Ziehl Abegg

History

In 1897, Emil Ziehl developed the first external rotor motor. In early 1910, the Ziehl-Abegg Electricity Company was founded in Berlin. Emil Ziehl and the Swedish investor Eduard Abegg set up the company in Weißensee, a borough now part of the Pankow District.

Emil Ziehl had big expectations for Abegg, who was to develop wind turbines. After the company’s logo (with Abegg’s name on it) was already made public, Abegg failed to bring the promised funds. The introduced patent for the wind motors also turned out to be unsuitable. Abegg left the company that same year.

The plant in Berlin was dismantled and taken to the Soviet Union after the German Surrender in 1945, following orders of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. In 1947, the brothers Günther and Heinz Ziehl re-established the company in the Künzelsau castle mill, this time in West Germany. In 1960 began the production of an external rotor motor as a fan drive. The internalisation of the company started in 1973 and, in 2001, it became a family owned, joint-stock company.

Sales subsidiaries can be found in Poland, China, Russia, USA, Czech Republic, Sweden, United Kingdom, Finland, France, Italy, Australia, Singapore, Switzerland, Austria, Ukraine, Spain, Benelux, South Africa, Japan, Turkey, India and Brasil.

The founders of various competitors (Gebhardt, ebm-papst and Rosenberg) were employees of Ziehl-Abegg before starting their own company. Wilhelm Gebhardt worked in the Development department, and Karl Rosenberg used to work in the Sales department until 1981, when he left to set up his own firm.

Products

The biggest division is the Ventilation division, in which axial and radial fans with a diameter from 190 mm to 1400 mm are produced. Ziehl-Abegg also has two further divisions which produce drives and the corresponding control technology. Application areas are i.e. Heat, clean room and refrigeration technology.

In the late 1980s, Ziehl-Abegg became the first company in the world to introduce EC-Motors (see Brushless DC electric motor) and use them for Ventilation Technology. In the 1990s, the rotor blades were sickled and in 2006 they were equipped with a bionic profile, in order to minimize the noise emissions. In 2013, Ziehl-Abegg was also the first company in the world to develop a Bio-Fan made entirely of a Bio-Polymer (in this case castor oil).

In the drives division, Electrical Motors for lifts, medical applications (i.e. Computer Tomographs) and Omnibuses are developed.

Ziehl-Abegg Automotive

At the International Motor Show Germany in 2012, the associate company Ziehl-Abegg Automotive presented under the name ZAwheel a gearless in hub wheel drive for buses and other commercial vehicles with a synchronous external rotor motor.

Buses equipped with ZAwheel are in line operation since 2008, among others in Apeldoorn ("The Whisperer") and Rotterdam ("eBusz"). Five buses equipped with ZAwheel started their tour in the German city Münster in April 2015. The ZAwheel SM530 model with 125 kW has a maximum torque of 6000 Nm. The Efficiency is up to 90%. The retrofitting for conventional buses with a diesel engine is also possible.

Ziehl-Abegg SE

The headquarters are located at the Heinz-Ziehl Street in Kuenzelsau, with a subsidiary plant in the nearby Würzburger Street. Built in 2008, the world's largest and most modern air flow and noise level test chambers for fans can be found in the main production site.

Further production sites are located in Schoental-Bieringen (one facility) and in the Günther-Ziehl Street in the Hohenlohe Industrial Park, Kupferzell (ZA Kupferzell).

Ziehl-Abegg France SARL

The production site of electrical motors and complete Fan Systems for the Refrigeration and ventilation industry is located in Villieu, Lyon. 118 Employees work on an area of 10.000 qm.

Ziehl-Abegg KFT

ZIEHL-ABEGG Motor- és Ventillátorgyártó Kft. in Marcali (Hungary) was founded in December 1994 by ZIEHL-ABEGG GmbH. & Co. with a capital of 84.570.000 Forint. This plant manufactures Ventilation equipment, special electrical motors, axial and radial fans and accessories for agriculture, engineering, AC-equipment and cooling industry. The production of the parts consists of three facilities on an area of 62.000 qm in total.

Training and education

The percentage of trainees and apprentices in Ziehl-Abegg is close to 10%. In 2014, the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce gave Ziehl-Abegg the "Dualis" Label for its remarkable training programme.

In 2012, Ziehl-Abegg was honoured with the Human Resources Excellence Award for its outstanding Welcome Culture towards international employees. Ziehl-Abegg is also exporting the successful German Dual education system: the Ziehl-Abegg facility in Ungarn is offering a cooperative study programm (with an 80%–20% balance of theory and practice, similar to the special college system called Duale Hochschule) for 2016, following the start of the Dual Training System in 2013.