50 years of putzmeister

Special issue for the anniversary 74

50 years ofPutzmeisterMaking things masterly always better and more beautiful

...from „hands on“ to

PM_4062_GB_Post_74 14.05.2008 18:51 Uhr Seite 1

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Content

Foreword 3

Putzmeister today 4

Diploma thesis with consequences 7

The revolution in gypsum plaster had begun 10

Compressed-air assistance for screed conveying 10

From the handcart to the concrete pump –development of readymix concrete conveying 12

The newcomer stirs up the market 16

Hans Hostadt, pump operator since 1967, remembers 18

External steel construction operation becomes one of the most important Putzmeister production locations 20

The road to other countries 20

Attractive subsidiary in Spain 21

PUMI® conquers small construction sites 24

The PUMI® model range today 25

“C transfer tube” pump chases off old concrete gate valve 26

High-rise concrete pumping at the Frankfurt telecommunications tower at 310 m 27

Putzmeister diversifies: with tried and tested pumping technology into new markets 29

Pumps for environmental protection 30

Cutting-edge technology on large construction sites 34

Large boom development – Milestones 35

Pioneer on the Eurotunnel 36

Putzmeister technology for an emergency 38

Nuclear disaster required rapid action 40

Wibau becomes a modern Putzmeister machining centre 43

A new beginning in Gründau 45

Active and capable abroad too 46

Putzmeister's commitment to the USA and the company's historyOrientation principles 48

Mechydronic 49

Putzmeister remote controls are writing history 50

Into the 21st century with enthusiasm 52

Alliances, shareholdings and takeovers 54

Holding structure for the Putzmeister organisation 56

Two records for the 50th anniversary 57

A reliable on-site partner for over thirty years 58

A glimpse into the future of Putzmeister 66

Businessman and benefactor 66

The Putzmeister founder in private 68

Imprint 76

mechanic · hydraulic · elektronic · radio control

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PM 4062 GB 3

Foreword

Is it hubris – as it is supposedly for those inthe Bible building of the tower of Babel? Orwas it as in the legend the striving to comecloser to heaven, or to perfection?

Yes, there is something in that, even forPutzmeister.

This Burj Dubai is also our tower. Not onlybecause we have helped finance it when fill-ing up at the petrol station. It is also ourwork, because it was only able to be builtusing our concrete pumps. Only a PUTZMEISTER pump was able to pump con-crete at this modern-day construction of theTower of Babel to a height of over 600metres with up to 300 bar concrete pressure– the first time this has been achieved.

Since we achieved our first world record in1976 on the 310 m high Frankfurt telecom-munications tower, we were recognised asexperts. And since then, I knew that wecould also go twice as high – it only depend-ed on having the opportunity for this worldrecord.

For me, it is not only about high pressurepumping for especially difficult media atPUTZMEISTER – but about the striving foran ever higher professional and personallevel for our people.

Have we now come closer to our “heaven”after 50 years of PUTZMEISTER and withthis tower? Do we do things from inner de-sire really well and always better, as it saysin our PUTZMEISTER catalogue of values?

Our customer in Dubai says YES. There weremany problems – but never withPUTZMEISTER. Today I nevertheless know:the best pump has not yet been developed.This also applies to our people, for only theyachieve the best in response to our custo-mers' expectations.

What do I think, now 75-year-old, highup there at 600 m about “50 years ofPutzmeister”?

How much further is our upwards path, inorder for us to remain the best – indeed incooperation and in what we create?

Looking at my long and hard experience oflife on the big tasks we have also alwaysgrown as people. The true success factorswe recognised to be traditional values andvirtues that exist for their own sake. Truth-fulness in perception and in-depth problemsolving are then the main principle. SoPUTZMEISTER became “Top in Mind andTop in Choice” for most customers – andcompetitors

I think back here with great gratitude at this600 m benchmark to our first 50 years ofPUTZMEISTER and the trust won from cus-tomers, company management and manybusiness partners. Without this trust whichhas been placed in us also as a foundation-owned company, which at the same timebrings obligation, PUTZMEISTER would nothave been able to evolve into such a success-ful company.

So this “Burj Dubai” can stand as a symbolfor what we have achieved together in 50years. It gives people at PUTZMEISTEReverywhere in the world the confidence andstrength making things masterly even bet-ter and more beautiful in the future.

It fills us with belief, hope and love again foreverything we have been given - and what isstill imposed on us so that we - in true part-nership with our customers –

enjoy to Serve, to Improve and to

Create Values.

Karl Schlecht

Burj Dubai – our Babel?

QUALITATIVE – INNOVATIVE – PREPARED – FLEXIBLE – COMPETENT – VALUE CONSCIOUS

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(Ill.: wikipedia)3

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Over 3,900 employees ensure that equip-ment to the value of around € 1 billion ($ 1.5billion) is produced annually in thePutzmeister group works and delivered tocustomers in 154 countries on all five conti-nents. This includes 3,400 concrete pumps,a variety of booms in more than 40 coveringsize and spezification, over 4,300 mortarpumps, almost 2,500 screed conveyors andwell over 700 high-pressure cleaners.

Spectacular records in high-rise concretepumping (606 m at the Burj Dubai inFebruary 2008) and development of the lar-gest boom for truck-mounted concretepumps (70 m vertical reach, presented inMay 2008) make people stop and listen timeand again. These technical milestones arepossible due to the company’s impressiveinnovation, high product quality, solidexpertise, dedicated company managementand continuous expansion of global manu-facturing capacity at locations close to themarket worldwide. Between 2006 and 2007,approximately € 113 million has been inve-sted in extending the Putzmeister productfacilities and distribution companies.

No-one could have imagined 50 years agothat an engineering student assembling hisdegree thesis would set such standards andcreate these values. So let's look back a fewdecades….

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Putzmeister today

Putzmeister company headquarters,

Aichtal

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6 7

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Die Putzmeister-Story

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As a machine and systems manufacturer, Putzmeister has existed now for 50

years. Comparisons with other companies show that it is a very atypical comp-

any. For where else are productive restlessness and the readiness to offer the

customer specialised solutions, so pronounced? In the past, a lot of the moment-

um came from Dipl.-Ing. Karl Schlecht (born 1932), the Putzmeister founder and

current chairman of the executive board. Without his tenacity and without his

huge will to succeed, the company's numerous successes and top technical

performances would not have been imaginable. Reason enough then for a con-

versation with Karl Schlecht, the “Spiritus Rector” or guiding spirit of the for-

mer “Putzmeister-Werk Maschinenfabrik GmbH” and present day Putzmeister

Group. We are particularly interested in the history of the origins of the com-

pany, the wide product range and Swabian businessman's secret of success.

9

1956 1957 1958 1959 11957The Putzmeister-Story


As prospective engineer, he had now alsodiscovered the topic for his diploma thesis:the design and construction of a compres-sed-air-driven diaphragm pump for mortardelivery. And it worked not only theoretical-ly on paper, it all worked practically on theconstruction site, at least as long as poorlymixed mortar did not damage the dia-phragms.

KS had grown up in a craftsman's businessand did not have to acquire a feel for busi-ness matters first: “My father calculated hisjobs perfectly and knew exactly what he hadearned each time. And I was also alwaysclose to the business using my hands andhead and developed a feel for how thingscan go.” A more advanced mortar pumpwith diesel drive and higher delivery press-ure went into series production shortlyafterwards. Schlecht sold the first machinein this series to master plasterer Neubrandin Göppingen, for a price of 15,000 DM. Theplastering machines were assembledaccording to his own drawings and fromdelivered components, first under licence ina factory in Freiburg, and later in Munich inmodest quantities. After many problemsarose when using the machines, KS termin-ated the collaboration with these partners:“It only remained for me to establish myown company.”

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Motivation and decisiveness

Karl Schlecht – also known as KS to busi-ness partners and company management –has mottos whose validity is cemented byhis experience of life. Anyone who is calledSchlecht (meaning 'bad' in German), mustbe good: but he does not only want to doeverything well, he wants to do it better. Ifyou wish to be a successful entrepreneur, adifferent sort of experience, you need per-sistence and the courage to take decisionsbased on your expertise, even when if youdo not yet have an overview of the final con-sequences. And, very importantly, if youhead a company, you must win over youremployees as a leader. Because after theirconviction, it is only a high level of self-moti-vation on the part of good employees thathelps cross the threshold separating a lowprofit company from a high-yield company.That, says Karl Schlecht, is absolutely “thedeciding factor”.

Diploma thesis with consequences

By placing these demands on himself, thedetermined Swabian did not go wrong. But alucky hand too, which cannot be forced evenwith the best will in the world, helped himto establish his engineering company in1957. As a mechanical engineering student,he had learnt about the hard work involvedin using mortar, which had to be towed withthe vat, during the vacations at his father'sbusiness. “But then shortly before complet-ing my studies, my father asked: “How canwe get the mortar up there more easily?”The young man became inquisitive andbegan to approach the problem of mortardelivery practically and academically.Practical experience gained at his father'sbusiness and his vision that “...somethingcould really come of this in the future...,”was to be decisive for the subsequent deve-lopment of the student Karl Schlecht.

The first end hose spraying device still

had a lot of rebound

The result of his diploma thesis also

worked in practice

Mortar pump P1 in front

of his father's garage

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Proximity to customers brings

product improvement

Karl Schlecht now had a lot of work to do inthe field; he drove from construction site toconstruction site, built and repaired himself,and was constantly in contact with custom-ers. He therefore quickly found out that hisdiaphragm pumps were not reliable enough.Proximity to customers and to his product –even after the conclusion of a sale – provedto be important, rectifying faults, continual-ly improving design and even challenging itwhen it became “expensive”. He consistent-ly drew his lessons from practical experi-ence: the diaphragm pumps were replacedby piston pumps with hard-chromium platedcylinders. Hard-chromium plating was little-known at the time: “A single operation inStuttgart, the company Schoch, applied ahard-chrome plating of 2.5 – 3 tenths of amm as an exception, on my request. At thetime, it was not possible to achieve a smoothsurface, which is why the cylinders weremade up with a lot of effort. But then, in con-trast to the diaphragm pumps, they didn'tbreak anymore!”

“Just don't try and do everything

yourself!”

From 1958 onwards, Karl Schlecht in hisnewly-founded company KS-Maschinenbautook on the mortar pump assembly himself,first with one, then with two fitters. The die-sel engines, compressors and other compo-

nents continued to be bought in andassembled in his father's garage and in hisframe shed in Bernhausen. So it was not amanufacturing operation as such, the mainfocus was much more on development,assembly and distribution: “At first I stillwelded the frames together myself, later thevillage blacksmith did it – he purchased

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Mortar pump P1 with sprinkling pipes for mortar delivery (“mortar conductor”)

The Putzmeister works in Echterdingerstraße in Bernhausen during the first stage of expansion, occupied in January 1961)

960 1961 1962 1963 19196113

14

The Putzmeister-Story


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electrical welding equipment and an electrichacksaw especially for this. I even farmedout work such as painting and cable install-ation to painters and electricians – just don'ttry and do everything yourself!”

The KS mortar pumps sold well and thenumber of units rose quickly. Already in1960, in the second year of production, over100 plastering machines were distributed. Itwas no reason for celebration however.“Earning money was for me – and still istoday - the means to an end, namely to makemore from it!” In addition to this, KarlSchlecht understood how to use promotionaltools. The KS mortar pumps were renamed“Putzmeister”, and the slogan “Professionalplastering with Putzmeister” quickly gotaround in the construction sector.

