Magazine for the Glass IndustryIssue 3 · Octaober 2018

DIGITAL CRAFTSAn industry which is part tradition, part innovation

FASCINATING FOUNTAINS

It looks like glass but isn’t: fleeting art made of water – captured by camera

1,100 COLOURS OF GLASS

The “Elbphilharmonie” is Hamburg’s new landmark. The figurehead: its glass façade.

CLOSE TO OUR CUSTOMERS WORLDWIDE

How Bohle is doing business around the world. And why the company is strengthening its presence

in the US and Italy.

The future of sliding glass door systems...today!

Effortless installation – maximum performance

Introducing the revolutionary MasterTrack FT, a new generation of sliding glass door system. Experience effortless, silent running with its unique low-friction roller system.

Installation could not be simpler – running carriages can be positioned without the need for measurement. MasterTrack FT is the ultimate evolution of sliding glass door performance and aesthetics.

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ow many people visit your website every month? How much turnover do you generate via your web shop? It’s good if you can answer these questions in your sleep. Whether you are in production, marketing,

sales or communication, digitisation increasingly shapes our everyday working life – which is also the case for SMEs and the crafts sector. It will require new skills from us – but also offer new opportunities to increase turnover and profitability, in short: to stay permanently competitive, as the cover story of this issue points out (starting from page 10).It also shows there is no silver bullet to help in achieving Crafts 4.0 – but the overall aim is clear. Glaziers, butchers or roofers have long since started to replace printed catalogues with websites with online shops. And sending precise, digitally created dimensions by tablet instead of faxing coarsely drawn drafts. Or replacing the monthly promotional leaflet by catching people’s attention with digital posts on Facebook or Twitter, a development which we should neither ignore nor demonise, but make use of it – to our most fundamental benefit.

Another aspect of our work at Bohle which has been as indispensable as digitisation for a long time is internationalisation. Doing business in all parts of the world has been imprinted in our DNA for decades. We have long since been doing more business outside of Germany than between Passau and Flensburg – and have just strengthened our international presence by taking over two companies: Portals, a supplier of bathroom fittings based in Kansas City, USA, and Mc-Slide, a manufacturer of high-quality and innovative sliding door systems from Rimini, northern Italy (page 26), reason enough to invite you to take a look behind the scenes of our global subsidiaries. To start, we will travel to Manchester and Vienna. And of course, we will also tell you where you find the best pubs and coffee houses after work (page 30).

We also recommend visiting Hamburg – with the Elbphilharmonie and its futuristic glass façade. Starting from page 32, you can learn more about balconies which remind us of horseshoes.

Enjoy reading!

Best regards, Your

Dr. Thorsten BöllinghausChairman l Chief Technology Officer

DEAR READERS!

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The digitisation of the economy reached the crafts sector long ago. Learn more about new business models, smart products and your direct line to your customers.

SMART WORKSHOP

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CLOSE TO OUR CUSTOMERS WORLDWIDEHow Bohle is doing business around the world, and why the company is strengthening its presence in the US and Italy. 26

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CONTENTS

06 Fascinating fountains

PANORAMA

BOHLE BUSINESS

22 Inspired by nature

10 Cover story: Smart workshop

PASSION FOR GLASS

17 Interview: "New technologies always mean transformation"

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Behind the scenes: Close to our customers worldwide

Masterpiece: 1,100 colours of glass

INSIGHTS

24 A window into the past

HISTORY

08 Three times better

TRENDS

34 Bohle review

2018

Glass or plastic?

Small Talk: Astonishing facts

SPOTLIGHT

SERVICE

GLASS OR PLASTIC?Ecological balance and good taste 20

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Important dates/legal notice

Legal notice

FASCINATING FOUNTAINSGlassy, filigree-like – and so vivid it’s as if you could touch it with your hands: Hard to believe that this artful sculpture is made of water. More precisely, of two drops fusing. This dance of molecules lasts 1/25,000 of a second – much too fast for the human eye. It is only thanks to Markus Reugels, an amateur photographer from Marksteinach, Germany, that we can witness this magical moment. Liquids turn into art in his photography studio in the attic of his house – with the aid of a standard single-lens reflex camera, utensils from the DIY store and a sophisticated electrical circuit. And tap water which he enriches with spirit, thickener and printing ink. He took his first photo in 2009. In the meantime, his fascinating fountains, crowns and columns have achieved world fame. “Every single water drop is unique and unpredictable,” says the water tamer. “This fascinates me as much today as the day I started.”

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THREE TIMES BETTERWhether it’s a high-performance battery without liquid electrolytes, the smallest optical components made by a 3D printer or smart drinks which innkeepers hope to optimise their logistics with – in all three cases, glass plays the prominent role.

THE SUPER BATTERY MADE OF GLASS

US researchers have developed a new high-performance battery based on glass.

Only a one minute charging time and three times as much energy as a standard lithium-ion battery: A group of researchers at the University of Texas in Austin, led by John Goodenough, the inventor of the lithium-ion battery, has developed a new high-performance application. It does not only have more power than standard lithium-ion batteries, it can also be charged more often without affecting its performance capacity. The basis for the outstanding performance is glass. Glass replaces the liquid electrolytes which are used to join cathode and anode in lithium-ion batteries. The advantage: Now more powerful cathodes and anodes made of alkali metals instead of lithium and lithium metal oxide can be installed in the batteries. This reduces costs and effort when producing the cells while providing a higher energy density and a longer service life at the same time. Limitlessly available sodium can be used instead of the relatively rare lithium. In addition, glass reduces the risk of short circuits and fires. Even extreme temperatures do not affect the new solid-state battery. The developers promise full performance, even at 20 degrees below zero. The new battery generation is expected to be ready for serial production in approximately two years – for use in smartphones.

