IEMCA BAR FEEDERS IN GERMANY

The Klumpp Company, one of the most important companies producing high-quality components especially for the automobile industry, decided to purchase no less than 51 IEMCA bar feeders, including 37 PRA "indestructible" feeders for multi-spindle lathes, one of the IEMCA's best selling machines on the German market.

Hermann Klumpp started out in 1969, when he and his wife opened a small turnery in the courtyard of a body shop in Bretten, near Karlsruhe. Over the years, this family business grew to cover today an area of some 9,500 m2, with 150 employees who work alternately through three shifts, despite the slight downturn recently experienced in the German economy.

As Mr. Klumpp points out, growth is actually continuing: a new factory of 2000 m2 is in fact currently being constructed in Thuringia, with works scheduled to be completed by spring 2003.

The Klumpp company, certified ISO/TS 16949, operates mainly (90%) with the automobile industry, supplying valves, valve seats, injection pumps for petrol and diesel engines, distributors and pump actuator components. The corporate portfolio of the most loyal customers includes Daimler Chrysler, Ford, ZF, Pierburg and BMW.

A project of which Klumpp is especially proud involved the design of specific new valve types, for which the Bretten company won great acclaim and professional recognition from the German car industry.

The names IEMCA and Klumpp came together for the first time in 1984, when the latter purchased its first bar feeder. Since then, the German company, whose machining facilities are made up of some 70 lathes (mainly multi-spindle types by Gildemeister Italia), has bought no less than 51 IEMCA bar feeders, including 37 PRA indestructible" feeders for multi-spindle lathes, one of IEMCA's best selling machines, especially on the German market. More recently, Klumpp purchased five SIR integrated bar feeders (installed to replace the stock reel and feeding system) for five Index MS 32 lathes.

All IEMCA loaders operate to the total satisfaction of this German customer; indeed, as Mr Klumpp himself points out, the number of units installed certainly bears witness to that.