From the vise to heavy plant engineering - Polysius

From the vise to heavy plant engineering
In 1859, master machinist Andreas Ernst Gottfried Polysius (Fig. 1) established his
own workshop in Dessau and thus laid the foundation stone for today's global player
- Polysius AG.
A Shepherd Turned Machinist
Andreas Ernst Gottfried Polysius was born in Dessau on 17 November, 1827. The
son of the duke's shepherd was granted the privilege of attending grammar school,
but after three years Gottfried had to leave school in order to help his father. Instead
of reading, writing and calculating he had now to tend sheep.
In 1848, when he came of age, he wrote a letter to his father, telling him that he had
earned and saved so much money that he could now afford to learn a trade, hoping
that with the help of God he would make ends meet.
Gottfried Polysius became a machinist and continued to pursue his goals with
determination.
In 1859, the master machinist opened his own workshop in Dessau, the birthplace of
the Polysius company. At first, he produced soapboxes, small shovels and stove
pipes. However, the 32-year-old craftsman had ambitious plans.
In 1870, he set up the G. Polysius iron foundry and engineering works (Fig. 2), where
he employed 32 workers. Gottfried Polysius also manufactured safes. To promote
them, he came up with an extraordinary idea that revealed his self-confidence: He
offered a reward of 100 thalers to anybody who would succeed in cracking one of his
safes. He never had to pay out the reward.
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After the foundation of the German Reich in 1871, the German economy flourished,
and Gottfried Polysius was able to increase the range of his products considerably.
He wrote a letter to his wife Luise, telling her that prospects were good owing to a
high demand for water pipes, mills, council offices and railways, so that many orders
were to be expected.
Gottfried Polysius also kept making wrought-iron products. In July, 1875, he finished
the wrought-iron gates for the duke's palace in Dessau. He later proudly reported that
the gates had been hung at the palace and that the Duke and his family greatly
admired their beauty.
What an outstanding achievement this was for a former shepherd.
Two brothers - one aim
At the age of 58, Gottfried Polysius died of a heart attack. In 1886, the company was
taken over by the second generation. Sons Otto und Max Polysius realised that the
cement manufacturing industry, then still in its infancy, promised to be a profitable
field of activity and thus paved the way to a worldwide business.
They purposefully supplied the new market with products manufactured in the
Dessau factory. In 1888, Otto Polysius wrote that by the end of the year he had
designed a new type of comminution machine which, owing to its high efficiency, had
met with so much success – in particular, in cement grinding plants – that within a
short time he was awarded orders for 24 comminution machines.
The economy continued to thrive. In 1890, the G. Polysius iron foundry and
engineering works delivered 70 comminution machines to Switzerland, England and
other countries (Fig. 3). They also supplied transmissions and friction clutches. The
next step was to conquer the world market.
Chicago, 2 May, 1893 – The World’s Columbian Exposition opened to the public, as
the white city, built of steel and plaster, was celebrating the 400th anniversary of the
discovery of America. 70,000 exhibitors came to Chicago, among them Max Polysius.
In the machine hall, he presented the whole range of products manufactured in the
Dessau factory (Fig. 4). The company's comminution machines German were
expressly mentioned in the "Amtlicher Bericht" (official German report on the
exposition) where the reader was informed that G. Polysius, located in Dessau,
exhibited four comminution machines of different size for the comminution of hard
materials like cement clinker, limestone, clay, gypsum, fire clay, heavy spar, emery,
Thomas slag, bones, colouring matter, salts, alum, ores, broken bricks, etc.
1900: At the beginning of the new century, the order books of G. Polysius, Dessau,
were full. A second factory, provided with a private railway siding, was erected. The
number of employees increased to almost 400.
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In 1907, the first complete cement plant was delivered to Egypt. Just one year later,
another was sent to China. Polysius had made the breakthrough and finally arrived
on the world market!
However, this success story was abruptly ended by the outbreak of World War I in
the summer of 1914. Many business contacts were cut off. The demand was now for
cannons instead of cement plants and mills.
In November 1918, World War I was over and the former enemies became business
partners once again.
Otto and Max Polysius succeeded in regaining their position on the world market, and
foreign currency helped them to overcome depression and inflation.
In 1922, the offices for design engineers and clerks were extended and a new
laboratory as well as a test plant facility were built. Cement plants designed in
Dessau were selling extraordinarily well all over the world. In 1927, G. Polysius,
Dessau, established a subsidiary in the US – the Polysius Corporation in Bethlehem,
Pennsylvania.