Safer and more economic: Glass as a connection between cathode and anode reduces production costs and avoids short circuits.

Quick starter: The glass-based battery needs only one minute to charge.

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A TOAST TO THE CLOUD

Thanks to SmartGlass and the intelligent bar, the RASTAL glass manufacturer is in a position to offer a digital solution for bar owners to improve their logistics chain.

A microchip in a beer glass: What sounds like science fiction or a party song is real – at least at RASTAL. The traditional manufacturer of all kinds of drinking glasses has developed a glass with a small transponder communicating with a reader via a radio link. This reader is integrated into the bar. If a glass is placed on top of it, the system recognises via the chip which glass type and size has just been handed over the counter. The smart bar is connected to an online platform via mobile communication: the “Cloud of Things” of the German telephone provider Deutsche Telekom. As a next step, the data transmitted by the smart glass at the bar to the data cloud is evaluated – that is, the kind and the quantity of the drinks and time and place of the order. Thanks to the intelligent interplay of glass, bar and cloud, and the real-time evaluation of consumer data, it will be easier in future for bar owners to organise their beverage needs and staff requirements.

GLASS MULTIPLIED

Printing three-dimensional objects out of plastic or metal is nothing unique anymore. Researchers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) now print objects out of glass.

They use liquid plastic, enriched with nanoparticles made of highly purified quartz glass, as a starting material. During the printing process, the Karlsruhe researchers wash out non-required material with the aid of a solvent. What remains is the hardened, highly purified, printed quartz glass object. According to the developers in Bastian Rapp’s team at the Institute for Microstructure Technology at KIT, this material is very versatile in use as it is transparent, heat-resistant and acid-proof: Special lenses for compact sensors or quantum computer parts could be produced in this way, as well as special equipment for medical laboratories. Rapp also sees possibilities in the IT sector. “The next-but-one computer generation will calculate with light,” Rapp points out. With the aid of 3D technology it would be possible to produce small, complex structures from a multitude of the smallest and differently aligned optical components.”

All-rounder: Components made of 3D printed glass can be used in the medical sector or inside computers.

Innovative spirit: Three-dimensional glass structures can also be produced in the printer now.

Digital: Thanks to a chip and the cloud, the glass and counter provide data for beverage supplies.

Networked production, mobile employees, distribution around the world. The digitisation of the economy reached the crafts sector long ago. How glaziers, butchers or roofers benefit from digitisation. Insights into craft workshops that are part tradition, part innovation.

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SMART WORKSHOP

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or a short moment, the glass pane floats in the air at waist level – fixed to the indoor crane with the aid of a suction lifter. Tino Mathiebe, machine and plant operator at Glas Ahne in

Pirna, smoothly approximates the pane to the CNC machine. He enters the coordinates on the display and chooses the tools. Subsequently, the machine mills, grinds and polishes the curvature automatically. Decorative glass grinding precisely according to architect’s drafts? Drilling complicated lateral blind holes? Glass for displays? No problem. “Our CNC machines come into play when the highest precision and special geometric shapes are required,” explains project manager Hans-Dieter Scheil.

Step-by-step connection.Builders, carpenters, architects or glass processors can get an overview on the company website of what the smart machines are able to do and what the glazier workshop from Saxony offers in general. However, the Saxonian 15-man crafts company has not only digitised production and marketing. Today, Glass Ahne does everything on a digital merchandise management system, from order and customer management to accounting and warehouse management. The system has been specifically designed for the glass sector for many of these value-added processes.

FHigh-quality workmanship: Robin Gawlina plans his high-quality glass furniture on his tablet.

Glas Ahne: The company building in Pirna with a large shower exhibition

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In addition, the company also digitised its site planning three years ago. “Since then, no installer has ever asked to be reminded of his appointments,” Scheil reports. “He can see them on his tablet or smartphone.”

Digitisation on the riseWhat this example from Pirna shows is that digitisation reached the crafts sector long ago. Be it glaziers or bakers, carpenters, metal constructors or butchers – more and more micro-enterprises have started facing digital transformation. They are working on making production, distribution or marketing future-proof step by step. In other words, speeding up processes, reducing costs and developing new business models. This is also corroborated by the Digitisation Index for the mid-sized sector 2017 by Telekom (also see the graphics on pages 13 and 14): Transformation has become an integral part of the business strategy for 40 per cent of crafts businesses; another 41 per cent of companies implement individual digital projects on a case-by-case basis. “I expect the offer of smart and strongly customised products to increase,” says

Franconian specialities: Via his online shop Claus Böbel receives orders from around the world.

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Passionate for his craft: Robin Gawlina posts short promotional videos on YouTube.

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Digitalisierungsindex Mittelstand

SO DIGITAL IST DAS HANDWERK

WIE DIGITAL SIND SIE? MACHEN SIE DEN SELF-CHECK AUF WWW.DIGITALISIERUNGSINDEX.DE

1 Durchschnittlicher Digitalisierungsgrad des Handwerks laut Digitalisierungsindex Mittelstand, max. 100 Punkte erreichbar2 Digitalisierungsgrad in verschiedenen Handlungsfeldern

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IT- UND INFORMATIONSSICHERHEIT UND DATENSCHUTZ

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Vergleich zu 2016

Digitisation Index – mid-sized sectorHOW DIGITAL IS THE CRAFTS SECTOR?

