Project Treeathlon® – EJOT reforests

A strategic coup: the merger of Böhl and Jaeger

In 1946, Eberhard Jaeger founded his screw factory in a barrack that had served as accommodation for French prisoners of war during the war and which he had rented from the Reichsbahn for 15 Reichsmarks per month.

>>Text: Andreas Wolf

To make the tools for the production machines, he was able to use machines in the Mirella locksmith shop, which was two kilometres away and owned by his father. The initial set of machines consisted of a Hilgeland double-blow header CH00, a slotting machine TV0 and a thread roller TR0.

The procurement of materials was problematic during this time. The wire suppliers were located in the Altena, Werdohl and Lüdenscheid area. Occasionally, Eberhard Jaeger collected the material from wire drawing factories with a “tempo tricycle”. This was a small load vehicle frequently used at the time, which had two rear wheels and a front wheel directly driven by a two-stroke engine, with which it was also steered. He used it to drive the 200 km round trip, summer and winter.

Before production could begin, they had to wait for the allocation of so-called iron certificates. Therefore, the young company initially specialised in the production of brass screws. This material was not rationed like the iron materials. In addition, there was also the possibility of obtaining brass wire from parents' and grandparents' businesses.

The incoming orders in January 1946 were around 200,000 brass screws; by April, 3 months later, 1.2 million. In 1953, the company moved into a new building with a production hall and office building at Bienhecke in Laasphe. At that time, the company had six employees. As early as 1957, the company invested in a electroplating plant and opened up the possibility of applying zinc, copper, brass and nickel coatings to the screws. The company was granted a water abstraction and re-injection permit for the immediately neighbouring Banfebach stream for the operation of the plant, under the mandatory condition that they detoxify and neutralise wastewater.

At that time, Eberhard Jaeger KG produced almost exclusively slotted screws with metric threads according to DIN, but these came under increasing price pressure in the 1960s. One cause of the price pressure in the slotted screw sector was that the manufacturing industry began to switch from slotted screws to the more advantageous Phillips-head screws.

2017

The end of an era. At the age of 88, Hans Werner Kocherscheidt died on Good Friday, 14 April, after a short but serious illness. With his entrepreneurial vision, his drive and his gift to inspire people for himself and for his ideas, he has developed the EJOT Group from a small screw factory to a successful global company.

2017

Start of the digitalization project: EJOT responds to the rapidly advancing change with central projects. Aiming to provide customers with more and better services, to increase the productivity of the plants and to improve training, quality and knowledge in all areas.

2017

The production hall 4.0 at the Herrenwiese site in Bad Berleburg is inaugurated. The decision for the new building and the machine set-up in the hall is closely connected to the outstanding success of the EJOFORM® product group.

2017

Inauguration Poland factory. With the new plastic production at EJOT Ciasna in Poland another important construction project has been finished. The factory was planned according to the most modern standards.

Eberhard Jaeger

>>Text: Andreas Wolf PORTRAIT

The Jaegers were an entrepreneurial family that was well-known beyond Laasphe and had grown over several generations. The oldest company founded with the Lüdenscheider Metallwerke dated back to 1879. After completing secondary school, Eberhard Jaeger received his first practical insights into his grandfather's company, the Busch-Jaeger company in the Berleburg town of Aue.

After studying mechanical engineering, he worked at AEG in Berlin. Eberhard Jaeger then took over the technical management of his father’s company. His father Wilhelm Jaeger had bought the factory called “Mirella” from the mill owner Otto Strack in Laasphe in 1930. Initially, coal cookers and later electrical household appliances were produced there. Soon after his return from war imprisonment in autumn 1945, Eberhard Jaeger left this father’s company to set up his own business. Together with his wife Margarete, the 36-year-old founded Eberhard Jaeger KG in 1946.

Margarete Jaeger came from a long-established Lüdenscheid industrialist family. Her father managed the Westfälische Kupfer- und Messingwerke AG in Lüdenscheid, where she completed her commercial apprenticeship before spending two years in England to improve her language skills. After the founding of Eberhard Jaeger KG, she was responsible for the commercial area and looked after their four daughters. Her husband was responsible for the technical area.

However, in order to manufacture them, a production licence was required, which entitled the holder to purchase or manufacture header dies and measuring tools and with which production know-how was also acquired. The electrical industry was a little more reserved about this change, especially with regard to screws for contact terminals. For this reason, however, a considerable, highly specialised competition had already established itself due to the immense market demand. The company Jaeger was therefore urgently looking for a niche product that would lead out of the price crunch.

