Founding

What started 25 years ago with a vision of a new technical concept and with Detlef Gneuss´ entrepreneurial ambition and his wife, Christel Gneuss´ energetic support, the company has grown to an internationally active company, with innovations which have set world standards for the processing of polymer melts.

From the very beginning, the aim was to become the world market leader in the field of polymer melt filtration and to be a leading specialist for high quality, specialized sensors. The first target markets were the extrusion of profiles, pipes, sheet and the manufacture of compounds.

The Gneuss technical concepts and products started to establish themselves successfully in the market, because they were able to offer previously unobtainable solutions for processing problems thanks to completely new technical approaches. Definitions such as "constant melt filtration" and "pressure and process-constant" became the yardstick which the competition had to let its products be judged by.

In the area of sensors, Gneuss was the first company in the world to introduce a mercury-free melt pressure transducer and a melt temperature sensor with a ceramically-insulated tip.

Growth

Only 5 years after the company was founded, a significant investment program followed the rapid development of this innovative young company. In the Eidinghausen Industrial Park, the foundations for the new company buildings were laid and the sales activities in the USA were expanded, leading to the founding of the daughter company, "Gneuss Inc." in Philadelphia.

In this spirit, the Gneuss partner for sales and technical support in Japan, Itochu Plamac founded a separate company specifically for handling the Gneuss Filtration Systems business, their workshop with a pilot line shows how seriously Gneuss sees the target of offering the highest quality technical advice and support nearby the customer. To this end, concrete steps were taken in South America to establish a Gneuss sales and service presence there.

Expertise and Dialogue with Customers

As a result of growing positive feedback from the plastics manufacturing and processing industry from the Gneuss "Open House" events, the first 2 day Gneuss Plastics Symposium was held in 1993 as an anniversary to celebrate the first 10 years of Gneuss. This symposium was a huge success, with over 300 visitors from all over the world. The Gneuss Symposium became an established event during which experts in the field of plastics processing from throughout the world could exchange ideas, inform themselves on new developments, network and even work out solutions to problems.

Progress

Once the range of Rotary Filters had proven their capabilities internationally, they attracted the attention of plastic raw material manufacturers and the demand for a system for manufacturing technical plastics on a large scale became stronger. In order to take account of this, a totally encapsulated, fully automatic Rotary Filter for filtration finenesses down to 6 µm was developed together with Hoechst for PET.

The immediate success of this development for 6.000 kg/h. represented the starting point for the development of the RSFgenius product range. With the RSFgenius, a new worldwide standard for Melt Filtration systems was set and its performance is today a still unmatched technical highlight with a unique range of performance features.

Generation change

The generation change, which can often be a make or break point in the development of a family owned company was planned from early 2000 and took place smoothly. The involvement of the two sons, both with appropriate and extensive education and experience supplements the previous management and enhanced the management team with further competence and youthful vigour.

While Daniel Gneuss has taken over complete responsibility for North and South America from Matthews NC, Dr. Stephan Gneuss is responsible for operations in Bad Oeynhausen. This increase in capacity and competence through the two sons has provided the company founder with - relieved from the day to day running of the company - practically unlimited capacity to intensify research and development within the company.

In this way, it was possible to push ahead with developments of concepts which had for a long time been conceived of but for capacity reasons not realised. Exciting new developments were presented at the "K" in 2007. One of these was the new Rotary Filter SFXmagnus, which offers high performance at a relatively low investment cost, a new, measurement data logging system and a new technology for devolatilising polymers which experts expect to revolutionize the treatment of polymer melts.

In this way, the involvement of the next Gneuss generation has made a difference not only in terms of personnel but also in the expansion of the company`s technological competence into new markets. The course is set for continued growth in a secure future.

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