Company history of Eisengießerei Karlshütte GmbH
The ambitions of the Imperial-Werke in Bünde to cover the demand for self-produced cast iron parts for stoves and ovens, led to the construction of the foundry in Ahle. The first grey iron was produced at the iron foundry in Karlshütte on October 29th, 1949. At that time, the company had 63 staff in Ahle who produced approximately 60 tonnes of cast iron parts per month. The following 20 years brought construction, expansion, modernisation and rationalisation so that 500 tonnes of cast iron were manufactured every month by a team of 86 employees. This immense growth in performance resulted from the installation of an automatic casting and moulding plant from BMD. This made the plant in Ahle one of the most modern foundries in Europe at the time.
Signs of recession became apparent in the stove business in 1968 and Imperial developed the first ceramic cooking plate in cooperation with Schott Glaswerke. Our own stove production was discontinued and the last coal-burning stove was cast in 1971. This was the beginning of the changeover to jobbing casting. The first customers were AEG-Motorenbau, BOSCH, Olympia and Kochs-Adler. The Imperial plants were sold to Miele on December 1st, 1989. The foundry, however, was not absorbed but was further run by the Thiele family as an independent company. At first, the company operated under the name, "Imperial-Werke Gießerei GmbH", but the name had to be given up in 1994 due to contractual agreements. So it was decided to revert to the original name of “Karlshütte”. Great focus was placed on investment in the following years in order to meet customer demands. Thus hand composition was replaced when a fully automatic composition plant was built and in 1992, and 1995 saw the replacement of the BMD moulding plant with a fully automated one from Heinrich Wagner Sinto (HWS). When the first electric oven became operational in 1997, nodular graphite casting was made possible. With a staff of 65, the total productivity of the foundry had reached 2,706 tonnes and a turnover of DM9.7 million (approx. €4.5 million) by 1998.
The company celebrated its 50th anniversary on October 29th, 1999. In order to be able to react flexibly to customer requirements and also to increase productivity, a Laempe LL10 core shooter was implemented in 2001, followed by the installation of an EIRICH sand preparation plant which operates according to the Evactherm® method, in 2004. The annual tonnage grew to reach 4,397 by 2007. Thanks to the perfect interaction between the individual production departments, the Eisengießerei Karslhütte guarantees the excellent quality of its cast products.
In the summer of 2008, the company received certification from the DQS (German Association for Certification of Management Systems) to confirm that the quality management system implemented, meets the requirements for DIN EN ISO 9001:2000. This certification was renewed in June 2009 following evaluation of the system by DQS.
Today the company employs 65 staff and is run by the Managing Partner, Dipl.-Ing. Karl-Heinrich Thiele.
