GEA Celebrates 125 Years of Activity
The story of GEA started in 1893, when the businessman Franz Ramesohl and the cabinetmaker Franz Schmidt in Oelde, Westphalia, opened a workshop in 1893 and produced a hand-operated milk centrifuge with the model name “Westfalia”.
The roots of the company developed into today’s GEA site. The products “made in Oelde” are supplied all over the world. The export quota is currently over 80%. GEA’s expertise now encompasses over 3,500 different processes and 2,500 products for various industries ranging from food and beverage, marine, oil and gas to power, chemical, pharmaceutical and environmental technology.
Today, Oelde is GEA’s largest single site worldwide with a production area of around 37,000 sqm. Around 1,900 employees, 180 of whom are trainees, are currently working in the areas of design, production and administration. GEA invested heavily in the site in 2013. “We had and still have the clear ambition not simply to swim in the global competition, but to determine it by increasing efficiency,” says Steffen Bersch, member of the GEA Executive Board, who worked for many years in Oelde himself.
The new building in Oelde, which was built in 2013, was essentially based on the idea of sustainability.
The company’s own Process Test Center (PTC), which opened in 2014 and provides extensive specialist support for customers’ investment projects, also enables even greater customer orientation. In cooperation with the customer, GEA Product Managers and GEA Process Development, the PTC also develops and tests completely new processes. More than 11,000 tests and process developments as well as more than 18,000 laboratory product analyses have been carried out to date.
In order to reliably ensure maximum customer satisfaction and continuous machine availability during operation, the supply of spare parts is coordinated centrally from Oelde and in cooperation with renowned logistics companies via so-called hubs. These spare parts centers are currently located in Cologne, Germany (since 2011), Singapore (since 2014) and Naperville, USA (since 2017).
Digitalization
GEA sees digitization above all as an opportunity and a pioneer for new growth and development potential, both in the new machine sector and with regard to the growing range of service solutions.
A current example from the service sector: GEA PerformancePlus includes service p
ackages that go far beyond traditional maintenance and are an ideal complement to an industry 4.0 strategy. This uncovers optimization potentials that enable sustainable plant operation.
“Strengthened by 125 years of success, GEA Separation continues to follow in the footsteps of digital transformation – and so this anniversary not only marks a milestone in the company’s history. At the same time, it is an incentive to push ahead with innovations and continue to improve customer processes and, not least, people’s lives in the long term,” the company says.