The Third Generation
At the end of the 1920s, Max and Otto Polysius received active support when their
sons, Otto, Gustav, Walter and Gottfried Karl, started working at their company.
On 1 July, 1928, the legal form of the company changed: the former general
partnership became an AG, i.e. an Aktiengesellschaft (public limited company). The
shares of the company, however, remained in the possession of the Polysius family.
At that time, the company also presented a new logo.
When designing the first rotary kiln in 1904, G. Polysius AG had already made large
investments in research and development.
In 1927, Dr. Georg Lellep designed in cooperation with G. Polysius, Dessau, the first
LEPOL® kiln, thereby starting a revolution that changed the traditional cement
production process forever. The new kiln type – named after the engineer Dr. Lellep
and Polysius – reduced energy consumption by a third.
In 1927, the graduate engineer Otto Georg Lellep left Estonia and settled in Dessau.
In cooperation with G. Polysius, he designed the so-called LEPOL kiln by means of
which the calcination process was considerably improved. Over a period of two
years, they carried out extensive tests in order to achieve this improvement.
G. Polysius, Dessau, invested more than one million gold marks until the design and
performance of Lellep's prototype was so much enhanced that they were able to put
it into practice.
However, in 1929, in the middle of a worldwide depression, it was difficult to market
the LEPOL kiln. The G. Polysius AG, Dessau, suffered a serious and persistent
crisis.
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In 1933, the National Socialists seized power in Germany. They implemented
governmental programmes to boost the economy. The G. Polysius AG also derived
benefit from these programmes, and in the following years, they supplied 40
LEPOL kilns per year all over the world (Fig. 5).
In 1939, the Nazis attacked Poland, thus starting World War II. Many international
business contacts were cut off. The factory in Dessau was forced to change
production in order to meet the demands of wartime economy. Instead of cement
plants, they now produced machine components for the air force and the locomotive
and tank programme.
In 1944, Dessau was reduced to debris. However, production at the Polysius factory
continued in spite of damage and difficulties. After the end of World War II, the
factory was expropriated by the authorities of the Soviet occupying forces.
From then on, the history of the G. Polysius AG followed two different routes: On the
one hand, the former Polysius AG in Dessau was transformed into a Soviet jointstock
company in 1946 and renamed VEB Zementanlagenbau in 1953. On the other,
WESTPOL GmbH – predecessor of the actual Polysius AG – was founded in
Neubeckum (West Germany) in 1946.
End of World War II and Expropriation
In March 1945, Gustav Polysius witnessed the air raid on Dessau. After the end of
World War II, Dessau was first occupied by American troops, then by Soviet troops.
Gustav Polysius hoped that the company could be saved for his family. So he wrote
letters to the authorities of the occupying forces, declaring that no member of his
family had been a member of the NSDAP and that the company was one hundred
percent owned by his family, with no Nazi organisation having any stake in it.
The company was forced to make reparations to the USSR. Dr. Curt Prüssing, sonin-law
of Max Polysius, founded WESTPOL GmbH in one of the Western zones. The
new company then purchased the components which Gustav Polysius needed for the
erection of the first cement plants in the USSR.
Gustav Polysius decided against moving to the Western zone and remained in
Dessau. Then, in July, 1946, it was too late to revise his decision. G. Polysius AG
was expropriated and Gustav Polysius was arrested. He was sent to a special Soviet
camp, established on the site of the former concentration camp Buchenwald, where
he died from starvation and privations on 9 March, 1947.
In 1946, WESTPOL GmbH reassured their customers and business contacts all over
the world that, in spite of the expropriation of the factory in Dessau, Polysius was
going to survive in the form of the new Neubeckum-based WESTPOL GmbH, which
intended to start operations as soon as possible. The newly founded company had to
take up business under extremely adverse circumstances. The first office of the four
employees consisted of two rooms in a basement in 14 Spiekerstraße, Neubeckum
(Fig. 6a).
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Improvisation skills were in great demand. The staff had to borrow desks, chairs and
a typewriter, while paper, pencils and erasers often had to be bought on the black
market.
The Westpol employees were allowed to fell a poplar on the premises of the
Germania cement plant. In a combined effort, they felled and sawed up the tree and
then traded the wood off against the first drawing board of the new company.
In 1948, they rented larger offices in what was formerly a chemist's shop in
Neubeckum. At the same time, work commenced on a new building in 17 Graf-
Galen-Straße, Neubeckum, at the very same place where today's headquarters are
still located (Fig. 6b).