DIGITISATION INDEX1

RELATIONSHIP WITH CUSTOMERS2

PRODUCTIVITY WITHIN THE BUSINESS

DIGITAL OFFERS AND BUSINESS MODELS

IT AND INFORMATION SECURITY AND DATA PRIVACY

1Average degree of digitisation of the crafts sector according to the Digitisation Index for the mid-sized sector, a maximum of 100 points can be achieved2Degree of digitisation in different areas of activity

HOW DIGITAL ARE YOU? DO A SELF-CHECK AT WWW.DIGITALISIERUNGSINDEX.DE

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Friederike Welter, chair of Management of small and medium-sized businesses and Entrepreneurship at Siegen University and President of the IfM Institute in Bonn. (See interview on page 17)

According to a recent study by Bitkom and the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH), a quarter of all crafts businesses already uses modern digital technologies such as CNC machines, 3D printers or tracking systems. Some 58 per cent use software solutions for controlling their operational processes and 95 per cent have their own website. “Digitisation entails great opportunities,” says the ZDH Managing Director. “We help our businesses to take advantage of them. In this way, we secure the high long-term quality and competitiveness of the German crafts sector.”

Liver loaf for JamaicaClaus Böbel, Master Butcher from Rittersbach in Franconia, shows how this can be achieved. For three generations the traditional butcher’s shop has been offering liver sausages, schnitzel and roast pork to its customers in the region. Recently, however, large retailers made the company’s life more and more difficult – prices came under pressure and Böbel had already fully exploited the possibility of expanding his customer base in the surroundings. “Too many sausages for too few people,” that’s how the Master Butcher summarises his situation at that time.

The solution: an e-commerce site where Böbel has been offering his sausage and meat specialities since 2004 – ranging from liver sausages via Schäufele (pig’s shoulder) up to dry-aged beef. Even sausage seminars can be booked here. In the meantime, Böbel has built up a loyal fan base – from the north Italian gourmet up to the expatriates in New Zealand or Jamaica. The consequence: Böbel is generating 50 per cent of his turnover via the web shop – and this figure is rising.

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Climbing the roof with a tabletPascal Sahm is also striving for smart customer service. The junior manager of the Sahm roofing company from Burbach in Siegerland wanted to speed up internal processes and reduce costs in order to secure competitiveness. He therefore started digitising order planning and management and shifted these processes into his private cloud. The employees used to drag plans, construction manuals and reports to the building site in paper form – now they can find all required information on their tablets, always in the most up-to-date version, even on top of a roof. This does not only ease cooperation, it improves customer service. Photos of the construction process can quickly be taken and uploaded by smartphone. “Especially builders, who are not able to pass by the construction site every day, appreciate this service,” Sahm points out.

Digital on the rooftop: Instead of paper, Pascal Sahm prefers working on orders, construction plans and reports digitally – also at a lofty height.

DIGITAL KNOW-HOW FOR THE CRAFTS SECTOR

The “Kompetenzzentrum Digitales Handwerk” (competence centre for digital craftsmanship) offers support in digitisation matters. It was triggered by ZDH within the scope of the “SMEs 4.0 – Digital Production and Work Processes” funding initiative. The project is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

www.handwerkdigital.de

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Shaping the futureOnline shop, CRM tool, asset monitoring – digitisation offers countless possibilities to modernise one’s own business. In spite of that, many craftsmen are reluctant to start digitising themselves. According to the IfM Institute, around 36 per cent of companies with up to 49 employees fear that the costs of digitisation will exceed its expected benefits. Or fear is spreading that they might become dependent on digital technologies.

Robin Gawlina seems to be far removed from this reluctance. The 25-year-old Master Glazier and business economist from Dorsten became involved in the development of the new company website of the seven-man business. He publishes short videos on YouTube and grants insights into his everyday work every now and then on the social media channels. “We do not digitise at any price,” Gawlina says. “But we are very open to the new possibilities because we are expecting the benefits to outweigh the costs in the medium term.”

83%

Digitalisierungsindex Mittelstand

WELCHE AUSWIRKUNGEN HABEN DIGITALE MASSNAHMENAUF DAS HANDWERK?

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Basis: Unternehmen mit digitaler Umsetzung

84%der Unternehmen, die eine professionelle Kunden-datenbank einsetzen, sehen einen positiven Einfluss auf ihren Umsatz

82%der Unternehmen, die ihre Produktionsanla-gen zentral steuern und überwachen, können so ihre Kosten senken

Digitisation Index – mid-sized sectorWHAT EFFETCS DO DIGITAL MEASURES HAVE FOR THE CRAFTS SECTOR?Basis: Businesses implementing digitisation

of companies with a professional customer database experience a positive influence on their turnover.

are ensuring customer loyalty more successfully by means of a website.

of companies controlling and monitoring their production plants centrally,

are able to reduce their costs.

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Prof. Dr Welter, how difficult is digitisation for the craft sector?This depends on which aspects of digitisation we look at. If it helps to save costs quickly and economically, many craftsmen are already into digitisation. It appears quite different if you refer to the actual craftsmanship.

Why so reluctant?Owners of smaller businesses in particular are usually all-rounders who have to perform several different jobs at once. Not surprisingly, they are often convinced that their work cannot be replaced by algorithms and digitisation. Which opportunities does digitisation offer in particular for the crafts sector? Apart from cost savings, it also offers the chance to build up new business models based on data usage and “smart products”. Just remember how automotive workshops have evolved in past decades. Modern vehicles are increasingly equipped with sensors and microprocessors – nowadays, workshop employees are able to detect and eliminate problems more quickly thanks to collected data. Similar developments are conceivable and feasible also in other sectors.

And what are the risks of this transformation?Apart from technical and economic aspects of digitisation, businesses also need to assess the consequences for their organisation. And they must ensure that their employees support them in their endeavours.

How digital will the crafts sector be in 2030?The availability of smart and strongly customised products will increase. In addition, it will be natural both for customers and partners to be directly digitally involved in the business and value-adding processes.

