Brochure 50 Years
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50 YEARS OF GILGEN DOOR SYSTEMS

An anniversary can be celebrated in many ways. It can be used as an opportunity to stop and take stock for a moment; to look back and consider what has been achieved, while planning and looking forward to the future.

OUR HISTORY: 50 YEARS OF GILGEN  4 Forword   6 50 years of tradition and innovation 10 The Gilgen Company as it was in 1967 14 Conveying technology 16 Gilgen and the manifold pace of change 18 Yet another product 20 Our team 22 Automatic door systems 24 Automatic gates 26 Automatic sliding-wall system 28 Platform Screen Doors 30 Custom Made Solutions 34 Celebrations

Jakob Gilgen CEO Gilgen Door Systems AG

Dear Reader, On March 1st 2011, we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of our founding. This was a day for looking back proudly at what we have achieved. Fifty years is a long time; long enough for a company to go through many stages in development. All of us involved can count on enormous amounts of experience, which have been called on over the years to deal with such matters as constantly-changing market conditions, the development of the company and its business, the differing needs of our various stakeholders, the company’s social obligations, and so on. The history of our company can...

50 YEARS OF TRADITION AND INNOVATION In the beginning was the cone The friction drive cone proved to be the key to a successful future

The first of March 2011 was a very special day for Gilgen Door Systems, as it marked the 50th anniversary of the day on which Jakob Gilgen Senior set up the present company. The enterprise began as a one-man operation housed in his parents’ garage, where he worked alone, manufacturing his first automatic drive systems for doors and gates and assembling them on his customers’ premises. The company, with its workforce of more than 900 employees, now enjoys a worldwide presence. Annual turnover has risen to CHF 182.1 million over the intervening 50 years. Jakob Gilgen Senior could have carried...

A company with worldwide activity comes into being In 1963, as part of an effort to offer the solutions that the market was demanding, the company began to widen its range, with the addition of special machines and equipment manufacturing. The company acquired a site on the Freiburgstrasse in 1965, and construction on the new headquarters building began. It is notable that the entire project, apart from bricklaying, was completed using in-house resources and a workforce that now totalled more than 40 employees. The company finally moved into its new building in 1967. The first part of the...

The company grows and grows… From these beginnings in the garage of the founders’ parents, in a space measuring just 15 square metres, the headquarters building in Schwarzenburg grew to occupy floorspace exceeding 16,000 m². Production Warehousing Office facilities Showroom Total 1970 Just three years after the move into the new building, it was already being enlarged. 1977 A mere ten years later, the company Gilgen AG already had a workforce of 150 employees. It was therefore no wonder that a third phase of expansion was required. 1981 Aerial view of the Schwarzenburg headquarters...

Expansion of the sales and distribution operation The period from the early sixties to the 1980s saw an expansion of the company’s sales and distribution operation in Switzerland, with the opening of branches in the following places: Sissach (BL), St-Sulpice (VD), Aarburg (AG), Sementina (TI), Zizers (GR), Geneva (GE), Ausserberg (VS), Bern-Bümpliz (BE) and Geroldswil (ZH). The opening of these branches allowed us to develop a dense after-sales service network, which continues to function efficiently to this day, to the delight of our customers. On 1st January 1973, now with a workforce of...

The year 1974, which saw a climate of uncertainty affecting developments in the construction sector, marked the company’s intention to expand into the markets of Switzerland’s neighbouring countries. Participation in international exhibitions created the opportunity to cultivate a wide range of contacts, and also the chance to establish the first general distribution contract for Germany. The company’s new building in Schwarzenburg was inaugurated in May 1981 with a public open day to mark the occasion. The workforce of Gilgen AG had grown to 265 employees by this time, and annual turnover...

CONVEYING TECHNOLOGY In 1968, Jakob Gilgen registered a new patent The company could now start building its first conveyor system for PTT (the Swiss Post)

In the same year, Jakob Gilgen Senior registered a patent for an automatic postboxemptying system. This achievement allowed the company to move into a further area of activity, in the shape of conveyor technology. The company’s first containerconveying system entered into operation in 1976, and one of its biggest-ever systems of this type was installed in 1985 at the Shell headquarters in The Hague. Yet another new development, a world first in this case, was the licom monorail system. The company then expanded, in 1983, by acquiring the conveyor activities of the company TGW (Transport...

DESPITE ALL THESE CHANGES, GILGEN HAS KEPT ITS CHARACTER Public open day, 1986 Jakob Gilgen guides visitors through the fitter’s shop, the heart of the production system

The year 1986 marked a time of great change. After his studies in mechanical and electrical engineering, and a couple of years of on-the-job training, Jakob Gilgen Junior was appointed to the board of directors, and joined company management. The firm’s 25th anniversary celebrations, which took place in August 1986, managed to exceed all expectations. More than 700 guests from both home and abroad attended the event, and the public open day saw an influx of over 3,000 visitors. Other key figures from that year included turnover of CHF 50 million and a workforce of 395 employees. On 1st July...

Automatic sliding doors We built our first automatic sliding doors in 1973