Success came early

The assembly operation on his parents landwas bursting at the seams in the meantime.At the start of 1961, Karl Schlecht movedinto his own small factory with office build-ing on Echterdinger Straße in Bernhausen,having earned the financial means to do thisin the meantime. Amused, he tells an anec-dote from that time: “I thought: 'I will regist-er the operation as Putzmeister-Werk'('Putzmeister Works'). But the GermanChamber of Industry and Commerce puttheir foot down. No, you can't call itPutzmeister Works, because you don't haveany works, only a small business. But youcan call it Putzmeister-Werk Maschinen-fabrik (Putzmeister Works EngineeringWorks).' And that is then what I did. In themeantime, I have had no more problemswith the 'works' designation...”

Putzmeister mortar pumps were soon offer-ed with different outputs, more technicallyadvanced and increasingly easier to operate.The competition was also already there: “ButI have made the running, so to speak, be-cause my machines were equipped with diesel motors and were much more manage-able and sprayed better. The competitor'smodels were real monsters, and still elec-trically driven. The only thing was – at thetime, there were hardly any constructionsites with three phase current! Usually aprophet has no honour in his own country –but I then sold an incredible number of mor-

tar pumps in the surrounding area andmade a huge effort. We also advertisedaggressively, with a new advertisementevery four weeks. Soon we had 70 to 80 %market share. It was fascinating!”

Man and machine

The new mortar pumps did promise to makework easier for workmen, however theywere not accepted with open arms every-where. As is so often the case with technicalinnovations, there were reservations amongthose who were supposed to operate them.Piece-work crews feared for their earnings:“My father even lost some people for thisreason,” recalls Karl Schlecht. “Later it wasthe other way round, then people wereasking: 'Boss, have you got a machine?',before they agreed to be hired.”

Plastering job with sharp, clean sprayed

steel

The successful Putzmeister model PKM with integrated pugmill mixer and diesel engine

1964 1965 1966 196715

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The revolution in gypsum plaster

had begun

The next milestone was the development ofthe first continuously operational mixingpump for gypsum plaster in 1965. A wholeseries of technical difficulties had to be solv-ed and new ground consistently broken,until the “Gipsomat” – as the machine wascalled – was finally working. It reliablymetered the gypsum machine plaster withwater, mixed, pumped and simultaneouslyspray-applied compressed air. In the nextfew decades 10,000 were to be sold andoften copied.

Compressed-air assistance

for screed conveying

The Putzmeister mortar pumps were predo-minantly used in new buildings. However,the buildings did not only have walls andceilings, which were now increasingly plas-tered by machine, but also had flooring withfloor screed. This stiff, almost dry materialcould not be pumped using piston and screwconveyor pumps.

The young entrepreneur KS and his compe-tent employees experimented again withdifferent delivery systems. Hand in handwith the work on the machine were otherattempts trials with different dispensing for-mulations. The outcome was so-called plugphase conveying, by which the screed mix-ture was transported with regular air cush-ions through the connected delivery line. In1966, the compressed-air-charged “Mixokret”screed conveyors were incorporated into thePutzmeister range.

Putzmeister exhibition stand at BAUMA 1965

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1964 1965 1965 1966 11965


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Coping with crises by anticipating them

The first trough of the post-war period, ex-perienced by the construction industry inthe second half of the 1960s, prompted KarlSchlecht to review his product range. “It wasin about 1967, we had a slump in construct-ion. I thought, in the end the trend will belike it is in America, where gypsum andplaster are hardly still used. There, almosteverything was made with gypsum plaster-board, i.e. with dry material. If that wasgoing to arrive over here, I could be closeddown. So I had to look around for somethingnew!” He saw good opportunities in the con-struction of pumps for ready-mixed concretewhich was increasingly used on the market.To be financially attractive for the buildingcontractor or constructor, however, the con-crete had to be placed on the constructionsite more quickly than, for example, withthe traditional crane buckets and old-fashioned concrete pumps

Trials are performed by the boss himself: in 1966, KS tests his first oil-hydraulically

driven concrete pump HB 1 with flat gate valve, for pumping fine concrete and

screed

From 1966 onwards, Putzmeister introduces the Mixokret screed conveyor to the range

Systematic illustration of compressed

air delivery

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6 1967 19681969 19701967

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Dr.-Ing. Richard Sonnenberg:

History of concrete pumping

Since the beginning of the last century,

the increasing prevalence of concrete

construction has meant ever larger

quantities of concrete having to be placed

on construction sites. The selection of

pumping equipment used for this over

the course of time went according to de-

livery range and delivery height, con-

crete amount, concrete consistency and

component dimension. Belt and trough

conveyors, container conveyors with

carts, crane buckets, skips, monorails

and cable cranes as well as pipelines on

pneumatic pipe conveyors and concrete

pumps were used.

The development of the different concretedelivery methods was often a reaction to theintroduction of new types of concrete. Eachinfluenced the other. So the change wasmade from tamped concrete – which to startwith was only conveyed using carts – to castconcrete as the basis for the construction ofcasting towers with troughs for free concreteflow from the casting tower to the placementsite.

Internal vibrators enable placement of

stiffer concrete

After the introduction of internal vibratorsfor concrete compaction in 1926, it was pos-sible to place stiffer concrete without prob-lem in narrow and reinforced formwork. Fordelivery of jolted concrete, conveyor belts,container conveyors and pipelines were andare used.

For all types of delivery, one of the mostimportant requirements was and is thatdemixing of the concrete during pumping isreliably prevented. Moreover, any change inthe temperature of the concrete should beprevented, e.g. through cooling of the deli-very pipe. In addition, the water contentmust be kept constant, e.g. with tarpaulinsto protect against rainwater on large opencontainers or with leak-proof containers toprevent water loss.

From the handcart to the concrete pump –

development of readymix concrete conveying

Casting towers

With the quantities of concrete becominglarger, compaction of the tamped concrete,which was used almost exclusively in itsday, the use of hand rammers became un-economic. To facilitate concrete constructionwith tamping and to prevent the creation ofair pockets in the concrete and tampinggaps, in the USA before the First World War,the water content of concrete was alreadyincreased so much that at an angle of 20° to30°, it was able to flow on its own as castconcrete. The consequence of this transitionfrom tamped concrete to cast concrete wasthat on larger construction sites, the concreteno longer needed to be transported usingcarts, but was filled into a casting tower

using a crane. The concrete flowed from thecasting tower under its own steam into thelower lying formwork. Concrete was thenconveyed in buckets in the casting tower forhigh-rise concreting operations. Troughswith a gradient of 20° to 30° were used tospread the concrete from the casting towerto the placement sites.

The adjustable bucket, self-emptying at thestop, the concrete silo with the troughmounting and the trough system with fixedand slewable troughs formed part of thecasting tower. For stiffer concrete, conveyorbelts were also used.

Truck-mounted concrete transporter as

forerunners of the concrete mixer , USA

1924 (Ill. Ford Motor Co.)

Earlier truck-mounted concrete mixers

from the American manufacturer Rex

(Ill. Rex)

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Historical view


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g

Considerable assembly effort

For elongated structures, cable troughmountings (in the USA) or movable booms,particularly for sluice construction (inEurope), were used. The height of the cast-ing towers was usually 60 m (in the USA upto 145 m). The assembly effort for the cast-ing tower was 800 hours or 300 hours forthe boom. The economic field of applicationfor the tower started at 4000 m3 Placementamount, for the boom at 150 m3.

From 1920 onwards, cast concrete alsocaught on in Germany and became verywidespread in a short time . However, thedisadvantage of the switch from tamped tocast concrete was a significant deteriorationin the quality of hardened concrete as a con-sequence.

Water/cement value is reduced

Further development was characterised byefforts to lower the water/cement value andthe high cement paste content, which wassupposed to prevent demixing of the castconcrete. This reduction both meant cementcould be saved and concrete shrinkage limit-ed. Perhaps we would have come back to thetraditional tamped concrete, if in 1926 MrDeniau's idea of increasing the fluidity ofconcrete during compaction by excitingvibration had not lead to the construction ofinternal vibrators. Using vibration compact-ion, large and reinforced components madeof stiffer concrete could be compacted moreeconomically and better than by tamping.

The switch from cast concrete to jolted con-crete with stiffer consistence and lowerfluidity meant the end for casting troughsand casting towers. In their place came con-

veyor belts, conveying containers and pipeconveying.

Pneumatic conveying systems

From about 1915 onwards, compressed airconveyors were deployed industrially inAmerica in tunnel and gallery construction.The systems were designed as dynamic con-crete canons. The concrete was conveyedwith screw conveyors from the concrete con-tainer to the delivery pipe and there – aswith shotcrete – was carried along at aspeed of approximately 30 m/s by suppliedcompressed air. In Germany, such a systemwas used for the first time for the construct-ion of the Schluchsee hydroelectric powerstation.

Static compressed air conveyors with driveboiler (Placy System) came onto the marketin France in 1920. During the constructionof the Paris metro at the end of the 1920s,

this system achieved outputs of up to 20 m3/hat a delivery distance of 100 m. From 1950onwards, these advanced static conveyorsbecame more widespread in Europe.

Gate valve required for concrete com-

pressed air conveying

The static compressed air conveyingsystems consisted of a compressor for fillinga compressed-air tank, which acted on theconcrete filled in a drive tank and forced itinto the delivery line. The delivery linebehind the drive tank ended in a capturetank, out of which the concrete droppeddown at the placement site into the form-work. The compressed air escaping at theend of a charge from the delivery pipe thathad been blown empty was also depressur-ised in the capture tank. In the case of ver-tical concrete delivery, a gate valve in thelower delivery line running horizontally pre-vented a backflow of concrete from the riserinto the drive tank during concretingbreaks. The gate valve was also required forcontinuous delivery.

With short delivery lines without capturetank, it was possible for the concrete to beshot out of the delivery pipe directly at highspeed. This delivery method was mainlyused for backfilling formworks that were dif-ficult to access, such as in gallery and tun-nel construction, for instance. The air con-sumption in the middle was 15 to 20 timesas high as the output. The energy consumpt-ion of the compressor was approximately 2 kWh to 2.5 kWh per cubic metre of pump-ed concrete. The concrete delivery pipes haddiameters of 125, 150 mm and 180 mm. Theoperating pressure in the delivery pipe wasbetween 4.5 bar (3.5 at. (gauge)) and 6 bar(5 at. (gauge)).

Moveable casting tower (on the left in the picture) with 75 m3/h placement output

and up to 70 m horizontal projection (weight 250 t). In the middle, two moveable

cranes hold the casting troughs. (Ill. Garbotz)

Transporting concrete by conveyor belt ,1934 (Ill. Verlag Bau+Technik)

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Historical view


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Advantages and disadvantages of

concrete compressed air delivery

Concrete delivery using compressed airbrought advantages when delivery operat-ion was frequently interrupted, if there wasstrong fluctuation in the decreased outputand for concrete placement in cramped con-ditions. The systems operated in structuraland civil engineering projects, transportconstruction and tunnel construction.Further advantages of pneumatic pumpingwere as follows■ Simple machine design with mechanical-

ly moved parts, therefore less wear■ Low manpower requirements■ Easy handling■ Easy maintenance and cleaning■ Quick installation■ Moveable delivery line with swivel and

pivoted couplings

Pneumatic delivery could be very dangerous- when the compressed air cut out too late,the concrete residue shot out of the deliverypipe and caused serious injuries to person-nel and damage to the structure. The end forpneumatic conveyors came in about 1960with the introduction of hydraulically drivenconcrete pumps on the market.

