150 years of KHS: from equipment trader from Dortmund to global turnkey supplier

Pioneers since the first hour

KHS’ rise to worldwide partner to the beverage industry was a continuous process. It all began with the foundation of the Holstein & Kappert company in 1868. The Dortmund equipment trader initially only sold technical apparatus for the beverage industry. At the beginning of the 20th century the company began producing its own machinery which washed bottles and filled and packaged beverages, among other things. The Seitz-Werke and Enzinger also celebrated their first successes in the second half of the 19th century. With the help of their innovative filters they revolutionized the wine and beer industries. The fusion between Holstein & Kappert and Seitz Enzinger Noll Maschinenbau AG (SEN) based in Bad Kreuznach and Worms in 1993 was the ultimate milestone in the company’s history. Under the umbrella of the Klöckner-Werke, majority shareholder of Holstein & Kappert since 1979, the two manufacturers merged to form KHS Maschinen- und Anlagenbau AG. Manfred Rückstein, head of Corporate Communication at KHS from 1991 to 2012, looks back to the time after the merger, which was at first quite turbulent. “We had to make it clear to our customers, who for decades had been loyal to either the one or the other brand, that the products from Bad Kreuznach, Worms and Dortmund were now all on an even par. In order to achieve this goal, it was absolutely essential to start using uniform product names.”

Shaping the future with sustainable products

For years the KHS Group has increasingly focused on sustainability in the development of new, future-proof plant engineering. “As one of the market leaders in filling and packaging we’re fully aware of our responsibility to the environment. The issue of sustainability thus plays an important role in the development of our innovative and cost-effective products,” Becker states. Saving on resources is especially important in this context. Companies large and small the world over rely on energy- and resource-saving machinery to fill and package their bottles, cans and kegs. The KHS Group works towards producing lighter and lighter containers in its Bottles & Shapes™ program, to name just one example here. At drinktec 2017, for instance, the company introduced the lightest 0.5-liter PET bottle in the world to date, weighing just 5 grams. KHS also premiered a marketable concept for the forming and filling of plastic bottles which involves just one process step. Further landmarks pertinent to the topic of sustainability include the development of the Nature MultiPackTM, which bonds bottle and can packs together using dots of adhesive instead of shrink film, and the invention of Plasmax barrier technology, which applies a coating of glass to the inside of PET bottles. Another of the new avenues KHS is exploring together with its customers is the digitization of the production process from 3D line design to virtual commissioning. With these and a number of further innovations in the pipeline the company is looking to the future with much optimism. www.khs.com