| Type | GmbH |
|---|---|
| Industry | Construction |
| Founded | 1958 (1868) |
| Headquarters | Amstetten, Austria |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Andreas Ludwig Josef Kurzmann, Hilde Umdasch, Alfred Umdasch |
| Products | Formwork, Engineering |
| Revenue | € 712 million (2010) |
| Subsidiaries | >140 |
| Website | www.doka.com |
Doka is an international producer and supplier of prefabricated formwork used in concrete pouring. It is a branch of the Umdasch AG (JSC) based in Amstetten, Austria. The Doka Group has a worldwide workforce of approx. 5 300, with over 140 branches in more than 65 countries and revenue of 712 million euros (2010).
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The Doka Group and the Umdasch Shopfitting Group make up the Umdasch AG with its headquarters located in Amstetten, Austria. In 1868[1] Stefan Hopferwieser[2] founded the company St. & A. Hopferwieser as a carpentry in the town of Kollmitzberg. During the first 80 years of the company, the company had diversified into carpentry, sawmill wood and metal manufacturing, producing among others furniture, home appliances, metal hardware and packaging. In 1949, the engineer Josef Umdasch, who was married to Mathilde Hopferwieser (granddaughter of Stefan Hopferwieser) became the managing director of the company rebuilding and restructuring it.[3] Josef Umdasch had been a board member of the company since 1939. In the 1950s prefabricated formwork production and store fitting production arms of the company crystallized into the two modern branches within the corporate group. In 1961 the corporate group was renamed to Umdasch KG. After Josef Umdasch retired his children Hilde and Alfred Umdasch directed the company.
In 1958 the company branch Doka[4] was founded. The company founding and company name are interlinked with their first product and projects. In Austria in the 1950s, large infrastructural construction was underway including several hydro electrical dams. The dams where being built on the Danube river (Donau) and its tributaries by the Austrian utility "Donaukraftwerke" or DOKW for short, translating as 'Danube power stations'. Because of the great size of these structures, traditional timber beam formwork was too labor-intensive to form the large walls. Thus a large scale systematic and reusable formwork was developed, with the wooden formwork panels being produced and shipped from the Amstetten company. Originally the DOKW was the delivery address, but then became the product name (DOKW boards). Linguistic usage slurred DOKW into DOKA, which became the name of the newly founded company. In 1961 the first was established in Germany, followed in 1977 by Brazil and Kuwait. Since then Doka has grown to service countries in all inhabited continents, particularly in Europe and the Middle East, and in the English speaking countries Great Britain, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States.[5]
The sister branch of the 'Doka Group' is the 'Umdasch Shopfitting Group' is specialized in store design and interior architecture and the production of related furnishing equipment. The consolidated revenues of the shop fitting company group reached 236 million euro in 2005.
The combined company employs roughly 7000 [6] people and the combined revenues reached 1 074 million euro in 2007. 87% of the company’s produces is export.[7]
The products available formwork product systems and design service include formwork panels, slab formwork, wall formwork, one-sided wall formwork, climbing formwork, tunnel formwork, dam formwork, bridge formwork (cast-in-place balanced cantilever bridge, concrete arch bridge and steel combination bridge formwork), shoring / falsework, tie systems and field support, software and training. Doka’s business is based on a combination of production, equipment sale & rental, engineering and maintenance. Most of the formwork production takes place at the Group’s central plant in Amstetten.[8] The formwork panels are made in the branch plant in Banská Bystrica in Slovakia.
Projects built using Doka Formwork