From Dessau to Neubeckum
After the end of World War II, Dr. Curt Prüssing ensured the continuation of the
company in West Germany.
Thanks to his excellent diplomatic skills, Dr. Prüssing successfully dealt with all the
obstacles the new company had to face in post-war Germany. Important design
drawings had been lost in the war, and patents and licences were in jeopardy, yet he
succeeded in reviving the international contacts of past days. In his memoirs, he
acknowledged that they did not bother about the hundreds of regulations imposed by
or in the name of the occupying powers because they were determined to survive, to
rebuild the company and to get back what had been taken from them – these were
the goals which motivated their actions.
1949 WESTPOL becomes Polysius
On 25 February 1949, the shareholders'meeting voted in favour of transforming
WESTPOL GmbH into Polysius GmbH. The preceding years had been extremely
difficult and fraught with risk. At first, there had been a lack of all the normal
prerequisites for successfully transacting business. Despite these problems, a few
smaller orders for spare-parts were processed in Germany up to the spring of 1947.
The company was also able to supply the missing parts for a Lepol kiln that had been
partly delivered to a southern German cement factory during the war and to erect the
kiln.
In August of the same year a southern German cement producer also ordered a
Lepol kiln. Payment was to be in the form of sawn timber. When the first timber
wagon arrived in Neubeckum the event was of inconceivable momentousness. With
the support of the municipal administration of Neubeckum, Polysius was given a plot
of building land on Graf-Galen-Straße.
The financial situation continued to be extremely tight. The currency reform left the
company with only DM 12,000. When the wages and Christmas bonus were paid out
on Christmas Eve 1948, it was totally unclear where the funds would come from to
pay January's wages. The uncertainty caused some employees to accept offers of
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jobs elsewhere. Then Dr. Curt Prüssing succeeded in selling off the last disposable
assets, bringing Polysius another DM 18,000. This saved the life of the company.
With the traditional name on its new signboard, the company proceeded to reestablish
itself on the world market. In 1953, a small workshop was built and the
cooperation with Dr. Georg Lellep was renewed in the form of a licence agreement.
The company then experienced a business improvement that exceeded all
expectations. The premises doubled in size and a new research centre was built in
1957.
Polysius GmbH, together with its subsidiaries in England and France now had a
workforce of around 700 and impressively lived up to the promise that WESTPOL
GmbH had sent to its customers all over the world in 1946 under the dramatic
circumstances existing at that time:
The company's worldwide presence was improved by establishing subsidiaries. By
1971 Polysius was represented in England, France, Spain and South Africa by
subsidiary firms. Technological developments led to a progressive increase in the
complexity of production plants which, together with the increasing size of orders,
began to exceed the financial capacity of the company. It was therefore only a matter
of time before the Polysius family had to take the decision to place the future of the
company in better-funded hands.
In 1971, Fried. Krupp GmbH took over the majority shareholding In Polysius and
created the preconditions for a continuing positive development. It was now possible
for Polysius to undertake major international projects which it could not have taken on
without the financial capacity of the new owner. An impressive number of new plants
were constructed all over the world. Further subsidiaries were established in non-
European countries.
The reunification of Germany and the opening of eastern Europe led to an enormous
construction boom and a consequent leap in the demand for cement. Totally obsolete
cement factories had to be modernised or - as in the case of Bernburg in Saxony-
Anhalt - replaced by a new plant. For Polysius, the foremost considerations when
designing new facilities are environmental protection, increased energy efficiency,
and the conservation of natural resources by substituting alternative process
materials.
1992 saw the company's incorporation into the Krupp plantmaking division. Another
decisive milestone was set when Fried. Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp merged with the
Thyssen Group to form ThyssenKrupp AG. As a member of the international
business segment, ThyssenKrupp Technologies, Polysius is well-placed to master
the challenges of the future.
This new strength makes it possible to maintain and increase our competitiveness.
Moreover, Polysius has made selective acquisitions that have considerably improved
our market presence. New business sectors have significantly stabilised the company
against fluctuations in economic activity.
The eventful history of the Polysius company passes a special obligation from
generation to generation. This is to keep the company's tradition in mind while
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mastering new challenges through innovation. Many generations have provided good
examples for this business principle.
Maintaining the tradition of the company also means continuing to place team spirit
and loyalty at the heart of POLYSIUS corporate culture.
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