Apprentices are a scarce resource, skilled workers are missing. Can digitisation provide a remedy for this situation?Definitely. Digitisation creates new and exciting vocational training jobs. Let’s

She has been focusing her research on small and medium-sized companies since 1993. Prof. Dr Friederike Welter, mid-sized sector expert, talks about smart products, organisational adaptations and digital natives.

“NEW TECHNOLOGIES ALWAYS MEAN TRANSFORMATION”

take another look at recent developments in the automotive sector. Today, young people are no longer trained to become car mechanics but mechatronics technicians. According to the German Federal Institute for Vocational Training (BIBB), this year again, this apprenticeship was by far the most popular one among male school graduates.

Which role does the digital natives generation play in the digital transformation of businesses? The digital natives generation will play a prominent role for the digital transformation as they are generally very open-minded about advanced technologies.

Prof. Dr Friederike Welter, 55, holds the chair of management of small and medium-sized businesses and entrepreneurship at Siegen University. She is also the President of the IfM Institute in Bonn.

of WINE fit into the world’s largest glass bottle. Originating from the production of theAlsatian De Dietrich Process Systems company, it is

exactly 2.99 metres high and will be used on New Year’s Eve 2019 – in Lustenau in Austria. The Engel Wang Fu restaurant was especially modified and the fridge was

specifically built for this glass monster. The bottle will be used to serve guests the multi-award-winning “Zweigelt 100 Days“ from

the Austrian Keringer vineyard, from Mönchshof. Cheers!

1,590 LITRES

2,000 YEARS OLDor only 500? The Portland Vase is the most famous art object made of ca-meo glass – that is glass with a sublime decorative pattern – and its age offers plenty of grounds for discussion. An exact age determination would damage the vase. For this purpose, historians approach the question of its age through the design: A winged Eros, for example, is considered highly unusual for antiquity. The latest dispute revolves around the production of cameo glass in general. In October 2017, Professor Richard Whiteley from the Australian National Univer-sity put the precious piece into the CT scanner. His result: Cameo glass was not blown. It was pressed from fine glass dust and burnt.

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ASTONISHING FACTS. . . about glass

Hardly any other material which has made the leap into the modern age and the high-tech world has an exciting a history as glass. Find out more about how versatile glass has been for thousands of years.

DOUBLE MOLECULE LAYER 1SILICON DIOXIDE: The world’s thinnest glass layer does not meas-ure more than that. It was discovered by researchers from the Ulm (Germany) and Cornell (USA) Universities in 2012. At the same time, they found the answer to a materials science riddle unresolved until then: the atomic structure of glass. In ad-dition, this proves a thesis from 1932: Glass consists of crystal-line basic molecules, joined randomly to each other.

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H U B B L E549 km is the distance between earth and the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been doing its rounds since April 1990 in order to take pictures of the blue planet, although the photos were blurred during the first three years. The reason was a wrong lens distance in the so-called corrector. Fortunately, this optical error could be resolved during the first service mission in 1993 – thanks to COSTAR, an optical correction system made of ten small mirrors. Also the current solution which replaced COSTAR in 2009 will soon be obsolete. Hubble is expected to “retire” during the year 2019. It will be replaced by the James Webb Space Telescope which will exceed Hubble’s performance

by approximately 100 times.

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If Germans are thirsty, what they like best is drinking water – from bottles. However, which packaging is the most suitable for which occasion? And what about the environmental footprint of the different materials?

GLASS OR PLASTIC?

ore than 150 litres: That’s the amount of water each German will drink every year. Unlike other countries, the citizens of the Federal Republic are less keen on tap

water – which is actually of outstanding quality in Germany. Whether it’s sparkling water, still water or slightly carbonated water, it is preferred bottled, rather than out of the tap – in disposable or reusable packaging, plastic, glass, cans or cartons.Gabriele Römer, Managing Director of the Haaner Felsenquelle beverage company, for instance prefers glass: “It simply tastes better.” (See interview) However, disposable PET bottles are becoming increasingly popular with German consumers. In spite of the fact that, according to the German Environment Agency (UBA), the environmental footprint of these bottles is far from great. Whether glass or plastic, reusable bottles

M from the region are regarded as the hot favourites as they can be refilled – glass bottles up to 60 times. In return, PET bottles score with their lower weight reducing the energy consumption during transport. The disposable plastic bottle falls behind as far as the environmental footprint is concerned. Its production consumes more energy and raw materials than the return transport and cleaning of the reusable packaging. In addition, shredded and molten bottles can no longer be recycled again into completely new bottles as the major part of the granules has been damaged and is no longer suitable for producing new bottles. Also, the disposable glass counterparts are not really environmentally friendly either: The material is suitable for recycling but only melts at very high temperatures. “Using glass pays off for reusable bottles as they can be refilled very many times,” says Gerhard Kotschik from UBA. “From an ecological point of view, beverage cartons and tubular-shaped or stand-up pouches are the best candidates.”

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“IT SIMPLY TASTES BETTER.”

Glass or plastic bottle? We have asked someone who knows what she is talking about: Gabriele Römer, Managing Director of the Haaner Felsenquelle beverage company.

Mrs Römer, which material do people like drinking from best?Classical sparkling water out of glass bottles. Beverages simply taste better out of glass bottles. Contrary to plastic, glass is impermeable. The drinks therefore stay carbonated longer and better and sparkle differently. Glass bottles also do not absorb particles and smells from outside which may influence the taste.

There are not only glass bottles in your product range . . .That’s right. We currently fill 60 per cent of our products into glass and 40 per cent into PET bottles. We produce them ourselves at our Haan site and use a high-quality, more solid PET for this purpose which keeps the bottles in shape after opening. The customer’s wish is the decisive factor for us. Also, there are situations and advantages justifying PET.

