140 Years of KHS - Tradition meets innovation
KHS AG, an internationally active manufacturer of filling and packaging systems for the beverage, food, and non-food industries, celebrates its 140th anniversary in 2008. KHS, steeped in tradition and as one of the oldest in this branch of industry has nevertheless always remained young at heart since its beginnings thereby enabling an unexcelled success story that otherwise would not have been possible.
Today, KHS is considered a technological leader in filling and packaging technology throughout the beverage sector. Those who take a slightly closer look at the historical development soon realize that this excellent reputation is not just a matter of coincidence. It is based on perpetual bundling of competence that has been carried on to this very day. To the benefit of customers worldwide for whom KHS is a trusted partner, a partner with extensive plant engineering know-how who is thus predestined as a specialist for complete solutions and at the same time provider of so very essential comprehensive advisory services.
The origins of KHS date back to the year 1868, when Louis Holstein and Carl Kappert decided to establish Holstein & Kappert in Dortmund. Two other companies that were to have a decisive influence on today’s KHS were also founded in the 19th century. In 1878, Lorenz Adalbert Enzinger brought the firm L. A. Enzinger into being that, like the Seitz-Werke founded by Theobald Friedrich Seitz and Georg Heinrich Seitz, initially focused on the production of filters. The first bundling of core competency came about in 1982. Seitz and Enzinger together with the machine engineering company Noll merged to form Seitz Enzinger Noll with headquarters in Bad Kreuznach. The probably most decisive step in the history of the company was taken in 1993 when Holstein & Kappert and Seitz Enzinger Noll merged to form KHS. In recent years, KHS has enhanced its range of products and services by acquiring several other companies and has now evolved to become a turnkey supplier of technical solutions and know-how in the market. Hence today’s logical definition of the three letters K, H, and S: Know-how, High-tech, Service.
The KHS group currently maintains more than 14 production facilities around the globe and has more than 60 sales and service bases on all continents. In the year 2007, the company’s more than 5,000 employees realized sales totaling nearly 1 billion euros - a significant increase versus the previous year. For the current year, the company is expecting an increase in sales in excess of five percent. The traditional motto that KHS has continued to live by since the company was founded 140 years ago: The focus is on the customer, the customer, and again the customer.