Crane bucket concrete delivery

After 1945, newly-developed tower cranesmade a significant contribution to the recon-struction of the countries destroyed in thewar. Until about 1965, the crane bucket wasthe main transport equipment for fresh con-crete in structural engineering. Concretingperformance using crane buckets decreasessignificantly as the structure height increas-es, however, due to the longer duration.Moreover, during concreting, the cranes arenot available for other tasks. With the re-placement of crane buckets by concretepumps, this enabled continuous delivery atconstant output rates.

Concrete pumps

Early documents from first uses of a concretepump during the construction of the NewYork subway date from about 1903. InGermany, the first concrete pump was builtby the constructor Giese-Hell in Kiel. Withthis pump it was possible in the spring of1929 to obtain the first experience of pump-ing concrete on the construction site of theDeutsches Haus in Flensburg and the Marinecenotaph. This showed that larger-size partic-les did not pass through the ball valves andcaused gear breakage. Yet despite this fail-ure, the pump achieved a delivery height of27 m and a delivery rate of 10 m3/h.

Schematic diagram of a comp-

ressed air concrete conveying system

(Ill. Beratungsstelle

Stahlverwendung)

First Torkret series concrete pump,

Giese-Hell licence (Ill.:Torkret). Shown as

a systematic diagram above (Ill. Weber).

The first German concrete pump with

mechanical drive from Giese-Hell, 1929

(Ill. Garbotz)

Historical view

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2930

31

catching cauldron

delivery pipe

concrete conveyor

mixer

air chamber

air compressor


PM 4062 GB 15

The company Torkret, co-founded by aGerman-American, took over this design in1932 and developed it further. While thefirst machine with a mechanical drive wasstill an upright one-cylinder plunger cylin-der pump with 180 mm cylinder diameter,180 mm piston stroke and ball valves incor-porating a downstream damping vessel, themore developed pumps ("Torkret, Giese-Hellsystem") already had horizontal cylinders.The ball valves no longer opened upwards,they opened downwards. This meant theconcrete no longer needed to be drawn in asit did on the prototype.

Concrete pumps are developed further

In 1934, the modified and improved pumpwas equipped with one or alternatively twohorizontal cylinders. Instead of the ball val-ves, it had two positively-controlled rotaryslides per cylinder. So that the slide rodswere not damaged or destroyed when aggre-gate (stones) jammed, in the middle of the1930s Torkret acquired the licence from theDutchman Kooymann for the patented con-crete pump with spring-telescoping sliderods. Torkret also awarded the licence forthis mechanical pump built in series in theUSA, to Rex (Milwaukee) among others. Upuntil 1945, approximately 1,000 concretepumps in this version were sold by Torkret.Once the patent protection expired, the sliderods were copied by various manufacturers.In Germany, the company Kaiser build asimplified mechanical piston pump withonly one 3-way gate valve, which was lateralso adopted by Rex and others.

Common to all these early pumps was thefact that the diameter of the delivery cylin-ders and pipeline was the same. Becausewhen the concrete “bled” at the gate valveduring the pressure stroke and causedblockages, it could only be pumped throughpipes of the same diameter – even withrestrictions. This principle of the “samecross section” also had to be retained on theflat gate valves coming onto the marketfrom 1952 onwards.

After 1950, the hydraulic drive then caughton – as in other areas of machine construct-ion too – on concrete pumps with deliveryrates of 46 m3/h to 110 m3/h. In 1957/59Torkret brought out the first PK 20 concretepumps with water hydraulic and from 1959with oil hydraulic drive. Torkret suppliedapproximately 1,000 units of the PK 20,which achieved delivery rates of up to 50 m3/h. It is said that within two months,two model PK 20 L machines pumped45,000 m3 of concrete from a distance of 590 m at a gradient of 5 m through 200 pipes.

After 1960, rapid development began in theconcrete pump market after the introductionof ready-mixed concrete. In addition to thealready established concrete pump manu-facturers (Torkret, BSM, Schwing andWibau), essentially newcomers, such as thecompanies Hünnebeck, Putzmeister, Stetterand Scheele as Torkret's successor, werealso significantly involved in this.

Torkret concrete pump with horizontal

cylinder and spring telescoping slide

rod, below in a systematic diagram,

Kooymann System (Ill. Torkret)

Water hydraulic single-

cylinder concrete pump PK 20

from Torkret with free-flying

delivery pistons, approx. 1959 (Ill. Torkret)

Kaiser concrete pump with rotor blade,

approx. 1938 (Ill. Kaiser)

Historical view

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The newcomer stirs up the market

KS had still been able to bring mortarpumps and plastering machines onto themarket as innovations. With concretepumps, however, he had to compete withcompetitors from the start. “I finally decidedon a dual piston pump with long-stroke de-livery cylinders (dia. 230 mm) and waterhydraulic drive. And this concept withmechanical piston retraction was, due to itslarge cylinder volume and its quiet pumpingcharacteristics, so successful from the startthat we became the leading supplier inGermany within two years. The long-estab-lished and renowned concrete pump manu-facturers were simply overwhelmed by ourmachines. Once, we assembled 40 concretepumps in one month. I still remember howquickly turnover rose, from 6 to 9 millionDM, then later to 12 million DM, and tripledthe year after that to 35 million DM!”

Since Karl Schlecht still did not have hisown distribution channel for exporting con-crete pumps, he collaborated with Elba from1969 onwards for approximately four years.As a supplier of concrete mixing systems,Elba had good contacts with fresh concreteproducers, most of which at the time alsooperated concrete pumps. Nowadays theconcrete pumping market is not at all sostandardised: there are still many countriesin which ready-mixed concrete works alsooffer a pumping service. In Europe andNorth America, however, most pump operat-ors have since specialised exclusively inconcrete pumping. Ready-mixed concreteworks, on the other hand, often only stillsupply the concrete building material.

Already in 1971 Putzmeister introducedfour water hydraulically-driven types of con-crete pump for mounting on truck chassisinto the range. With their overall size andoutput they already cover a broad range,which can still been seen today. Here is asummary of some parameters:

1969 1970These concrete pumps were offered both ontrailer chassis and in combination with a“concrete crane”, the name for a concreteplacing boom at the time. While KarlSchlecht optimised the water hydraulicpumps further and had them assembled inhis own factory from delivered components,Putzmeister initially purchased the boomsincluding support according to its own spe-cifications from Meiller (Munich) and AtlasWeyhausen (Vechta). At the start of the1970s, the Putzmeister range includedthese four types of boom (the designationsare taken from the documents from thetime):

And Putzmeister truck-mounted concretepumps sell well! A Putzmeister press brief-ing quotes a written communication from

the federal office for motor vehicles dated26.1.1973, according to which in 1972, outof a total of 420 newly approved truck-mounted concrete pumps in Germany, 168units originated from Putzmeister product-ion. As there were seven well-known sup-pliers, this corresponded to a market shareof 40 %.

Putzmeister was only to establish its owndepartment for the development of boomsand base structures in 1975. In order to beable to offer “large booms” too, the bought-in triple boom combined with an additionalmain boom (“A” arm) and tensile-loadedcylinder and by the end of the 1970s al-ready achieved up to 39 m vertical reach.

Pump type B 232 B 232 S B 233 B 333

Maximum output (m3/h) 60 65 100 125

Maximum concrete pressure (bar) 35 42 45 50

Required drive motor output from approx. (HP) 80 100 130 160

Piston stroke / (mm) 2,000 2,000 2,000 3,000

Delivery cylinder dia. (mm) 230 230 230 230

Boom model W 11/14 W 17/20 M 19/22 M 25/28

Arm length (m) 11 16.8 18.5 25

Maximum height (m) 14 20 22 28

Number of arms 2 3 3 3

Length of end hose (m) 6.6 5 6.6 6.6



PM 4062 GB 17

197336

First Putzmeister truck-mounted concrete pump with M 16 boom

and 100 mm delivery line on Mercedes-Benz L 808

To make full use of the chassis

superstructure length, Putzmeister in-

corporated delivery cylinders inclined

towards the rear with 2 m piston

stroke

37


18 PM 4062 GB

Contemporary witness

One of the first customers to order con-

crete pumps from Putzmeister was Hans

Hostadt (born in 1937). The entrepreneur

from Essen was (and still is today) joint

owner of the company Breitbach &

Hostadt, which had specialised in the

transport of construction machines and

building materials between the Rhine and

the Ruhr since 1967. Against this back-

drop, came first contacts with the com-

pany Torkret, the well-known German

concrete pump manufacturer in its time.

First discussions with Putzmeister took

place in 1968 at the Hanover trade fair.

Here Karl Schlecht presented his concretepumps with water hydraulic drive for thefirst time. “I was sceptical about the ma-chines exhibited at first”, said Hans Hostadtin a conversation forty years later. “Since weknew the drive with water hydraulics fromTorkret from before, they had that sort ofdelivery system with only one cylinder intheir range. The outputs were not bad infact, but at 20 bar pressure it was finished!But then along came Putzmeister, who plac-ed two cylinders next to each other, combin-ed the whole thing together with a flappersystem, and the water hydraulics, which hadbeen thought to be completely over the hill,were completely redesigned here and reallyperformed.” In April 1970, Breitbach &Hostadt took delivery of their firstPutzmeister concrete pump, the second afew weeks later. On both machines therewas already a model W 17/20 boom inte-grated, the third was delivered byPutzmeister by the end of the same year. Intotal, recalls Hans Hostadt, his companypurchased six new Putzmeister pumps withwater hydraulic drive within a very shortspace of time, later – in order to cover peaksof demand – several used machines werealso acquired.

Listening and rectifying defects

The sale of new machines was run via theregional Putzmeister distributors, firstthrough Montanbüro, then through thePutzmeister branch in Mühlheim/Ruhr,which later moved to Kettwig. Not least be-cause of his technical expertise, Hans

Hans Hostadt, pump operator since 1967, remembers

Hostadt (who was also not afraid to build hisown, efficient concrete pumps using com-ponents from different manufacturers) be-came valued by Karl Schlecht as a businessand discussion partner. And Hans Hostadtnoticed that in the Putzmeister founder wassomeone who could not only sell well, butalso listened; someone with whom problemscould be discussed and who not only pro-mised to sort out defects, but also really didremedy them. “Karl Schlecht did a lot differ-ently to others, and this finally convincedeven us 'old hands'. He really did listen,made notes, was flexible and reliable. Andwhile problems were really then solvedimmediately, the technical changes wereincorporated into series production – some-times no doubt to the sorrow of thePutzmeister design engineers, from whomsomething new was always required.”

“Experts” are disproved

Several years later, the legendaryPutzmeister C transfer tube was to be de-veloped from these contacts (“listening tothe customer”). The impatient Putzmeisterboss Karl Schlecht saw these experiences –or rather problems – from practical applicat-ions as challenges: sealing problems weresolved, longer piston stroke and large cylin-

Hans Hostadt on the way to the construction site, approx. 1969 (Ill. Hostadt)

Within a few months, the pumping service

Breitbach & Hostadt ordered six of the

water hydraulic Putzmeister truck-mount-

ed concrete pumps with W 17/20 boom

38


PM 4062 GB 19

Contemporary witness

der volume favoured and short reductionintroduced, which every so called "expert"had previously advised against.

Over the years, mutual appreciation was todevelop into friendship. Of course we saweach other not only on business matters, butalso socially. Hans Hostadt was once therewhen Karl Schlecht dropped off this car atthe workshop. The courtesy car was declin-ed by the Putzmeister owner. Instead heasked for the keys to a Honda 750, whichwas parked to one side. Schlecht andHostadt climbed in, switched on the ignitionand rode over the fields – at the time sur-roundings of the Putzmeister works werevery agricultural. Neither of the parties con-cerned wishes to recall their actual topspeed…

Now, in 2008, one can still meet HansHostadt every day at his pumping service.The senior partner is now assisted by hisson Martin (born in 1971), who as a memberof the management board with power of pro-curation will head the company in future.