Like which, for example?The main argument for plastic bottles still is that they are lightweight and unbreakable. This is a clear advantage in many situations – when driving, exercising and doing other leisure activities, but also on the way to school. Customers buy especially soft drinks such as spritzer or cola almost exclusively in PET bottles. However, there are also situations where only glass can be used.

When and where is this the case?In gastronomy, for example. You would not put a plastic bottle on the table in a hotel or restaurant. Glass is simply a more high-value material out of which drinks can be enjoyed better. You clearly notice that from the drinking vessels. For instance, you would not drink a good wine out of a plastic cup either. The finer the glass, the more delicious it appears and its contents

taste. And as we are an up-market brand without a discount range, many customers attach great importance to high-quality materials also in private. We also make glass bottling more attractive thanks to innovative packaging concepts.

How does that work?We introduced a smaller crate format three years ago. It contains eight instead of the usual twelve 0.75-litre bottles and has a handle in the middle. These crates are selling very successfully – they are especially popular with older customers. In addition, we offer a container with six 1-litre bottles with a classier appearance. They are currently very popular. And – recently – also small 0.33-litre glass bottles for gastronomy purposes.

Which role do environmental aspects play when designing your beverage containers? Our company attaches the greatest importance to sustainability. We have decided, for example, to deliver only regionally in a radius of approximately 50 kilometres to save emissions. When it comes to packaging materials, there are so many different aspects to be weighed one against another that it becomes difficult to pick a clear winner. I personally consider glass the more sustainable material. We fill roundabout 60 per cent of our products into glass bottles and will be increasingly focusing on glass in the coming years. We also observe a trend reversal in this respect among consumers. Above all, it is crucial whether it’s disposable or reusable bottles.

Mrs Gabriele Römer, Managing Director of the Haaner Felsenquelle beverage company

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INSPIRED BY NATURE

t has tentacles with thousands of suckers. Individually controllable, they help it to hold on to whatever is useful at that mo-

ment: rocks, boulders or crabs and fish – to eat them. Larger species would even be able to lift a small car with the aid of their body tools. Sucking works better than gripping. Just as the octopus does, many other animals also take advantage of this principle – ranging from the sea urchin, via the great diving beetle, up to the bat.

Humans have long been counting on the strength which is generated by the vacuum in the hollow space of a suction lifter. They use it both on a small and on a large scale – starting from the towel holder on kitchen tiles up to the industri-al robot with suction gripper arms. The science which follows nature’s example is called bionics. One of its first advocates was Leonardo da Vinci, who designed flying objects more than 500 years ago – and was inspired by birds’ wings for this purpose.

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Sucking instead of gripping: Whether octopuses or bats – animals with a sucker have been taking advantage of the power of the vacuum for millions of years. The Veribor suction lifters also make use of this principle. Where only carrying straps were available in the past, today suction lifters facilitate handling heavy and bulky goods.

Suction lifters for any demandAdmittedly, the genesis of manual suction lifters at Bohle does not date back to Leonardo. However, the tool was already launched in 1953, as the second in-house product following the Silberschnitt bestseller. It was listed under the name Veribor®, a coinage derived from the French word “verre” for glass, “ib” for Josef Boh-le, “o” for the native town of Ohligs and “r” for Rhineland. Today this name represents an entire product portfolio of pump- and lever-activated suction lifters, equipped with specific suction pads depending on the application.

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Special Bohle formulaNot only was the suction lifter principle taken from nature, its components are also partially of natural origin. Natural rubber from Asia arrives in Germany in large batches where a supplier blends the raw mixture with soot and sulphur according to a special Bohle formula.

Bohle then vulcanises the raw rubber strips in its Haan manufacturing facility. “We pour the rub-ber into a mould like waffle dough and bake it at temperatures of up to 180 degrees,” explains Sebastian Till, Product Manager Handling Tech-nology and Manual Glass Cutting. This results in rubbers with Shore hardness of between 45 and 60. “A suction lifter with a harder rubber has a high load capacity but a shorter holding duration. It is suitable for transporting very heavy objects. A softer rubber has a lower holding capacity but it is better at compensating surface irregularities,” Till explains.

Functional and non-toxicThe suction lifter does not only assist installers in lifting objects of up to 120 kg. It is also free from specific, carcinogenic hydrocarbon compounds. “Those substances usually have a sharp, aggres-sive smell,” Till says. “This does not apply to our products.” Veribor® can be used for a variety of applications, such as carrying and lifting or as a “fixing aid” for keeping measuring devices, GPS or even advertising signs on car roofs in place.

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Ranging from shy girls via bearded men up to extended families: Whoever was captured by photographer Otto Hofmann’s lens used to get dressed up. The 700 historically valuable photo plates made of glass on which the photographer had stored for

posterity the history of the town around the year 1900, had long been considered lost. This is the story of how a retired curator dug up the treasure, and what Hermann Hesse, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, has to do with all this.

A window into the pastA treasure made of glass slumbers in the placid little town of Kirchheim, close to Stuttgart in Germany.

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er dress is blossom white, sunflowers can be seen in the background. The little girl looks like an angel. This image dates back to around 117 years ago – preserved on a photo plate made

of glass. This is only one of roundabout 700 plates which are stored in the municipal archive of Kirchheim under Teck today. What can be seen on those plates is a historical view of the city and its citizens at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. “It is very fortunate that the plates have been preserved in their greatest part,” says Rainer Laskowski, who was the Director of the municipal museum of Kirchheim until 2013. “They are a window into the past.”

