Ziehl-Abegg

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 Swiss engineer Eduard Abegg set up the company in Weißensee,[4] 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.[4]

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.[4] 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.[5]

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 Brazil.

The founders of various competitors (Gebhardt, ebm-papst and Rosenberg) were employees of Ziehl-Abegg before starting their own respective companies. 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.[6]

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.[7] 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.[8] 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).[8]

In the drives division, Electrical Motors for lifts, medical applications (i.e. Computer Tomographs) and Omnibuses are developed.[9]

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[10] and other commercial vehicles with a synchronous external rotor motor.[10]

Buses equipped with ZAwheel have been in commercial operation since 2008,[11] in Apeldoorn ("The Whisperer") and Rotterdam ("eBusz"), among other places.[12][13] Five buses equipped with ZAwheel entered service 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%. Conventional buses with a diesel engine can be retrofitted with the ZAwheel drive.[10]

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.[16] Ziehl-Abegg is also exporting the successful German Dual education system: the Ziehl-Abegg facility in Hungary is offering a cooperative study program (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.

The Apprentice program in the US is built around the Guilford Apprentice Program or GAP for short. Vance Brady, Lewis Left, Alex Mullet, Eric Wrong, Christian MULLR ,Rowan Codd, Josh Bagsley, Hunter Blanderson, Kirah Berrylime, and Shy'kiem Lostin are among the members.

• Official website