Hostadt conversion: Take a Torkret truck-mounted concrete pump with gate valve

and replace the power unit with a water hydraulic Putzmeister pump with flapper

system... (Ill. Hostadt)

Hans Hostadt in January 2008:

With good concrete pumps, the operator can be pretty relaxed...

39

40

41


1970 1978 1980 1981

20 PM 4062 GB

Concrete pumps

become the mainstay of sales

Even in the boom years, Putzmeister adher-ed strictly to the principle of an “extendedworkbench”. It was planned in the companydesign office, drawn and assembled in theworks. The individual components werebought in from suppliers however: “We hadgood suppliers, we paid promptly, and theyall earned a lot of money.”

External steel construction operation

becomes one of the most important

Putzmeister production locations

Schlecht actually held the viewpoint, not totake a share in suppliers financially. Fromone of the supplier operations, the companyWurster from Althengstett near Calw, hepurchased various sheet metal parts, hop-pers, components for plastering machinesand compressed-air vessels for the Mixokretscreed conveyor. When the Wurster metalworking operation got into financial diffi-culties in 1973 and was up for sale, thePutzmeister founder took over 100 % of H.W.Wurster GmbH & Co. KG.

Karl Schlecht saw in this the opportunity, tosafeguard capacities at Putzmeister. And toexpand: since manufacture of the first con-crete placing boom developed by the compa-ny had already begun a few years later inthe Althengstett works. Schlecht: “Untilthen we had always bought in booms, firstfrom Meiler, who then became too expens-ive for us however. Then from AtlasWeyhausen, which manufactured steelstructures such as truck-mounted cranes,excavators and also hydraulic cylinders. In1979, we then designed and built ourselvesthe prototypes of the M 31-3 boom for oursubsidiary in Brazil which had been found-ed five years previously. We quickly realisedthat the unit costs could be reduced by stan-dard production, so that we were soon ableto manufacture the booms in the Altheng-stett works more cheaply than AtlasWeyhausen was able to supply them.” Justhow important the Putzmeister productionsite in the Black Forest and its future “fieldoffice” in Gründau near Frankfurt was stillto become for the Putzmeister Group, be-comes clear by the beginning of the 90s (seepage 45).

Concrete pumps increasingly take up

capacities

Viewed with today's hindsight, there werebound to be serious consequences. Due tothe unbelievable sales success of the con-crete pumps, the significance of the tradit-ional mortar pumps for Putzmeister's turn-over declined continually. A large part of thepersonnel and development capacities weretaken over by concrete pumps, but the mor-tar pumps on the other hand were treatedrather like a “younger brother”. “The con-crete pumps took up so much energy. Ishould basically already have established aseparate operation for the mortar machinesthen, since we wanted to develop them further too. It was simply that I wasn't ableto 'look after it' any longer,” was KarlSchlecht's self-critical assessment later ofthe decisive phase at the end of the 70s andbeginning of the 80s. The necessary adjust-ments to the company structure would bemade years later – but more of that later.

The road to other countries

Since 1960, there had already been interestin KS plastering machines from abroad, andthe German market soon became too nar-row. The first mortar pumps were sold toEngland, Spain, France, Italy and Switzer-land. In these countries, the types of mortarwere very different, depending on the localraw materials. The same applied to the waysthe trades were structured. Only where pla-stering companies existed was there the

1972 1979

requirement for investment in customisedmanufacture. So not in Italy, for example,where plasterers were hired by the buildingcontractor as the case arose, but definitelyin South America.

The machines were not always dispatchedabroad complete from Bernhausen. Customsbarriers and cheap labour costs at the startof the 1970s lead to parts for mortar pumpsand screed conveyors being manufacturedin the particular market, e.g. in England,Spain and Italy. So mere dealerships abroadbecame subsidiaries which bought, tested,assembled and delivered parts to localagents. “We wanted to avoid local competi-tors copying us in the market once it wasbuilt up and underselling us due to thelabour cost advantage in the country.”

Putzmeister placing boom manufacture at the company Wurster around 1979. How

today the ultra-modern Putzmeister works in Althengstett looks meanwhile can be

seen in photos on page 45.

42

43



PM 4062 GB 21

Attractive subsidiary in SpainPutzmeister Ibérica is perhaps the most successful European Putzmeister subsidiary. The company celebrated its 50-year anniver-

sary in the autumn of 1999 as “Induresa Putzmeister S.A.”. So the subsidiary would be eight years older than the Putzmeister

parent company. Is that even possible?

The present-day Putzmeister subsidiary inSpain has a family tree with several bran-ches: the old roots reached back to 1949,when Induresa (Ingeniera Industrial yRepresentationes, S.A.) as a trading compa-ny represented the interests of the Germancompany and plant construction firm inSpain. An important business area was thecoal and steel industry. Because Spanishfurnaces had to be lined – that is, filled –with fire-resistant material at regular inter-vals too, as the agent for Torkret dry-mixspraying machines, Induresa quickly man-aged to gain a foothold in the sector.

The water-hydraulically and later oil-hydrau-lically driven stationary concrete pumprepresented another Torkret product area,which was also marketed via Induresa inSpain. They were used in the construction oflarge barrages, for instance, which werebuilt in the 60s in numerous valleys to con-trol meltwater and supply drinking water.Induresa also supplied numerous Torkretsingle-cylinder pumps for concreting theunderground car parks, which were built inMadrid at the end of the 60s. Decisive forthe later success of Induresa was the factthat its employees not only sold the ma-chines, but also knew the materials to alarge extent which were conveyed, sprayedand pumped by the machines.

Management, after-sales service and assembly at Putzmeister Ibérica have since

been housed in new or renovated buildings (2004)

With water hydraulic Torkret pumps (see page 15) – here a PK 20 photographed in

1963 – the employees of the future Putzmeister subsidiary learnt about pumping

concrete (Ill. Lettner)

Delivery pipes with 200 mm diameter

were standard at the time (Ill. Lettner)

44

45

46


22 PM 4062 GB

First contacts

At the start of the 1960s, Gerwald Lettner,the young head of the Induresa constructionmachine department, and Karl Schlecht,company founder and owner of PutzmeisterGmbH, which was just a few years old, got incontact with each other. One was interestedin becoming an agent and obtaining distri-bution rights for another German construct-ion machine manufacturer. The other waslooking for new export markets and for a well-established company representative officein Spain for distribution of Putzmeister mor-tar pumps and screed conveyors.

Despite the relatively modest starting capi-tal of 1,000,000 Pesetas (then worth appro-ximately 34,000 €), which the Swiss ownermade available at the time, the collaborationadvanced quickly: from June 1963 onwards,Induresa sold the first Putzmeister mortarpumps. Since Induresa was bound by con-tract to Putzmeister's competitor Torkret forstationary concrete pumps, from 1971 itonly took on the distribution of truck-mount-ed concrete pumps for Putzmeister, whichwere initially imported from Elba into Spain.In 1972, following an amicable separationfrom Torkret, Induresa then became theagent for all Putzmeister products.

In order to get around the relatively highSpanish import tariffs, Karl Schlecht found-ed Putzmeister Española in 1973 as a manu-facturing plant purely for mortar machines.The consequence was that at first the num-ber of units of Putzmeister plastering ma-chines and Mixokret screed conveyorsmanufactured in Spain from the middle ofthe 1970s skyrocketed. In parallel to this,

however, the sale of concrete pumps pro-ceeded uninterrupted with up to 50 unitsper year. In 1985, the tradition-steepedPutzmeister Española merged into the legalform “Induresa Putzmeister S.A.”. Thecomplete take-over of the shares in the busi-ness by the Putzmeister parent companytook place three years later.

Accepted as a professional contact

partner

The Spanish Putzmeister agent had longmade a name for itself in the large construct-ion industry of the country. The competentspecialist knowledge of the employees –from Director Lettner, to the field service,

right down to the after-sales service fitters –made a decisive contribution to the constant-ly growing reputation. A particular challengewas posed in 1985 by the world record forconcrete high-rise pumping (432 m) in theSpanish Pyrenees. For the first time in thehistory of concrete delivery, pump pressuresof 170 bar were controlled safely in the pro-cess. During the design/construction of theconcrete pumps used and during the install-ation of the delivery line system includingthe cleaning station, the construction sitemanagers were able to rely unquestioninglyon the competence of Lettner and his team.During this spectacular site application,Putzmeister was to take the decision toequip all stationary Putzmeister concretepumps only with S transfer tubes in future.In 1991, it was again Gerald Lettner's teamwhich established a new in all-time high forconcrete pumping range (1661 m) inBarcelona.

Putzmeister truck-mounted concrete pump B 232 S with “concrete crane” W 17/20

(Madrid 1971). Above, a plate with the names of the companies, which Induresa

represented at the time. (Ill. Lettner)

In February 1985, this stationary concrete pump with S transfer tube (see also page 26) im-

proved on the world record for high-rise concrete pumping to 432 m in the Spanish Pyrenees

Gerwald Lettner (centre) and Karl Schlecht

at the record celebrations (Ill.: Lettner)

48

47

49


PM 4062 GB 23

Speciality: shotcrete machines

for tunnel construction

In the early 90s, Induresa engineers andapplications specialists began to pressahead intensively with the development of amodern shotcrete machine. After a few bit-ter setbacks and the use of high numbers ofpersonnel and a large amount of financialmeans, Induresa Putzmeister S.A. then pre-sented in 1994 the first shotcrete mani-pulator it had developed itself – Wetkret.The extremely robust design, easy usabilityand its numerous sensible details meant theWetkret found over 60 customers at homeand abroad in less than five years product-ion time. It was, moreover, not difficult toconvince the Putzmeister parent companyabout the high standard of quality of theSpanish manufacturing. Since then, thecomplete development and production of thePutzmeister shotcrete machines for the worldmarket is carried out at the Putzmeister sub-sidiary in Spain. In addition, to relieve pro-duction in Aichtal, the experienced manu-facturing plant in Madrid takes over theassembly of certain truck-mounted concretepumps and trailer concrete pumps for theSpanish market too, the components forwhich are supplied from Germany.

Change-over carefully prepared

In 1999, in the 50th year of its existence,the Spanish Putzmeister subsidiary is re-named Putzmeister Ibérica (PMIB). Beforehis retirement, the longtime managingdirector Gerwald Lettner begins to replace,extend and to modernise the administrativebuilding, production halls and warehouse atPMIB. At the same time, he carefully pre-pares the company for a generation change

As his successor, Felix Selinger took overresponsibility at PMIB in the same year. Themulti-lingual qualified building engineerhas many years of professional practice withmachines for tunnelling and mining. Duringhis nine year period of office, he hassucceeded in increasing the turnover ofPMIB 8-fold, combining the worldwidePutzmeister tunnel and mining activitiesand establishing a global sales alliance withSika (Switzerland) for concrete wet sprayingmachines. From 2006, the SpanishPutzmeister subsidiary is no longer onlyresponsible for the domestic market, but hassince, after the founding of a subsidiary inPortugal, taken over sales responsibility forthe whole Iberian Peninsula. In August2007, Felix Selinger then takes over themanaging directorship of Putzmeister AG.The management of Putzmeister Ibérica hassince been in the hands of José Antonio

Nieto. Spain, rightly so, is regarded as the“country of large truck-mounted concretepumps”. Of the Putzmeister large booms inthe 60-metre class alone, there are over 20machines working in Spain in the

Putzmeister anniversary year. Incidentally,the first of these long-reach boom pumpswere sold “as on paper” – so great was thetrust of the Spanish customers.