On the trail of the glass treasureWe owe this glimpse into the past to Otto Hofmann (1859–1950) who established himself in Kirchheim in 1882 and operated a photo studio in his adopted home between 1889 and 1948. The glass plates produced by Hofmann had long been considered destroyed – rumour had it that they were washed off at the end of the Second World War and used as much sought-after window glass. “Not even Hofmann’s daughter Anna, who personally

H handed over her father’s documents to me, ever mentioned these exposed glass plates,” Director Laskowski points out. Chance then set archaeologists on the track of the glass treasure. After the house which Otto Hofmann had lived and worked in was torn down in 2015, workers found five wooden boxes in the basement of the house containing 700 exposed glass plates from the photographer’s estate. The ravages of time had already taken their toll on them. “It requires a lot of effort and meticulous care to restore and maintain the plates,” says Laskowski. “But it’s worth the trouble. Not least because Hofmann had famous customers in those times.”

Historic photographic sensationHofmann took pictures of Hermann Hesse in 1899 – to date the only known negatives from the adolescence of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, of which three paper prints still exist. At the age of 22, the later Nobel Prize laureate spent a couple of carefree days with his student friends in Kirchheim in 1899 and had Hofmann take some photos of him, nothing less than a photographic and historic coup for Laskowski.

A retouch long before digital image processingHofmann’s technical capabilities are no less fascinating. The photographer provided a lady he had depicted on glass with slimmer hips with the aid of a red colour retouching. And he posthumously added the father to a family portrait with a mother and three children – after he had died in the First World War. Snapshots from private or working life are very rare for the times around 1900. The mostly captured images are family celebrations, weddings, parties or milestone birthdays. “The plates form an important part of the civilian photo archive of the Kirchheim town,” Laskowski says. Maintaining them poses quite a challenge. “As many plates are in a bad condition, we have not been able to view very many of them,” the 72-year-old explains. “First of all, we have to clean and restore them. We would then like to collect as much information as possible about the depicted people.” The chances are good that the images imprinted on the plates will stay visible for a very long time. “The pictures on the glass plates can easily be archived with a flatbed scanner with a transparency unit,” Laskowski explains.

Photo studio as contemporary witnessThe daytime studio of the professional photographer Otto Hofmann can still be visited in the open-air museum of Beuren, the neighbouring community. Large glazing in wall and ceiling areas allow for plenty of natural light inside the studio. This enabled the photographer to take his pictures independently of the weather conditions. The year 1948 marked the end of commercial photography in this studio.

A jug with fresh flowers on the left, next to it a bottle of wine, a soup bowl with cutlery, a piece of bread and an enamel can, placed on a table with a white tablecloth: At least recons-tructions indicate that “La table servie” rightly bears this title – “Laid table”, the earliest pre-served motif in the history of photography. Taken in 1822 by the Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833), his technique was heliography – a light-resistant copy stored on a glass plate. What seems exotic today did not have any alternative in those days. Before chemists were able to produce celluloid in the middle of the 19th century, glass was the first carrier material for light-sensitive photographic emulsions made of silver chloride, silver bromide or silver iodide. In spite of new technologies, glass plates continued playing the prominent role in photography up to the 1920s.

Protagonist: glass plate

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Founded in 1923 as a one-man company, Bohle has continuously evolved into a globally successful family company. Today, two thirds of our turnover is generated abroad and new subsidiaries in Italy and the US strengthen our international presence even further. A round trip to our subsidiaries in Manchester and Moscow, Gauteng and Guangzhou.

CLOSE TO OUR CUSTOMERS WORLDWIDE

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solid reputation, a good sales net-work, a suitable product portfolio: For Arne Klöfkorn it has long been

evident what a potential takeover candidate should be like in order to optimally comple-ment the good ongoing US business. The Bohle management has been exploring the market for suitable companies for three years, searching, testing, discarding – and finally made a find in Kansas City: Portals, core business: bathroom fit-tings. “The USA, as the world’s largest economy, is a very attractive market for us,” Klöfkorn says. “And Portals is the ideal partner to exploit our opportunities over there even better.”

Achieve a better positioning in the USA: Undoubtedly a big and strategically important step for Bohle – but also routine in many ways for the medium-sized company. Whether Man-chester or Moscow, Gauteng in South Africa or Guangzhou in China, for Bohle it has been a tradition for many years to conduct business outside Germany from their Haan headquarters close to Düsseldorf. The medium-sized company group from North Rhine-Westphalia operates 15 subsidiaries abroad and generates two thirds of its turnover beyond the German borders, with this an increasing trend. However, Bohle has not only expanded its international presence in the USA but also with another takeover, in Italy. (See page 28)

CLOSE TO OUR CUSTOMERS WORLDWIDE A With its strategy, Bohle is in good company: According to KfW Research, German medium- sized companies earned roundabout 547 billion euros abroad in 2016. “Our advantage is that glass as a material and its processing are the same all over the world,” notes Bohle COO, Arne Klöfkorn. “This makes tapping into new markets easier.”The first subsidiaries outside Germany were built up at the beginning of the 1990s – first in France, Austria and Great Britain, and since 2002 also overseas in China, South Africa and the US. Klöfkorn’s philosophy behind each international expansion step: “To be as close as possible to the customers to meet their demands in an optimum way.”

When abroad, Bohle traditionally focuses on sa-les activities to avoid that any valuable, competi-tion-relevant knowledge is lost to competitors – and exclusively manufactures in Germany to this day. “We have always been very successful with this strategy,” Klöfkorn says.

Why Bohle has made its decision for the US supplier Portals and the Italian sliding door specialist Mc-Slide.

