The Igus founding couple celebrates their 90th birthday
In 1964 Günter and Margret Blase founded the igus company in their backyard garage in Cologne-Mülheim. In 2021 the international company will supply customers all over the world with its lubrication-free and maintenance-free products. On the occasion of the 90th birthday of the founding couple, Igus is now bringing the garage back to life.
When Günter Blase drives to Igus on his 90th birthday, as he does on many days of the year, the company founder can currently see the construction progress of the new company building on the B8 directly. The new building is being built next to the headquarters in Cologne Porz-Lind, visible from afar through the striking yellow pylons. Igus develops and produces high-performance plastics for moving applications here. Tribopolymers make moving parts lubrication-free, quiet and light all over the world - in theater stages, mountain bikes or office furniture, as well as in offshore drilling rigs, crane systems, ships and space rockets. In 1965, one year after the company was founded, this was out of the question when the first products were created in a 55 square meter garage in Cologne-Mühlheim. Günter Blase recognized the potential of plastic at an early stage and how injection molding made it possible to rationalize industry. So after eight years of permanent employment in a company in the plastics industry, he decided to start his own business. His wife Margret, who also celebrated her 90th birthday in April this year, supported this idea. As an independent tax agent, she also took over the bookkeeping and finances of the new company, while Günter Blase focused on production. For six years, igus produced from this garage as a pure contract manufacturer for a few industrial customers.
"We always have to adjust to minus 50 and plus 50 percent"
56 years later, on the occasion of the 90th birthdays of the founding couple, a replica of exactly this garage stands in front of the 90,000 square meter Igus factory campus designed by the architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw in 1994. Some milestones in the company's history can be seen in the interior of the replica, for example the first injection molding machine. Much has changed since then: the portfolio now includes 200,000 parts from stock and ranges from energy chain systems that can be calculated online with a guarantee to intelligent 3D-printed special parts and robot components for a low-cost entry into automation. The more than 4,500 employees in 35 branches worldwide ensure that customers can use the products to improve their technology and save costs on a daily basis. In doing so, one of Günter Blase's maxims has been heeded to this day, and it is more relevant than ever: “We always have to adjust to minus 50 and plus 50 percent”. And so the early expansion of the capacities of machines and raw material stores during the pandemic still ensures comparatively fast delivery times, currently in a phase of rapid economic recovery. With the new factory building, this development is to be further advanced in the future. A project that the architecture enthusiast Günter Blase has been actively involved in to this day.
