Demag

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DEMAG is a German heavy equipment manufacturer. It started making dock cranes in 1906 and since constituted as Deutsche Maschinenfabrik AG or simply Demag.

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[edit] Founding

The DEMAG company was founded in 1910 in Duisburg through the union of Märki Engineering Co., Duisburger Mechanical Engineering AG and the Benrather Engine works GmbH. Some of these firms had histories of crane building going back one hundred years. In this field DEMAG became prominent. One crane designed in 1910 was the then world largest floating crane, built for Harland & Wolff in Belfast, which needed these for the building of the passenger liners RMS Olympic and RMS Titanic.

Starting from 1925 Demag also manufactured excavators. They expanded into the manufacture of Locomotives and railroad car. During the second world war armoured fighting vehicles (see Bergepanther) were built in the Berlin Staaken plant.

[edit] Hydraulic Era

In 1954 DEMAG developed their first hydraulic excavators. After that DEMAG expanded into the sector of construction machines and vehicle cranes, conveying engineering (workshop crane and control devices), the steel mill technology (complete metallurgical plants, but particularly continuous casting installations), the compressor and compressed air engineering. The company also became a world leader in the manufacture of injection moulding machines

[edit] Restructuring

In the engineering field a joint venture with the Japanese manufacturer Komatsu was finally concluded in 1996. In August 2002 DEMAG plant in Zweibrücken became part of the US Terex company. The metallurgical plants and rolling mills business was taken over by SMS in 1999 forming SMS Demag.

[edit] Break Up

In 1973 it was taken over by the Mannesmann group, itself object of a hostile take-over by vodafone in 1999. Demag Holding was subsequently sold to Siemens who divested this activity to KKR in 2002.

Parts of the conveying engineering activities remained with Siemens and became busier under the name Dematic with others. Siemens subcontracting continued, of it again a part of the system engineering. The remainder of the conveying engineering firm was sold in 2006 as DEMAG Cranes, together with that traditional quay crane manufacturer. The Kunsttofftechnik firmiert today as getting thing under the name MPM plastic Machinery). To this among other things the DEMAG plastics belong to getting thing group and the technologies of Krauss Maffei. The activities in the building of plastics machines of the today's DEMAG plastic Group, those with head office in Schwaig with Nuremberg, a small machine shop in Wiehe, one foundry in Jünkerath, production locations in Strongsville (Ohio) and Ningbo (China) as well as a joint undertaking in Chennai (India). Injection moulding machines manufactures. The entrepreneurial group applies in this market segment after conversion as world-wide third biggest name. Economic salvation came through the sale of DEMAG Cranes and MPM by Siemens to the financial investor KKR in the autumn of 2001. Part of this included downsizing and the loss of 1000 jobs.

As a result, the firm became an example of the "locust" debate (viz privatize and downsize through leaping offshore?) by the political party SPD - by the politician Müntefering beside others.

Demag Cranes and Components was one of the unwanted entities cast off from Siemens and acquired by KKR. KKR forced a major reorganization of the Demag Crane and Components organization including a dramatic downscaling of their product lines. KKR replaced virtually all of the engineering oriented management with a group focused on selling the merits of the business in the financial markets. Focus of the products changed from heavy process and production cranes to light duty / standby equipment. Sales of equipment have been disappointing in recent years with competitors taking away the majority of market share in the US.

Demag Cranes was listed publicly in 2006.

[edit] External links

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