In the 90s, PMIB had specialised in wetcrete spray concrete machines. They were

seen as successors to the large German-produced Putzmeister spray buffalos.

60-metre long-reach boom pumps during concreting of gigantic liquid gas tanks in

Northern Spain

50

51


1975 1976 1977 1978The Putzmeister-Story

24 PM 4062 GB

1976PUMI® conquers small construction

sites

The costs for using a concrete pump couldonly be justified even in the past if – com-pared to the traditional charging bucket – asignificantly larger amount of concretecould be placed per hour. For larger concret-ing jobs, this evidence could be suppliedeasily. However, how did the cost gap lookfor small construction sites, if only 5 or 10 m3 of concrete needed to be placed for agarage roof, a patio or retaining wall, forexample? Even for these small constructionsites, a truck mixer and concrete pump hadto be ordered, which was hardly worth it dueto the small amounts of concrete. For thisreason there was the risk that the concretepump contractor is ignored when the con-tract is awarded due to his price calculation.

Against this backdrop, Putzmeister took onmanufacture of truck mixer concrete pumpswith boom in 1976. Because these machinescan mix and pump the concrete, they soonearned the nickname PUMI®, which is inter-nationally known today as the “genericterm”. With the PUMI®, pumping andspreading of small amounts of concrete of 6to 10 m3/h became significantly quicker andless expensive. Because now only ONEmachine and only ONE machine operatorwas required to transport the concrete tothe construction site, mix it, pump it anddeliver it into the formwork. At the sametime, everything went much more quickly,since the very popular PUMI® – particularlyin the early years – with 16-metre boomrequired no support at all and was ready foruse in no time at all. Even the cleaningeffort and the residual concrete amountswere significantly less than compared to thelarge, “proper” concrete pumps.

52

53


PM 4062 GB 25

In the meantime, the PUMI® truck mixerconcrete pumps with rotor system are espe-cially popular. Putzmeister has incorporatedthis delivery system into the range since thetake over of Wibau in 1989. The rotor pumpis outstanding in daily use, when there areseveral different construction sites, aboveall due to the fact that hardly any concreteresidue is left over, the machine runs quiet-ly, is easily assembled and can be cleanedquickly.

When deciding on the “optimum” truckmixer concrete pump, the consideration ofdifferent interests can sometimes be diffi-cult. Anyone wishing to transport relativelylarge amounts of concrete in addition to

The PUMI® was especially popular with transport concrete manufacturers. For they

earned now not only on the concrete building material, but also as haulier and pump-

ing service provider. Soon the PUMI® had the nickname “money maker”. From the first

PUMI®, assembled on a 3-axle chassis and with 40 m3/h output, 16-metre boom and

6 m3- drum, Putzmeister had in the meantime developed a comprehensive model

range with 21, 24, 26, 28, and 31-metre boom options. For the delivery systems too,

PUMI® operators also have a free choice, with three pumping systems and outputs

between 56 and 80 m3/h . The modern PUMI®s are mostly assembled on a 4-axle

chassis for 32 t permissible gross weight and have a mixer volume of 6, 7 or 9 m3.

occasional pumping operations using theirPUMI®, is more likely to decide on the small(i.e. also light) 21-metre boom. For those forwhom it depends on maximum horizontalreach, will order a PUMI® with a largerboom and accept that they can only carry arelatively small amount of concrete.

Since the PUMI® truck mixer concrete pumpis classified by the legal authority as a“transport machine”, it is subject to otherdesignations such as “truck-mounted indus-trial machine”, e.g. truck-mounted concretepumps. Added to this are the very different,country-specifc licensing rules, which affect“transport machines” to a much greater ex-tent than the “truck-mounted industrialmachines”.

Rotor pump

CS transfer tube

S transfer tube

A large PUMI® with 31-metre boom in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)

54

55

56

57

The PUMI® model range today



26 PM 4062 GB

1971 1977“C transfer tube” pump chases off old

concrete gate valve

In order to be able to pump difficult concreteeven at high pressures, Putzmeister hit tech-nical limits with the water hydraulicallycontrolled flapper. For one thing, the con-crete pressure of the water hydraulic systemwas limited. In addition, the flapper hadproblems with faster stroke change due toconcrete bleeding and formation of a con-crete blockage in the gate valve housing(Figure “A“).

The trend towards delivery pressures over40 bar combined with ever more cost effect-ive oil-hydraulic drives at the same timelead at first to an intermediate solution atPutzmeister at the start of the 1970s. It con-sisted of an oil-hydraulically driven 2-cylin-der piston pump with 1.4 m piston strokeand closed hydraulic circuit (Figure “B”).Newly developed and patent-applied-forhydraulic control components provided aneven flow of concrete, during which thepressure peaks occurring after each pistonswitchover were damped (SN controller).

This made it possible to achieve higher con-crete pressures and a similarly continuousoutput flow rate as was the case with thesuccessful water-hydraulic concrete pumps.During a transition period, KS still retainedthe flapper at first, however, before he suc-cessfully made a technical quantum leapwith the “C transfer tube” system.

Because in 1971, the decisive breakthroughwas to be made with the development of thefirst transfer tube controlled piston pump.With this design, a C-shaped transfer tubeslews in front of the respective pressurecylinder of the dual piston pump and pro-duces a deflection-free connection to thesubsequent delivery line (Figure “C“).Because the C transfer tube looked similarto an elephant trunk when viewed from theside, Karl Schlecht had quickly found in“trunk” a memorable name, which is inci-dentally very symbolic in the industryworldwide even today. Now at 2.1 m pistonstroke and 230 mm delivery cylinder dia-meter, Putzmeister achieved even smootherpump delivery. With the discovery made atthe Frankfurt telecommunications tower

(see page 27ff) of the self-adjusting ring,this transfer tube pump then also becamealmost watertight. Thus it became possibleto achieve high delivery pressures of over100 bar. Moreover, these C (also referred toas “Elephant-”) transfer tube pumps convey-ed concrete the shortest route to the boom,very similarly to the water-hydraulicallydriven Putzmeister truck-mounted concretepumps. Figure “D” shows the method ofoperation for the S transfer tube, whichPutzmeister was to incorporate on station-ary concrete pumps from 1985 onwards.

A) Water-hydraulic drive

with flapper system

With the self-adjusting ring, the trans-

fer tube became “watertight”

The development of the Putzmeister concrete pumps at a glance:

B) Oil-hydraulic drive

with flapper system

C) Oil-hydraulic drive

with C transfer tube

D) Oil-hydraulic drive

with S transfer tube

58

5960

61

62


PM 4062 GB 27

In actual fact, the three construction com-panies involved had not believed that con-crete could be pumped all the way to the topat this construction site. Because thePutzmeister competitors were of the opinionat the time that concrete cannot be pumpedover 160 or 170 m or at more than 60 bar,since concrete cannot “tolerate” a higherpressure. Thus the tower was equipped witha high-performance crane which was sup-posed to take over high-rise pumping whenthe pump failed – even if at lower capacity.

KS still remembers well: “Putzmeister re-ceived the contract to deploy a BRA 2100series long-piston concrete pump on theFrankfurt telecommunications tower con-struction site, because this machine with itslarge stroke volume promised a smootherpumping method. The reason for this wasthat there were residential buildings in thesurrounding area, and there were fearsabout complaints due to noise at night. ForPutzmeister this was an enormous chal-lenge. Prior to this, construction sites wereoperated predominently by competitorsTorkret and Schwing using stationary con-crete pumps, while Putzmeister had goodmarket success with truck-mounted con-crete pumps. The tower was erected in slid-ing formwork construction method – everyeight days, the 2.5 m high climbing form-works were raised to a new position andwere ready for concreting. Cast-in-place con-crete ws used, as was usual at this type ofconstruction site at the time.”

The process offered the advantage of conti-nually adjusting the concrete mix, whichPutzmeister as a pump manufacturer wasnot able to offer at first. In fact the 2.5 mhigh concrete layer was supposed to set atthe same speed throughout. Thus, for thelast cubic metres of concrete, the set retard-ing admixture was omitted.

KS: “Up to a height of 150 m, delivery usingour pump progressed without problems.Blockages then started to occur, however, inthe C transfer tube and there were difficult-ies with switching through. The old methodsseemed, therefore, to be right after all. Theproblem was bleeding at high pressure atthe gate valve gap.” Karl Schlecht saw in this

High-rise concrete pumping at the Frankfurt

telecommunications tower at 310 mThe high-rise concrete pumping at the Frankfurt telecommunications tower (FMT) at the world record height of 310 m (1977) using

a “trunk” pump made the construction industry sit up and take notice, causing considerable unrest among Putzmeister's

competitors.

On the Frankfurt telecommunications tower, the concrete was actually supposed to

be hoisted in the crane bucket. But something else happened ...

63


28 PM 4062 GB

a personal challenge. With great persist-ence, he worked on the solution to the prob-lem and, in the process, hit upon a different-ial principle known from oil hydraulics. Theresult was a differently designed wear ringon the C transfer tube diversion valve.

KS: “The thought was that the system dia-meter of the ring and the spectacle plateneeded to be smaller compared to the cent-ring diameter on the C transfer tube. Thenat higher pressure, the ring was supposed topress against the spectacle plate to form aseal and thereby prevent bleeding. Thismeant, on the one hand, that the C transfertube – following the effect of the pressure –could rebound elastically towards the rearand, on the other hand, that it was sealedwith an inserted O-ring seal.” (see page 26).

To everyone's surprise, this solution work-ed. The C transfer tube pump thus establish-ed a new record in the following weeks withevery additional formwork elevation. Finally,the last metres above the viewing platformwere pumped up to the top at a height of310 m. So Putzmeister became an acceptablecontractor even for large German constructioncompanies. KS: “We had achieved a featwhich was previously considered impossible.”

A year later, the so-called S transfer tubewas also equipped with self-adjusting ring.This transfer tube system was introduced by

Putzmeister on stationary pumps in place ofthe C transfer tubes from 1985 onwards.Other high-rise pumping operations on con-struction sites were therefore performedusing S transfer tube pumps type BSA 2100(see page 22).

KS: “By the use of this self-adjusting ring,the concrete pumps controlled by transfertube became so successful, that finally evenour main competitor switched to usingtransfer tubes. The same happened with allthe other manufacturers, so that nowadaysno other concrete gate valve designs are

The world record at the Frankfurt telecommunications tower prompted the concrete

industry to rethink high-rise concrete pumping

KS (4th from the right) visited the tower construction site regularly. On the left next to him Hans Hostadt (see page 18 f), who

was also naturally interested in any technical innovations for high pressure concrete pumps. (Ill.Hostadt)

64

65

used for concrete pumps any more. In themeantime, numerous large concrete pump-ing service providers in the USA who pre-viously used machines from Putzmeistercompetitors in their fleet have for the mostpart switched to S transfer tube pumps fromPutzmeister. Above all, the BSA 14000,which is also used on the Burj Dubai, isincreasingly favoured internationally as ahigh pressure concrete pump. The start ofthe story was thus written at the Frankfurttelecommunications tower, whereby a newparadigm, a new way of thinking in the con-crete industry was initiated!”


PM 4062 GB 29


Putzmeister diversifies: with tried and

tested pumping technology into new

markets

The Putzmeister core business was and isconveying particularly difficult media bytube. Following the success of the transfertube designs for pumping concrete, KarlSchlecht also attempted to use this technolo-gy for other delivery jobs in industry,mining and tunnelling. These steps helpedthe diversification of the company, whichwas to become somewhat less dependent onthe construction industry. Moreover, theimmense variety of applications found inindustrial technology opened up significantmarket potential for Putzmeister's alreadyhighly-developed pumping technology. Itwas based primarily all on oil-hydraulicdrive, long piston stroke and few transfertube switchovers. At first it was still “nor-mal” concrete pumps, which now pumpedother media. Then the pumps were increas-ingly adapted to the modified conditions.Putzmeister now talked about “high densitysolids pumps for the worst”, which pumpedparticularly difficult media and materialmasses.

