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KROHNE Celebrating 100 Years of “The Spirit of Creativity

BY COURTNEY KLESS

KROHNE is marking 100 years in 2021. The theme for this year’s celebration is “The Spirit of Creativity,” a spirit that has been a key part of the company’s success for the past century.

“Not too many companies in our business have lasted 100 years as a privately-owned company, so it’s exciting,” said Joe Incontri, director of marketing for North America. “One of the things (our second-generation leader) concluded early on is if you want to have a successful company, you have to be creative, and you have to hunt for unusual solutions to problems. That still goes on right now. Innovation is very important to KROHNE.”

Since its early days, the company’s core philosophy has remained the same — to provide the best possible measuring device for its customers. KROHNE was founded in Duisburg, Germany, by Ludwig KROHNE. He wanted to create a device that measured flow for fire engines. Twenty-eight years later, following losses during World War II, Kristian Rademacher-Dubbic, the founder’s grandson and an artist, restarted the company.

KROHNE’s first success came in 1952 when it introduced the electromagnetic flowmeter. At the time, all flow measurement devices were mechanically based, and KROHNE’s device was the first to measure flow without any moving parts. Instead, it used a magnet that detected a change in voltage.

“That was really a hallmark for KROHNE,” said Incontri. “Since then, the innovations kept coming fairly rapidly, like ultrasonic flowmeters. That was something that had been done, but not very well. KROHNE took that and ruggedized it for use in industrial applications for liquids and then, ultimately, for gas. One of the more recent major innovations was the development of a Coriolis mass flowmeter that, at the time, was unlike anything on the market. It was a straight-tube Coriolis meter that was not affected by things that effected every other mass flowmeter on the market, mainly vibration in pipes. That made it more accessible to a lot more applications. There is an emphasis on being different and applying new twists on available technology and principles.”

Innovation and creativity are still important to the company today. Now home to more than 4,000 employees and with production facilities in 11 different countries (including the United States, China, and France), KROHNE has become a world leader in filling machine applications, providing a variety of flowmeters, analysis products and devices that measure level, pressure and temperature. It also offers entrained gas management, a “unique solution” for food and beverage customers that are loading and unloading milk using KROHNE’s Coriolis mass flowmeter.

“That feature is very attractive because it gives you an accurate measurement, even with the presence of air in the lines,” said Incontri. “When you’re unloading or loading a truck, the hoses are basically empty. When you start flowing, there is a whole bunch of air that goes through the meter, and some

meters can’t handle it very well. So, we have an application for that.”

Incontri said that there are two things that set KROHNE’s products apart from its competitors. The first is the company’s dedication to quality. “Our products are built to last a long time in difficult applications,” he said. The other thing is calibration, or performance, of the instruments. “If you’re going to measure something, you want to make sure it’s traceably accurate that it measures to the best of its ability against a known standard,” he added. “That really is our core competence: the calibration and traceability of our instruments.”

KROHNE is also proud of its unique culture. All ideas are valued, and there is no rigid structure or hierarchy like many other German companies. “It really is a comfortable environment,” said Incontri. And because KROHNE is independently owned, it doesn’t face the same constraints as some of its competitors — for example, the company offers several resources on its website, including the online KROHNE Academy, many of which are free of charge.

“A lot of companies are basically quarter by quarter,” said Incontri. “We’re not bound by those same pressures, which allows us to make decisions on behalf of the customer that other companies may not be able to make, such as giving away services or spending more time with a small customer. There are many other bigger companies out there that would want to get paid for training materials or for software. I think that’s a reflection of the culture we have; we’re not just driven by the bottom line.”

Courtney Kless is a writer/editor for Northeast Dairy Media.