mielkendorf near Kiel in 1973. In the years that followed, a worldwide sales network was established. The first agency was founded in the USA as early as 1968. In the mid-1980s, sales agencies in Asia, Australia and Africa were added. There is hardly any European country without a Uhing representative. Today, the company exports 60 per cent of its products. Continuously increasing production finally made a second move to larger facilities inevitable. The production facilities and also the administrative wing at Mielkendorf had become too small. A site was found at Konrad-Zuse-Ring in Flintbek after a prolonged search period. After approximately 12 months of planning and construction, the company moved to its new headquarters in April 2017. In the first decades of operations, the company focused on purely mechanical components, but mechatronic and/or electronic extensions for rolling ring drives have been added to the portfolio since 1998. Research for innovations is ongoing.

In addition to new systems, the company offers the modernisation and extension of existing systems with Uhing products.

Joachim Uhing GmbH & Co KG – Germany

Website : www.uhing.com

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March 2018