However, the areas peripheral to actualpump delivery increasingly gained in im-portance, i.e. the devices for pre-mixing andmetering the high-density solids and theiraftertreatment, as well as the electronic con-trol of the complete conveying systems innight-and-day operation from a remote cent-ral control station. This enabled Putzmeisterpumping technology to find new applicationfields in industry, in particular plant con-struction, from about 1977/78 onwards.

At first it was still concrete pumps that

were used for the new tasks

So, for example at the Aswan Dam, a station-ary Putzmeister concrete pump from alarge-scale French construction companywas used for purposes other than thoseintended, in order to remove the sludgedeposition from the bottom of the dam. Forthis purpose, the pump had been set up ona pontoon anchored near the dam. A dredgeron board transferred the Nile sludge into theconcrete pump hopper. The sediment wasthen conveyed through floating pipelines tothe river bank.

In Japan, during the construction of theunderground, Putzmeister pumps soon notonly pumped concrete in the tunnel, but alsothe excavated material from tunnelling outof the tunnel to the surface. The removal ofthe ground material from the site – this wasfine, compact sludge from sedimentation,so-called “sea silt” – was seen in Japan asparticularly dirty work. Through the use ofthe Putzmeister (concrete) pumps, the exca-


vated material was handled completely dif-ferently, however: the material was convey-ed directly from the tunnelling machine tothe pump and transported through a pipe-line to the surface. The huge breakthroughin the conveying of excavated material usingpumps was then achieved in 1988 duringthe tunnelling of the Eurotunnel under theEnglish Channel (see page 36f).

Use of a stationary concrete pump during sludge removal at the Aswan Dam

This Putzmeister concrete pump pumped waste excavated from the tunnel during

the construction of the Tokyo underground


1976 1978 1979 19601977

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30 PM 4062 GB

From the beginning, pumping hazardouswaste and sewage sludge is a widespreadapplication for the Putzmeister industrialpumping division. In order to reduce thevolume and achieve better burning, thesludge is intensely dewatered, so that itexhibits as high a solids content as possible.

This compact material is pumped by thePutzmeister high density solids pump firstto landfill and from the 1990s mainly toincinerators. In this way, Putzmeister tech-nology always adapts to individual systemdesign: sometimes sewage sludge is mixedwith domestic waste before incineration,other times the sludge is injected togetherwith coal into circulating fluidized bed fur-naces, or a coal-lime mixture is carried intopressurised circulating fluidized bed furnace,as it has been for the past twenty years inthe day-and-night operations in the Värtanpower plant near Stockholm (the process iscurrently undergoing a renaissance). In theprocess, the metering and injection pumpsfrom Putzmeister operate like injectionpumps on a supercharged diesel motor. Inthe same plant, the operator also uses largePutzmeister transport pumps to transportthe coal mixture from the silo at Stockholmport to the power plant. Or the Putzmeisterhigh density solids pumps pump the drain-ed sewage sludge into the fermentationdrum of a composting plant, – also one ofthe solutions to problems which are stillrequested today.

High density solids pumps for the worst

The pumping of hazardous waste, filtercake, paste-like residues from the chemicalindustry or fly ash suspensions from powerplants are typical examples of the range ofmedia which can be pumped using pistonpumps up to the present day. The decisiveadvantage of pumping these media and ma-terial masses is that they are deliveredthrough a connected, hermetically-sealedpipeline. In contrast to traditional band-con-veyors or chain trough conveyors, unpleas-ant odours or contamination due to fallingmaterial are prevented thanks to transport-ation by pumping.

In order to achieve the best results, thePutzmeister Systems Engineering divisiondeveloped different delivery systems. Forinstance, high density solids pumps withball valves (KOV) or seat valves (HSP) aresuitable mainly for pumping fine-grainedmedia. Putzmeister pumps with S transfertubes (KOS) on the other hand have advant-ages for pumping particularly dry, fibrous orrough high-density solids, which can also betransported at high pressures and over longdistances: for extremely dry material withlarge embedded foreign bodies such asshredded steel fibres with hazardous waste,Putzmeister designed the single-pistonpump (EKO), which can also be fitted withtrimming pistons. Silos with a dischargesystem for temporary storage of discontinu-ously delivered, but continuously drawn offsludge round off Putzmeister's handling ofan extremely wide range of media.

Tit

an

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xid

Pa

pe

r slu

dg

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en

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s

Pump for environmental protection

KOV

KOS

HSP

EKO

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Co

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Fly

ash

Putzmeister high density solids pump under a silo in a hazardous waste incineration plant (on the top left in systematic diagram)

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Putzmeister pumps for mining

If the Putzmeister high density solidspumps' delivery jobs are often alreadyunusual in themselves, the Putzmeisterapplications in mining set benchmarks yetagain. For example, high density solidspumps pump the mining residues storedaboveground – mixed with water andcement – into the excavation void under-ground, whether at gold, iron ore, non-fer-rous metal or salt production mines. In theprocess, distances of several kilometresmust often be overcome, so the pumps andhydroelectric drives have correspondinglyhigh-capacity designs.

Sludge removed from the Teersee

('Tar Lake')

In the 1990s, the remediation of the gigant-ic Teer repositories at the Schwarze Pumpesite (near Cottbus) with a buoyantPutzmeister high density solids pumparoused particular interest. Over 500,000tons of creosote residues were accrued inGDR times as a by-product of town gas pro-duction, stored at repositories and threaten-ed to contaminate the groundwater. In itseight-year use, a large Putzmeister highdensity solids pump from a floating pontoonwith dredger, material feed device, foreignbody trimming device, mixing trough andreciprocating screen, pumped the creosote-solid mixture via a floating pipeline into afuel preparation plant and disposed of it inan environmentally-friendly manner. Thesticky creosote residues required regularmaintenance of the plant. Due to the toxic'tar lake' emissions, breathing equipmentwas stipulated as mandatory for Putzmeisterafter-sales service employees.

High density solids pumps for land

reclamation

The use of gigantic Putzmeister high densi-ty solids pumps for land reclamation is spec-tacular every time, most of all off theJapanese coast. The pumping stations alsowork while afloat, from pontoons or ships.The machines are designed for outputs of upto 500 m3/h. According to the method forman-made land reclamation, the newNagoya airport was built in the sea, forexample, and started operating in February2005. Currently, in the bay of Tokyo, themajor airport of Haneda is being extendedusing similar Putzmeister pumps.

32 PM 4062 GB

This large high density solids pump is controlled via seat valve and pumps gritty

mine water out of a mine in Lorraine

The 500,000 tons of toxic, sticky creosote solid mixture containing phenol from a

former repository were pumped using Putzmeister pumping technology into a treat-

ment plant

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PM 4062 GB 33

For land reclamation – as here off the Japanese coast – particularly high-capacity Putzmeister high density solids pumps with an

hourly output of 500 m3 are used

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Cutting-edge technology on large

construction sites

In the past five decades, Putzmeister haswritten numerous technical histories. Atalmost regular intervals, their own top per-formances in terms of long-distance concretepumping were surpassed and new worldrecords in high-rise concrete pumping set. Ifwe had been in a position at the end of the60s to pump concrete at a pressure of ap-proximately 30 bar, Putzmeister can certain-ly cope with concrete pressures of over 300bar today! Here is a summary of the de-velopment of high-rise concrete pumping insteps of 100 m.

34 PM 4062 GB

1984In connection with the extension of theDeutsche Bahn (German railways) high-speed route network, in addition to complet-ion of a lot of bridges, the construction ofnumerous railway tunnels was required. Tosafeguard the tunnelling of the partly two-track tunnel sections with correspondingly

large cross section, Putzmeister developedthe so-called “twin shotcrete buffalo” forHochtief and other large construction com-panies, which was used from 1984 onwards.This concrete spraying machine, the largestever built, had a diesel-electric drive, twohighly-moveable working arms and twospray concrete pumps working independ-ently of each other. By designing the ma-chine operator's cabin on the working arm,the nozzle guiders were able to apply theshotcrete from a relatively short distanceand control the spray pattern. The mightycrawler chassis on the “twin buffalo” wasmore reminiscent of a recovery tank, how-ever it gave the large shotcrete manipulatorexactly the manoeuvrability which wasneeded at tunnel sections which were oftensilted up.

Putzmeister milestones in

long-distance concrete pumping

• 1,520 m during the construction of a wastewater tunnel for the Lake Chiem ring sewer system (1989)

• 1,661 m pumping distance while concreting a drinking water tunnel nearBarcelona (1992)

• 2,015 m concrete pumping distance during remediation of a compressed water tunnel near Le Refrain (1997)

• 3,600 m during backfilling of the circulargap at the Schäftlarn drinking water tunnel (1980)

• 11,000 m at the Walsum pit during back-filling of floatation mountains (mixed withfilter ash and suspensions from coal washing: 90–100 m3/h delivery rate at 120 bar pump pressure (1990-2007)

Putzmeister world record in

high-rise concrete pumping

• 310 m at the Frankfurt telecommunications tower (1977)

• 340 m at the Gotthard tunnel (1978)• 432 m at the Estangento-Salente pumped

storage power station (1985)• 526 m at the Riva del Garda pumped

storage power station (1994)• 606 m during construction of the

Burj Dubai (2008)

Putzmeister also already began to writehistory early with top performance for long-distance pumping range.

Twin shotcrete buffalo on a tunnel construction site for a new high speed line of

German railway

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1986Large boom development milestones

For its truck-mounted concrete pumps,Putzmeister already presented booms with46 m and 50 m vertical reach at the start ofthe 80s. The enormous working area of thisboom made the industry sector sit of thetime up and take notice. Due to the restrict-ed licensing options, the machines werebuilt on semi-trailers. During pumping oper-ations, a patented pullock device connectedthe motor vehicle with the semi-trailer, andthe tractor unit served as ballast. A fewyears previously, these large boom truck-mounted concrete pumps would still haveseemed utopian.

Flexible “five-arm boom”

When the first large boom truck-mountedconcrete pump M 52 “five-arm boom” wasdelivered in 1986, Putzmeister had not onlyimproved the net reach and vertical reach,but thanks to the 5-arm technology, made itpossible for truck-mounted concrete pumpsto work a significantly more flexible work-ing area. Nevertheless, at the start we wereonly counting on small unit numbers. In themeantime, this compact large boom headsthe fleet of numerous pumping service pro-viders at home and abroad.

In the same year, Putzmeister presentedfurther pioneering achievement with the M 62-5 (first generation). The machineswere considered to be the cart horse of largeconcrete pump fleets and are still operatingtoday in Saudi Arabia and Spain to the satis-faction of their operators. With this develop-ment, Putzmeister was approx. twenty yearsahead of the competition. Since 2005, thesecond, lighter generation of the 60-metrelarge boom class has been used by discern-ing pumping services in Europe, NorthAmerica and the Middle East. In 2007, oncustomer request, development of a 70-metreboom was started. Putzmeister will supplythe first of these large boom truck-mountedconcrete pumps just in time for the 50-yearanniversary – of which more later.

Concrete placing booms with five sections offer a considerably more flexible working

range. Above a Putzmeister M 52-5, below a M 62-5 (first generation, 1986).


