Sulzer (manufacturer)

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Sulzer
Type Public (Swiss Stock Exchange: SUN)
Founded 1834
Headquarters Winterthur, Switzerland
Key people Ton Büchner, CEO
Industry Industrial engineering and manufacturing
Products Pumps, surface technologies, chemical industry, thermal turbomachinery
Revenue Image:green up.png 3.537 Billion CHF (2007)
Employees 11,599 [1]
Website www.sulzer.com

Sulzer Ltd. is a Swiss industrial engineering and manufacturing firm established as Sulzer Brothers Ltd. in 1834 in Winterthur, Switzerland. Today it is a publicly owned company with international subsidiaries. The company's shares are listed on the Swiss Stock Exchange.

Sulzer Brothers helped develop shuttleless weaving, and their core business was loom manufacture. Rudolf Diesel worked for Sulzer in 1879, and in 1893 Sulzer bought certain rights to diesel engines. Sulzer built their first diesel engine in 1898.

Sulzer developed a series of traction engines in the 1930's and 1940's which were used extensively in the UK, Europe and South America. A small number were used in locomotives in South Africa and Australia.Several experimental diesels were built in the US.

In 1990 Sulzer spun off the diesel engine division into a separate company named "New Sulzer Diesel" (NSD) and sold the majority of New Sulzer Diesel's shares, retaining only a minority ownership in the company. In 1997 NSD was absorbed by Wärtsilä, which created Wärtsilä NSD. Wärtsilä NSD is the maker of the world's largest diesel engine, Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C.

[edit] Organisation

The company is divided in four main divisions:

  • Sulzer Pumps - Pumping systems, 49% of the revenue and 5686 employees.[1] It produces centrifugal pumps and agitators/mixers for the Oil, Hydrocarbon, Paper, Power Generation, Water, Food, Metals and Fertilizer industries at a global scale.
  • Sulzer Metco - Services and products for thermal spray and thin film surface technologies, 21.3% of revenue with 2054 employees.[1]
  • Sulzer Chemtech - Components and services for separation columns and static mixing, 21.5% of the revenue and 2393 employees.[1]
  • Sulzer Turbo Services - Service and repair of thermal turbomachinery. Also manufactures spares for gas turbines, steam turbines, and compressors. 7.9% of revenue with 1179 employees.[1]

Sulzer also operates Innotec, a small R&D division.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d e End of December 2007. Taken from Sulzer 'Company Profile 2008'.