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n elegant holder for large towels on the wall, a beautiful, high-quality chromed-plated brass handle on the

glass shower door: The bathroom on the photo is impressive, no doubt – not least because of the high-quality fittings. If you look for hinges, hold-ers and handles for your bathroom on the Portals website, the latest products of the company based in Kansas City in the US state of Missouri catch the eye at first sight. Followed by a note framed in red: the company takeover by Bohle. This goes hand in hand with the promise to offer customers “an even larger product portfolio in future and invest even more in new products”.Indeed, both companies perfectly complement each other. Like Bohle, Portals is also a family-run business – in the second generation. With a turnover of 4.5 million US dollars and 16 em-

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PERFECT PARTNERS

ployees, the company is much smaller than Bohle but offers the opportunity to considerably expand the company’s activities in North America as well as its only US subsidiary in Charlotte, North Caro-lina. Apart from its product range, Bohle is count-ing especially on the attractive sales network of Portals. “Due to its product portfolio, its customer base and its key markets Portals is a good fit for our previous US business,” says Bohle COO, Arne Klöfkorn. “Now we must put the parts together in a way that they interlink smoothly – just like a well-oiled clock.”

We have the same task in Rimini. Mc-Slide has its company headquarters in the north Ital-ian coastal town, primarily known as a seaside resort. The Italian business specialises in the

development and production of sliding door sys-tems – and now also forms part of the Bohle Group. “A highly innovative, popular product, integrated into a comprehensive and attractive portfolio.” This is how Klöfkorn justifies Bohle’s takeover of this young, aspiring Italian company. “The doors are very easy to mount – a dream for any installer.”

The Portals portfolio comprises a wide array of products with the most diverse styles and designs.

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New standards in technology, design and comfort: the MasterTrack FT sliding door system

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The Manchester subsidiaryKNOW-HOW IN THE HEART OF THE GLASS INDUSTRY

Producing flat glass without grinding and polishing. Absolutely normal today, but the float glass process, invented by the industrial pioneers Sir Alastair Pilkington and Kenneth Bickersstaff in 1957, was a sensation 60 years ago. It was de-veloped in St Helens, less than an hour’s drive west of Manchester. Even today, the traditional industrial city is close to the pulse of British glass production. “Numerous glass manufacturers are located within an hour’s drive,” says Dave Broxton, Managing Director of Bohle Ltd.

This was reason enough for Bohle to establish its first subsidiary outside Germany here in 1996. The Rhineland company was al-ready familiar with the British market situation – due to its close cooperation with the Berlyne Bai-ley family business over many years. When the brothers Gordon and Ronnie retired, Bohle took over the business. In the meantime, the subsidiary in north-east England has developed into the second largest Bohle location.

Art deco and football historyMore than “just” pubs: What Manchester has to offer after work

The Corn ExchangeWhere wool and foodstuffs were once traded, today hungry visitors can choose from among 13 different restaurants. The building, erected in 1903 in Edwardian style, also includes a shopping centre. www.cornexchangemanchester.co.uk

Hotel GothamCool and stylish luxury hotel in art deco style. The history- charged building which once hosted a bank is centrally located close to one of the most popular shopping miles. www.hotelgotham.co.uk

The Navigation InnEvery Bohle employee knows and loves this more than 200-year-old pub in Dobcross, outside of Manchester. The historical pub (see photo), dating from 1806, is also popular with hikers and boat owners who spend time in the rolling hills of Saddleworth or on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal nearby.www.thenavigationdobcross.co.uk

National Football Museum With United and City, the football-savvy city has given rise to two important teams. Not surprisingly, also the National Football Museum can be found here. Among the exhibits is the match ball of the legendary World Cup final at Wembley Stadium, in London, in 1966.www.nationalfootballmuseum.com

At the heartbeat of the industry: Dave Broxton, Managing Director of Bohle Ltd.

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The Vienna subsidiaryDIVERSE CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS – INDIVIDUAL SOLUTIONS

Success stories sometimes start with an end, as is the case for the Vienna Bohle subsidiary: As the long-time sales partner gave up its business in 1994, Bohle filled the gap. The company took over its customers and founded a sales location in the Austrian capital with continuously increas-ing turnover. The entire product portfolio with around 12,000 products for all glazier needs is available from here. “Our customers perceive the fact that we offer such a broad product spectrum as an advantage. Everything from one source,” explains Managing Director, Franz Schreibmaier. Hardware and automatic glass cutters for the automotive industry are especially popular.

Since the EU’s eastward expansion in 2004, the Bohle team in Vienna has also been supplying the markets in Hungary and Slovenia. While automotive groups such as Mercedes are the main customers of Bohle products in Hungary, the sales representatives in Slovenia usually deal with one-man businesses and smaller companies. “Customer demands vary greatly in the different markets we cater for,” Schreibmaier points out, “however, as we are also familiar with applica-tion technology, we always find the best solution.”

LubinThe right place for fish lovers: “Lubin” obtains its products freshly from the Croatian coast – ranging from hake to gilthead. Supreme quality, multi-award-winning cuisine.www.lubin.at

BräunerhofThomas Bernhard felt at home here: The Bräunerhof coffee house and restaurant is said to have been the favourite locati-on of this grumpy Austrian author. www.stadtbekannt.at/cafe-brunerhof/

Motel OneIt need not always be plushy: The Vienna waltz atmosphere meets with a pragmatically thought-out interior in modern de-sign at Motel One, close to the National Opera. In the lounge you can see excerpts from ballet performances and concerts. www.motel-one.com/de/hotels/wien/hotel-wien-staatsoper/

New York-BarThe best long drinks, mixed with charm by the world champion. That’s the “New York-Bar”. www.newyork-bar.at

BelvedereTo select only one sight in Vienna is nearly impossible – you could spend days and months discovering something new every day. My recommendation, out of many: the Belvedere – a building and a museum special in its class. www.belvedere.at

The Manchester subsidiaryKNOW-HOW IN THE HEART OF THE GLASS INDUSTRY

Everything from one source: Franz Schreibmaier, Managing Director of Bohle Austria

Charming waltz and world champion drinksWhere to bring your working day to an end in Vienna

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1,100 COLOURS OF GLASSThe “Elbphilharmonie” (Elbe Philharmonic Concert Hall) is Hamburg’s new landmark. The figurehead of this prestigious building is its glass façade. The glass panes were developed by the medium-sized Guardian Glass company from Saxony-Anhalt.

right blue and ochre or soft pink and lichen green? It is virtually impossible to describe the daily play of colours, depending on the time of day and year, on the façade of Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie.