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1988 1989 1990 1993 The Putzmeister-Story

36 PM 4062 GB

1988Pioneer on the Eurotunnel

Putzmeister technology made a significantcontribution to the construction of the 50 km Eurotunnel, described by theAmerican Society of Construction Engineersas one of the seven modern wonders of theworld. Between 1988 and 1994, 15,000 wor-kers ensured that the 15 billion € tunnelproject was pushed forward and completed.Putzmeister know-how played a decisiverole in boring and securing the three tunnelpipes laid on average 40 m under the sea-bed.

Tunnel pipes securely anchored

Putzmeister supplied three ultramodernmortar injection and backfilling systems,with which the excavation void between thelining segment ring and the surroundingrock mass was concreted using special two-component mortar. In order to be able toproduce and inject the exact quantity ofquick-setting mortar mixture on site eachtime, Putzmeister had installed the plant inthe rear carriages of the tunnelling machines.Here the components pumped in from out-side were metered and intensively mixed byfluidised mixers. Putzmeister injectionpumps completely filled the gap around theconcrete lining segment with this material.It was important during this work thatPutzmeister controls automatically adjustedthe injection pressure to the ambient press-ure. Since work continued at the Eurotunnelconstruction sites seven days a week andaround the clock, those responsible alsoexpected a correspondingly high level ofreliability from Putzmeister technology.They were not disappointed.

Illustration of the Eurotunnel with the two main tunnels, the service tunnel and one

of the connecting tunnels

Method of operation of the mortar injection system for backfilling the excavation

void behind liner segments

50 km

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1994Putzmeister pumping station pumps

excavated tunnel material over 1.8 km

During the construction of the Eurotunnel,banner headlines were provided by themighty high-density solids pump facilitywhich Putzmeister had installed on theFrench side below the station for breakingand mixing the excavated tunnel material.The facility consisted, among other things,of eight large-volume high density solidspumps, which together were designed fordelivery rates of 1,200 m3/h. The facilitypumped the coarse-grained chalk pulp withembedded flint over a distance of 1.8 km toa landfill site, where the material hardenedin a relatively short time to form stableground.

Similar models of Putzmeister high densitysolids pumps had been used shortly beforeon the underground in Lille, where compar-able ground conditions prevailed. On pre-vious attempts, it had already been shownthat the flushing that had been originallyplanned using large amounts of water wasnot practical for excavated chalk.

The Putzmeister mortar injection systems were located approximately 50 m behind

the tunnelling machine in the rear carriages

One of a total of eight large Putzmeister excavated material pumps with hydraulic drive unit (on the right in the picture)

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Putzmeister technology for an

emergency

Putzmeister concrete pumps and booms arenot only used for the construction of build-ings, bridges, tunnels, power plants, etc.They are required to stand in time andagain, in order to prevent wider environ-mental damage or even to respond in theface of catastrophes.

It is only mentioned in passing thatPutzmeister has been carrying special ex-tinguishing arms in the range since 1988,which are designed for installation on fireengines. Independently of this, Putzmeistercustomers report time and again on the useof their truck-mounted concrete pumps toextinguish major fires, even if this does notcorrespond to the proper use of the machi-ne. But temptation is great, since the hourlywater throughput of a 160 m3 concrete pumpfacility often exceeds the output of a fire bri-gade water pump.

Natural gas delivery platform saved off

Australia

In 1988, for example, 135 km off theAustralian coast, a stationary Putzmeisterconcrete pump helped save the “NorthRanking A” from sinking into the seabed,which at the time was the largest naturalgas delivery platform in the country. Inseveral complicated steps, a special cooledfine concrete had to be injected into 16 arti-ficially created voids under the support legsof the delivery platform at high pressure.Putzmeister had adapted the concretepumps appropriately to the strict fire pro-tection regulations and supplied variouscomponents made of V4A steel. This hadbeen preceded by years of preliminary workby the emergency rescue team.

1988

38 PM 4062 GB

Putzmeister truck-mounted concrete

pumps as water cannons (Ill. Latz)

Complicated rescue operations at a jeopardised natural gas delivery platform using

Putzmeister technology off the Australian coast

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Booms with spray nozzles combat oil

pollution in Alaska

When the supertanker Exxon Valdez ranaground off Alaska in March 1989 and40,000 tons of crude oil leaked out, imme-diate assistance was requested. In a cloakand dagger operation, Chemtrack, a companyspecialised in environmental protectionmeasures, therefore hired 14 Putzmeistertruck-mounted concrete pumps, disconnect-ed the booms from the truck chassis andassembled the booms on floating rafts. TheChemtrack employees then connected theboom tip using hydraulically slewable car-riers, to which eight nozzles each wereattached. The equipment on the “oil pollut-ion fire brigade” included boilers combinedwith oil burners. There was never a lack ofcombustible material for heating up thesteam jet water, since in the meantime theoil slicks all around the rafts had expand-ed… These floating booms were used mainlyin coastal sections that were difficult toaccess.

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PM 4062 GB 39

Putzmeister high-pressure cleaners

remove heavy oil from Spanish coast

When the tanker Prestige sank off theSpanish coast in November 2002 and77,000 tons of heavy oil threatened to con-taminate the beaches of Galicia, it was againpossible to avoid the worst by usingPutzmeister technology. This time, employ-ees of the Spanish Putzmeister subsidiaryalso participated in the clearing up andcleaning operations. Dyanjet high-pressurecleaners, which had been added to the rangea year before, were used for the task.

Concrete pumps eliminate oily sludges

As a consequence of the Gulf War of1990/91, the devastating damage started tobe confined relatively quickly, which arosedue to the destruction of the Kuwaiti oilloading station. Above all, a seawater de-salination plant on the island of Abu Ali wasthreatened. The Saudi Arabian airforcetherefore flew five stationary Putzmeister

concrete pumps to the region, in order topump the oily sludge on the coast, includingsand, flotsam and stones, through pipelinesinto containers. The people in charge on thePortuguese Atlantic island of Porto Santoalso proceeded in the same way, when oilysludge on the coast was pumped by aPutzmeister concrete pump into a pontoonholding 20,000 tons during a five-weekoperation.

Booms with spray nozzles

Oil sludge, sand, stones and flotsam were pumped by these concrete pumps, before

the mud reached a seawater desalination plant

Using Dynajet high-pressure cleaners

off the Spanish coast, the heavy oil

from a sunken tanker was removed

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The most dramatic catastrophe which sticksin the memory, during which Putzmeistermachines and Putzmeister know-how pre-vented the worst, is the atomic reactor acci-dent at Chernobyl (April 1986). “Chernobyl”is still today a synonym for the fact thattechnology is not always controllable andcatastrophes know no borders betweencountries. Many of the helpers at the sourceof the incident paid for the containment ofthe atomic radiation at the reactor with theirlife. There would have been many more vic-tims, had ten of the largest available truck-mounted concrete pumps at the time, equip-ped with special radiation protection andpartly video-monitored and remote-controll-ed from a distance of a hundred metres, notpumped enormous amounts of concrete intothe reactor building and later into the pro-tective shell of the sarcophagus.


40 PM 4062 GB

Through the dumping of approximately5,000 t of sand, clay and lead from helicop-ters in the first weeks after the disaster, theheat escaping from the reactor block is suc-cessfully contained and the dangerousradiation absorbed. The graphite fire isfinally extinguished and the escape of radio-active materials slowed by feeding in nitro-gen.

In the early summer of 1986, the depart-ment responsible in the Soviet foreign tradeministry and Putzmeister sign a contract forthe delivery of ten M 52-5 truck-mountedconcrete pumps with 5-arm large booms,the truck-mounted concrete pumps with thelongest reach available at the time, with“special equipment”. The extras include twoadjustable video cameras per machine,mounted on the rear left-hand supportingleg and on the tip of the boom. These areintended for observing the filling of the hop-per and the actual concreting work from adistance. Moreover, it has to be guaranteedthat the truck-mounted concrete pumps caneven be operated from a distance of up to800 m via remote control and by cable radiocontrol. Also, control and observation of themachines should also be possible from thecab - a monitor is fitted in place of the pas-senger's seat. Incidentally, the Soviet sidewould have liked to order the new M 62long-reach boom pumps. However, thesemachines were still in development at thetime and not due to be delivered untilAutumn 1986.

Special equipment to protect against

radiation

The special equipment on four of the ma-chines also includes a lead hood (weightapproximately 4 t) to protect the cab fromradiation. When the lead casing is attached,the driver can only get into the cab via ahatch specially cut into the roof. Four small,slitted windows provide front and side visi-bility. Here too, radiation protection is pro-vided by lead glazing; the sensitive videocamera optics are similarly protected. Thefirst two machines leave the Putzmeisterworks at the end of June. One factor in theprompt delivery is the readiness of several

customers to make available machineswhich were really intended for themselvesand the 5-axle chassis they had ordered.There are also many Putzmeister employees,however, who work late into the night, areavailable at weekends and postpone theirplanned annual holidays. The last of thisorder's large boom concrete pumps arefinally handed over in September 1986.Three stationary high pressure concretepumps are also delivered. These have thetask – as was learned later – both of loadingseveral of the truck-mounted concretepumps via pipelines from a distance, and ofdelivering concrete through a 600 m longdelivery line for a tunnel under the reactorbuilding. This tunnel is reason for the manu-facture of a 2.5 m thick protection plateunder the reactor block.

Everything kept secret

An anecdote on the side: the Putzmeistersales representative responsible for EasternEurope felt the effects of how sensitively theSoviet side reacted on the subject of “com-bating damage to the Chernobyl reactor”.Despite meetings arranged a long time inadvance, in the early summer of 1986 hewas not received in Moscow by his Sovietcontact. Appointments rearranged for thedays that followed were repeatedly cancel-led, so that the Putzmeister employee final-ly abandoned his visit to Moscow. Duringthe Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, he leafedthrough the current edition of the Germanmagazine "Der Spiegel". And then it becameclear to him why he had been put off severaltimes by his Soviet counterpart: in a detailedarticle, the Hamburg news magazine report-ed on the radiation protection equipment onthe Putzmeister concrete pumps, two ofwhich had just crossed the border between

Nuclear disaster required rapid actionOn 26 April 1986, early in the morning at about 1 o'clock, reactor block IV at the Soviet Chernobyl nuclear power plant goes out

of control during a routine exercise by the operating crew. As a result of a chain reaction, there is a massive explosion, which blows

the cover off the 1,000-ton reactor core and destroys it. The explosion and subsequent fire release large quantities of radioactive

material. Those responsible did not have much time to work out the details of complex, subsequent safeguards. Instead, it was a

matter of acting quickly to contain the consequences of the catastrophe – the contamination of enormous areas of land.

Putzmeister concrete pumps also played a part in this.

For their work in Chernobyl, truck-mounted concrete pumps were equipped with

protective lead covers and remote-controlled video cameras for the first time

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Large boom truck-mounted concrete pumps filling the steel moulds arranged in the pyramid shape of the protective wall

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West and East Germany heading east.According to the article, the heavy leadcovers had been transported on a separateflat bed truck. The destination of the freightwas presumed to be Chernobyl…

The restrictive information policy of theSoviet authorities meant that during operat-ions at the Chernobyl reactor, where theaccident occurred, it was prohibited to makedetails of the operations public. Meanwhile,it came to be known that the first concretingoperations were carried out initially usingpumps which were available locally at shortnotice. With the Putzmeister concretepumps came approximately twenty machineoperators via Moscow to Chernobyl, many ofwhom already had experience of operatingPutzmeister truck-mounted concrete pumps.They trained a further 80 drivers on how tooperate the machines. Most of them havedied.

According to information from a manager inthe department responsible at the time atthe Minergo Ministry, the first Putzmeistertruck-mounted concrete pumps delivered toChernobyl pumped 80,000 m3 of concrete inonly three months – and without a singlefault. A total of about 400,000 m3 was re-quired to encase the remains of the reactor.

