“Innovations for tomorrow” are firmly anchored in entrepreneurial thinking
Only 2 percent of all companies in Germany are over 100 years old. 100 years of ANLAGENBAU GÜNTHER GmbH is therefore a more than worthy occasion to celebrate the history of an extraordinary company. 100 years of recognizing opportunities and taking risks, 100 years of developing innovations and 100 years to today's leading provider of machinery and plant engineering in the recycling industry.
Several generations with different technical skills and ideas, but with a united inventive spirit and a special forward-thinking approach are behind the company. The GÜNTHER family business honors the past and thinks about the future.
“Recycling, a constant element of the company's history.”
In 1924, before the Second World War, the GÜNTHER company was founded. After the war, there was a shortage of all kinds of everyday items. Founder Heinrich Günther, not only an inventor but also a doer, came up with the first recycling idea in the company's history. He made milk cans, scoops, watering cans and wash bowls from used tin cans. His son Otto, who took over the business in 1951 at the age of 17 due to Heinrich's sudden death, also continued the recycling concept. In the 1950s, he built up a successful heating company whose core business was the individual conversion of customers' existing kitchen stoves into modern centrally stored gravity heating systems with hot water preparation. In the 60s and 70s, the Günther company experienced a real boom. There was lively customer interest in special machine construction, which Otto Günther mastered exceptionally well.
“The 80s - The entry into mechanical engineering as the cornerstone of today's business segment.”
Conveyor technology was built in the mid-1980s as part of an individual customer project, paving the way for today's plant engineering. At that time, machines were already being manufactured to support manufacturing processes for local companies. From then on, special customer requirements necessitated specific design and planning in advance. At the end of the 1980s, the KOMPO PACK MOBIL marked the company's entry into the compost industry, coupled with its first trade fair participation at the IFAT in Munich in 1990. The KOMPO PACK MOBIL was one of the first volume filling machines for compost soil, which resulted from the collaboration with Hans Bäuscher VS Verpackungstechnik at the time.
“Innovative ideas led directly to the recycling industry over 30 years ago.”
In addition to filling soil and compost, further systems were developed in the early 1990s for the efficient cleaning of heavily contaminated compost substrates. Even then, the challenge was to separate the material from impurities such as films, metals and stones. GÜNTHER introduced the MULTIAIR series as one of the first solutions: An air separation system that is positioned behind a screening machine to extract films and other flat materials and blow them into a separate container. The development of the first patent-protected MULTISTAR rubber screen star on the market in 1993 led directly to the recycling industry. This development also led to a successful business relationship with Komptech in Austria, first as a customer and since 2003 as an official partner. Since then, products in the field of screening and separation technology have been jointly developed and sold. This very successful cooperation has resulted in a large number of new features and innovations that have made the MULTISTAR series increasingly efficient and economical. Today, the products are sold in more than 70 countries.
“Strengthening the GÜNTHER brand through own distribution of SPLITTER technology.”
The SPLITTER spiral shaft technology was developed in 2004. The technology complements the product range as a robust pre-separation system in the solid waste sector. The product's versatile range of applications has opened up further markets in addition to the existing market area, such as domestic and commercial waste, stones and earth, scrap metal, slag and lightweight packaging. SPLITTER technology is already in use in all of these areas.
Today, after a 100-year success story, ANLAGENBAU GÜNTHER GmbH plans and implements mobile and stationary recycling plants that are precisely tailored to customer requirements and make cost-efficient and sustainable work possible worldwide. True to the motto “Innovations for tomorrow”, the machines and systems are regularly developed further in order to be able to serve the markets of tomorrow.
“Today, just like 100 years ago, “innovations for tomorrow” determine entrepreneurial activity.”
Innovation has always been an important driver of constant change in the world - 100 years ago and still today. But what makes an idea an innovation? In short: doing something in a way that no one else has done before, thinking in a different direction for once, and then being determined to take the plunge without having any certainty that it will work. An idea only remains an idea if it is not turned into an innovation. It is up to us, the entrepreneurial activity and mindset, the employees who have ideas and the managers who confidently move forward to implement and develop these ideas. Only in this way do we have the chance to improve our company, the world and the future. Heinrich Günther already knew this 100 years ago, and this is how we still implement our corporate goals today. True to the motto “Innovations for tomorrow”, the machines and systems are regularly developed further in order to be able to serve the markets of tomorrow. And the company's 100th anniversary in 2024 will also be celebrated under this motto.