The reason: None of the 1,100 glass panes is identical. The pattern of basalt grey and reflecting chrome spots is suited to the use of the space behind the façade. Many of the convex, concave or plane glass panes open up into small, horseshoe-like balconies. Together they form a 21,800-square-metre façade soaring into a wave-like roof landscape with a height of up to 110 metres. This enchanting appearance makes it easy to forget the technical masterpieces behind the spectacular new construction from Swiss architect duo Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, such as the production of the up to 20-square-metre, strongly deformed and printed glass panes.

For the Elbphilharmonie: Glass reinvented“Such glass panes have not existed until now,” says Ralf Greiner who forms part of the management of manufacturer Guardian Glass. The medium-sized company belongs to Guardian Industries, a globally leading US glass manufacturer. Guardian has been producing thermally tempered and strongly bendable specialty glass which is suitable for ceramic printing since the 1990s. Working on the Elbphilharmonie was not the first prestigious large-scale project for the glass manufacturers. Some 120,000 square metres of glass from Thalheim have already been installed in the world’s highest building, Burj Khalifa, in Dubai. For the first time, Guardian produced coated glass for manufacturing bent insulating glazing made of laminated safety glass with sun protection and heat insulation for the Hamburg concert hall – glass that does not lose these properties even during extreme bending processes at temperatures of up to 600 degrees Celsius.

Patented glass productionIn the inconspicuous production hall, Guardian’s expertise is bundled in a 60-metre-long coating plant. A vapour-deposited coating of only a few nanometres confers these special properties to flat glass panes – while maintaining equal brightness and transparency. “It is rather our patented coating process than the plant itself which makes this process so highly specialised,” says Greiner. After a development period of three years, Guardian delivered the last panes. “We are proud to have contributed to the success of this architectural icon.”

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1,100 COLOURS OF GLASS

21,800 square metres of glassThe façade of the Elbphilharmonie consists of 1,100 individually produced glass panes, some of them up to 20 square metres in size.

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BOHLE REVIEW

Scrutinising look: Mr Preuß working at a Bechler turning automatic lathe (around 1960)

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IMPORTANT DATES

VETECO

www.veteco.es

GBA 2019

www.glassbuildamerica.com

Madrid, Spain

Hall 10/Booth 10F16

Atlanta, USA

13/11–16/11/2018

17/09–19/09/2019

glasstec 2018

www.glasstec.de

Düsseldorf, Germany

Hall 9/Booth D42 – G4223/10–26/10/2018

Bau 2019

www.bau-muenchen.de

Munich, Germany

Hall C3/Booth 52714/01–9/01/2019

China Glass 2019

www.chinaexhibition.com Beijing, China22/05–25/05/2019

GPD 2019

www.gpd.fi Tampere, Finland 26/06–28/06/2019

2018

2019

Batimat

www.batimat.com

Paris, France04/11–08/11/2019

Fit Show 2019

www.fitshow.co.uk

Birmingham, England21/05–23/05/2019

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LEGAL NOTICE

Silberschnitt, No. 3, September 2018, published annually 2017-7015 · 10-2018Publisher/copyright: Bohle AG, Dieselstraße 10, 42781 Haan, Germany, info@bohle.de, technical changes reservedProject responsibility: Melanie EggerstedtConcept/editing/design: Editing/texts: Christina Müller-Everling, Manfred Engeser, Thomas Heinen, Heidi Simon, Mirjam Hacker, Deborah Grauert, Katja Deichl, Klaus Vogt; Concept/editing/illustration/Bohle photography: Bohle-MarketingTranslations: bsc-translations, WienCopy-editing: Anne Fries | Lektorat & Übersetzungen, DüsseldorfPrint: Druckerei Hachenburg GmbH

Magazine for the Glass Industry

Languages, copies: German/English, 7.000Picture credits: Cover, page 4, 10: ©[pressmaster] adobestock.com/page 5, 9 top, 20, 32 – 33: iStock.com/page 6 + 7: ©Markus Reugels/page 8: ©[sdecoret] adobestock.com/page 9 center: ©[vege] adobestock.com/page 9 bottom: ©RASTAL/page 13 top: ©Alexander Hartmann/page 12 – 13: ©Glaserei Gawlina/page 14 + 16: Illustrations ©Telekom/page 14 – 15, 16: ©Eric Remann/page 17 top: ©[kras99] adobestock.com/page 17 bottom: IfM Bonn/page 21: Haaner Felsenquelle/page 22: ©[nakedking] adobestock.com/page 23: ©[underverse] adobestock.com/page 24 – 25: ©Carsten Riedl, Eßlinger Zeitung/page 28: ©portals/page 30 top: ©Broxton/page 30 bottom: ©David Howcroft/page 31 top: ©Marianne Weiss/page 31 bottom: ©[mRGB] adobestock.com/page 36: ©Tonelli

© Photo: Tonelli

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