Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft
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Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (German for Swiss Industrial Society), or SIG, is a Swiss company that has been active in various businesses during its more than 150 years of operation. Since the year 2000 the Society has undergone strategic refocus, concentrating on its core compentence in packaging technology. Today SIG comprises two divisions: SIG Combibloc and SIG Beverages, specializing in aseptic carton and PET packaging respectively.
[edit] Railways
In 1853, SIG was founded in Neuhausen am Rheinfall (Canton of Schaffhausen, Switzerland), as a manufacturer of railway wagons. In the late 1970s, SIG was one of two builders of Toronto's latest tram, the CLRV L1. Only the first five CLRV cars were made by SIG, the rest by UTDC. The tilting system of the SBB RABDe 500 was developed by SIG. The railway branch of SIG was sold in 1995 to FIAT and in 2000 to Alstom, today only components are manufactured in the Neuhausen works.
[edit] Firearms
From 1860 to 2000, SIG produced firearms. The products were imported into the USA under the name SIG Arms.
Due to Swiss restrictions on the export of military weapons, SIG entered into a relationship with the German company J.P. Sauer & Sohn in order to allow SIG access to the world firearms market.
The SIG P-210 pistol was developed between 1938 and 1945, and was adopted by the Swiss military in 1949 as the "Pistole 49". The single-action semi-automatic P-210 brought SIG much acclaim, due to the precision manufacturing processes employed in its manufacture and its resultant accuracy and reliability. The P-210 frame design incorporates external rails that fit closely with the slide, thus eliminating "play" in the mechanism during firing.
The P-210 was replaced by the Swiss military in 1975 with the P-220, dubbed the "Pistole 75". In a 1984 bidding contest to provide more than 300,000 sidearms to the US military, the SIG-Sauer P-226 was narrowly defeated by the Beretta 92FS.
The SIG 510/(Stgw.57) Battle Rifles were produced by SIG from 1957 to 1983. Its appearance was similar to the German MG34 and used roller-delayed blowback used on the CETME/H&K Rifles.
The only General purpose machine gun produced by SIG was the MG 710.
In 2000, the new company Swiss Arms took over the firearms branch of SIG.
[edit] Packaging
The first packaging machines were produced in 1906 on behalf of the Lausanne based SAPAL company (Société Anonyme des Plieuses Automatiques).
Most of SIG's earlier packaging equipment efforts were focused on small dry food items such as chocolates and candy. In 1989, through the acquisition of PKL in Linnich, Germany, SIG entered the field of aseptic liquid packaging. This business grows significantly and is later known as SIG Combibloc.
In 2000 SIG concentrated its group focus solely on technology for packaging of food and beverages. By this time many of their traditional businesses had been divested. Management used the resulting cash to procure global businesses including Doboy Packaging in the U.S.; Krupp Kunstofftechnik (Corpoplast/Blowtec/Kautex brands) and HAMBA in Germany; Ryka Blow Molds in Canada; and a substantial portion of the Italian conglomerate Sasib. The food-related businesses were organized under the SIG Pack division, while the beverage-related businesses formed SIG Beverages. Aseptic liquid packaging remained separate under SIG Combibloc.
This strategy, while intended to provide customers with turnkey solutions for entire bottling or packaging lines, proved too fragmented to be practical. Difficulties integrating vastly different businesses and cultures resulted in operational execution issues. In particular, high-profile installation failures at SIG Beverages in 2003 and 2004 ultimately resulted in erosion of goodwill serious enough to be recorded on financial statements. Refocusing primarily on aseptics and PET blow-molding, several divestitures and closures followed. The former SASIB beverage-related businesses Simonazzi, Alfa and Meyer/Mojonnier were sold to Tetra Laval in 2005, while HAMBA and Blowtec went into the hands of private investor groups. The food packaging businesses were sold to Robert Bosch Verpackungstechnik in 2004.
Today SIG consists of two divisions: SIG Combibloc and SIG Beverages, which focuses on machines and materials for aseptic carton and plastic packaging respectively.