These were extra-long slotted screws used in the manufacture of switching relays for telecommunications and control technology. In 1962/1963, therefore, investments were made in further machinery, as well as in a 450-square-metre extension. However, the expected market demand for extra-long screws decreased again in the following years. In order to compensate for this misery, Eberhard Jaeger introduced new items such as screws made of stainless steel and especially difficult double-blow formed parts into production.

At that time, the American screw industry already had much cheaper production machines and processes than in Europe. These were increasingly exported to Europe by American machine and tool manufacturers since the beginning of the 1960s. American high-performance headers produced about

twice the amount of screws per unit of time compared to European headers. The screw industry gradually switched to the American machines.

In 1965, Eberhard Jaeger sold his company to the Berleburg-based lawyer Hans Werner Kocherscheidt, owner of the Adolf Böhl screw factory in Berghausen near Bad Berleburg. His company, like Eberhard Jaeger KG, produced mainly metric slotted screws. Their sales were in different market sectors than Jaeger’s, which meant market expansion for Böhl. Furthermore, 22 employees with relevant knowledge were available, which was otherwise difficult to find in the region. In addition, there was a permit to operate the electroplating plant, which could be used for both companies after appropriate expansion. In 1965, turnover at Eberhard Jaeger AG was about DM 1 million.

Böhl and Jaeger In order to improve the unfavourable production conditions that had arisen due to the many less lucrative small orders for slotted screws, some of the orders with more favourable batch sized were initially transferred from Adolf Böhl to Eberhard Jaeger in Laasphe. A little later, Jaeger also took over the entire sheet metal screw production from Böhl. But even this mass product, which required only slightly more vertical integration, was under considerable price pressure. Although the smaller range and cheaper production sizes led to a better overall result, it became apparent that this “ageing” product group would not be a sustainable business base.

At the end of the 1960s, a technique originating in the USA and Canada began to establish itself in the building industry in Europe as well: extreme lightweight construction with steel and aluminium profile sheets. Special screws had already been developed in the USA for fastening the profiled panels, which could be up to 14 metres long, to the steel or wooden substructure. They were made of austenitic stainless steel to resist corrosion, and because the profiled sheets could only be installed from the outside of the building, the screws had to form their own female threads. These 'sealing screws' were imported from the USA at a high price. Inspired by the Canadian ALCAN-Aluminium, Böhl carried out the first production trials, which were immediately successful with regard to the thread forming properties of the screws. A “know-how licence” from Cleveland (Atlas Bolt & Screw) significantly shortened this development time to production. The production of construction screws was relocated to the Jaeger factory in Laasphe and became an important mainstay of the company over the next few decades. In 1968, a new production and storage hall with a floor area of approx. 700 square metres had to be added for the production of construction screws.

During this time, Jaeger products were still sold from the central sales office in Berghausen. However, the distribution of the construction screws showed that it was advantageous or even necessary to supply practical know-how in application. In 1971, the “Bauschrauben” sales department was therefore relocated to Laasphe, where an office extension with an area of 270 square metres was built. This product needed explanation on the market because it was new. This placed new demands on the company's market presence. Salespersons and employees with experience in construction technology were hired for the field service. External warehouses were operated and more intensive, technically sophisticated advertising was carried out: strategies that were completely foreign to the small screw industry at that time.

Diversification and innovation became overarching goals that both companies then pursued. In contrast to this, the low-cost strategy, which was consistently pursued by most manufacturers of small screws, increasingly took a back seat at Böhl and Jaeger in favour of an innovative quality strategy. E

2017

The joint venture EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico in San Luis Potosi, which was founded ten years ago by EJOT and ATF Inc. from Lincolnwood/USA, is a real success story. Over the years, various measures have been taken to expand and optimize production, including a new heat treatment plant.

2017

National winner Victoria Muth: The 23-year-old completes her training as a materials tester specializing in heat treatment technology with 93 points and the grade “very good”, making her the national winner.

2017

Winfried Schwarz, Managing Director of EJOT Holding GmbH & Co. KG, is retiring. The 68-year-old lawyer was responsible for Personnel, Legal Affairs, Public Relations, Environmental and Building Management and, until 2014, also for the Engineered Plastic Components division.

2017

In April, the new location of the national subsidiary EJOT Hungaria near Budapest is completed.

2018

Foundation of the new Canadian EJOT subsidiary in Cambridge/Ontario. Sales are mainly focused on roof and wall fasteners, industrial window and facade technology, anchoring technology and solar fasteners.