Machine operator Baschir is thankful

Twenty years later, Putzmeister received ane-mail from Haertdinov Baschir, one of thesurviving machine operators from Chernobyl.Here is what he said:

“Greetings !!!My name is Haertdinov Baschir, and I tookpart in cleaning up the damage at theChernobyl nuclear power station. I decidedto write this letter of thanks on the occasionof the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl

disaster. I worked as a driver on one of yourtruck-mounted concrete pumps and deliver-ed concrete into the reactor block 4 area ofthe nuclear power station where the disasteroccurred. It is thanks to your “Putzmeister”technology, that we were able to clean upthis dangerous accident. Your concretepumps worked non-stop around the clock.They were only switched off to check the oillevel in the engine. As confirmation of mywords, I am sending you the photos. Onceagain a big thank you for your technology!!!”

In the meantime, the concrete shell hasperished, steel girders are rusting, wallsthreaten to collapse and rainwater seepsthrough cracks into the interior. Today thereare still 120 workers there on a daily basis(another source speaks of “hundreds”), try-ing to stabilise the building as far as possib-le. There are plans for the construction of a“safe shell”. These provide for a gigantic,100 m tall arched construction, whichstretches over 250 m wide. Due to the highlevel of radiation still present around thesarcophagus, plans are for the arch to beconstructed some distance away and towedin sections on Teflon rails over the reactorwhere the accident occurred.

The Putzmeister large boom pumps were either fed from several hundred metres away by stationary concrete pumps or –

as here – directly from truck mixers

94

Machine operator Haertdinov Buchir

in front of his M 52-5 (Ill. Buchir)

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1989 1990 1991 19921989Wibau becomes

a modern Putzmeister machining centre

In February 1989, a message took the con-struction machine sector by surprise: Putzmeister takes over Wibau.

The tradition-steeped company fromGründau-Rothenbergen near Frankfurt hadan excellent reputation since the 1950s as amanufacturer of asphalt mixing plants.From 1965 onwards, the founder of Wibau,Karl Matthias, started manufacturing truckmixers and concrete pumps under licencefrom the American manufacturer Challenge-Cook. These concrete pumps operatedaccording to the so-called “squeeze pump”principle and were sold very successfully asrotor pumps in Germany too. Since the rotorpump system soon reached its technicallimits, Wibau first worked together withpiston pump manufacturer Scheele in orderto supply, later along with the knee valve, itsown piston pump system independent ofpartners. From 1980, Wibau belonged (inaddition to companies such as Hanomag,Hamm, Lanz, Zettelmayer, etc.) to IBHHolding AG which, as parent company, filedfor bankruptcy in 1983. In the course of the

collapse of IBH, Wibau was in the hands ofthe receiver until the start of 1989. Despitethe tense situation, not only were remain-ders and new machines were sold by Wibauin the course of this, but the technology wasalso further developed – both for asphaltmixing plants and on the concrete pumpsfront. From 1986, the Wibau truck mixerconcrete pumps with rotor system became aserious competitor for the PutzmeisterPUMI®.

No luck in the asphalt business

Initially, Karl Schlecht tried to integrate andcontinue both business sectors. This wasachieved relatively smoothly for concretepumps. Thus, the Putzmeister rotor PUMI®

grew out of the former Wibau Ro-Mix truckmixer concrete pump. It occupies a firmplace in the ready-mixed concrete industryand achieves respectable sales figures downto the present day. The opportunities at thestart seemed not to be too bad for the asphaltmixing technology because Putzmeister hadalready had dealings with the black materialfor road paving and built road millingmachines, for example. Karl Schlechtremembers:

The Wibau truck mixer concrete pumps

with rotor were in competition with the

Putzmeister PUMI® with piston pump in

the second half of the 1980s

Karl Schlecht at the address of the official receiver in front of Wibau employees (centre of picture). The takeover by Putzmeister

is announced (1989).

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1989 1992

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takeover a few years previously of theAmerican company Thomsen, NEVER againto take over an ailing company.”

Capacities enlarged

However, the 1989 takeover of Wibau alsotook place more or less for reasons to do withcapacity. As a pleasant side effect, KarlSchlecht also had two fewer competitors now,Wibau and Scheele. The official receiver forWibau had in fact also handled the bank-ruptcy of the concrete pump manufacturerScheele and transferred the Scheele engi-

neering documents and stock to Wibau in1987. In addition, there were a lot of compo-nents and all the drawings from the two com-petitors, who were thereby out of the market.

A group of technicians and fitters, who hadbuilt concrete pumps and placing booms atWibau, now took over the manufacture ofthe PUMI® with rotor pump. The team soonalso started on construction of Putzmeisterplacing booms for truck-mounted concretepumps. Some of the partly empty Wibaufactories in Gründau-Rothenbergen wererented.

“The diversification begun and then abandon-ed in the 1970s with road milling machines,which we had built for the road constructioncompany Schöllkopf, did not go any furtherbecause we did not have any applicationexperience of our own and we also had a loton our minds with our concrete and mortarpumps.

The asphalt plant business at Wibau wascompletely different, but we had no idea atall about asphalt mixing plants or handlingasphalt. The best people from Wibau asphalttechnology had already left at the time ofour takeover and vital drawings and technic-al know-how were taken away by groups offormer employees, who competed against usin newly formed companies. In addition,there was the fact that Wibau's reputationfollowing the IBH bankruptcy was ruined, ofcourse, and we were only able, therefore, tosell plants at a reasonable price. Somemixing plants found customers, however,due to the good name of Putzmeister, thenew owner. But ultimately we only lostmoney on these. This is why I sold theWibau asphalt plant business – without theland - to the company Astec in the USA at afinancial loss. In any case, the dream ofdiversification with road constructionmachines could not be realised. The sectorwas too alien to us and we were too involvedwith mortar and concrete pumps. However, Ilearned a lesson from this, and from the

Above: at the Putzmeister works in Gründau (formerly Wibau) ultramodern welding

robots produce the placing booms for the Putzmeister Group (Ill. Werner).

Below, an aerial photograph of the extensive area where the Putzmeister branch in

Gründau is located.

Karl Schlecht initially tried to

integrate Wibau asphalt technology

at Putzmeister too

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1995

PM 4062 45

Putzmeister's commitment

to East Germany

In 1989 at Putzmeister, as in the previousyears, the order books are full, production isbooming and qualified personnel areurgently sought. When the first refugeescome to the Stuttgart area from the GDR viaHungary, some welders, machinists, motormechanics and electricians find a newemployer in Putzmeister. The company alsohelps out with house-hunting and negotiateswith the authorities regarding applicationsfor planning permission for provisionalaccommodation suitable for families onnearby company sites. At the beginning of1990, Putzmeister agrees a collaborationwith VEB Baumechanisierung Halle, which– in addition to other machines – also manu-factures concrete pumps and placing boomsand sells predominantly to Eastern Europe.

Following German reunification, KarlSchlecht reacts immediately. He does nottake over VEB Baumechanisierung Halle,because there is no prospect of making thecompany competitive. Moreover, due to thepolitical changes in Eastern Europe, the tra-ditional export market of this Halle-basedconcrete pump manufacturer is increasinglybreaking away. Instead, in East Germany atightly-knit sales and service network isbuilt up. Commensurate with thePutzmeister principle of demonstratingexpertise locally through a network of sup-port points, the Berlin branch was initiallysupported by a further site near Halle,which moved to Gera in 1997.

A new beginning in Gründau

In 1992, in the former Wibau productionfacility, a new era began. PutzmeisterMaschinenbau GmbH (the Putzmeister steelconstruction works in Althengstett, see page20) opened up a branch on the Wibau siteand took on the former employees from theWibau concrete pump and steel construct-ion department. Shortly afterwards andafter the closure of the former works agencySchoop (Rüsselsheim), sales and servicesubsidiary 3 (now the Gründau subsidiary)was also set up at this site.

Following the merger (1992) of the twoPutzmeister works Althengstett andGründau into “PUMAK” (PutzmeisterMaschinenbau KG), the strategic realign-ment of the works structure occurred in1995: for Putzmeister truck-mounted con-crete pumps, the Althengstett productionsite now supplied all the base structures andthe Gründau works all the arm assemblies.

In 2000, the Putzmeister subsidiaryPUMAK was integrated into PutzmeisterAG. Over the following years, Putzmeisterconsistently modernised both works withtargeted investments and expanded theminto extremely efficient machining centres.The welding work is taken on by robotsworking with great precision, however, atpoints relevant to safety or which are diffi-cult to access, the ability of qualified weld-ing specialists is still required.

Refugees from the GDR introducing

themselves at Putzmeister

The Putzmeister works in Althengstett is equipped with the most technically sophis-

ticated machining centres available on the international market. Here, the large

steel construction parts such as boom pedestals and base structures with support

are manufactured with the highest levels of precision for the Putzmeister group.

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46 PM 4062 GB

1992Active and capable abroad too

In parallel to the expansion of his own orga-nisation, since the 60s, the Putzmeisterfounder had been investing in cooperationsand licence agreements with capable part-ners in emerging countries. So good con-nections with China, Japan, Cuba, SouthKorea, India, the Czech Republic, Russia andTurkey were already in place at an earlystage. Depending on the agreement,Putzmeister supplied either individualassemblies or subassembled machinemodels, in any case, though, the actual corepumps and the hydraulic system compo-nents.

KS: “In order to win the trust of customersin far-off countries, I already had theimpression early on that we needed to bepresent with our own assembly plant andincreasingly local part production on site.However, we were seldom fortunate withlicence agreements. For example, as early as1962 I had concluded the first licence agree-ment with the Japanese companyShinMaywa. Due to the completely differentmortar composition and plastering techni-ques, our machines were not successful inJapan, however, compared to the very simp-le rotor pumps which were the standardthere. At the end of the 90s, ShinMaymathen discontinued production of our mortarpumps …”

At the end of the 80s, Putzmeister inShenyang, in Northern China, concluded alicence agreement with a constructionmachine company for the local assembly ofstationary concrete pumps.

KS: “Due to considerable problems in ourcollaboration with this state-run companyand with our dealers, who were still workingfrom Hong Kong at the time, this projectwas also not successful. After the decisionwas made at the start of the 90s to build ourown works in Shanghai, we no longer con-tinued this collaboration.”

● PM subsidiaries

● PM represantative office

● PM holding companies

New subsidiaries since the beginning of the 90s:

Additionally about 300 dealers world-

wide support the sales and service of

Putzmeister products

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Putzmeister Japan (1992) Putzmeister Shanghai (1996)



PM 4062 GB 47PM 4062 47

1997A licence agreement was also signed in the1980s in Korea, with Daewoo Motors.

KS “In Korea it was not possible at the timeto set up our own company, and importswere very restricted. While Putzmeister wasstill able to win considerable market sharethere, our licensing partner – due to its sizeand variety of products – neglected to sup-port the concrete pump customers and thesupply of spare parts. The company JunJin,which was involved in the manufacture ofsome of our spare parts and in assemblingour units, later became a competitor!”

At the end of the 1970s, Putzmeister con-cluded an agreement with its Turkish agentTatmak (Istanbul) to manufacture compon-

ents and for assembly of certain types ofconcrete pump on a licence basis. Over theyears, this became an important manu-facturing plant with an annual production ofover 200 concrete pumps. KS: “In order tostrengthen the partnership and help Tatmakget through the economically difficult years,in 1999 we took a financial interest in thecompany and further extended our commit-ment later. Finally, in 2007, Putzmeistertook over the remaining shares in the com-pany from the shareholders and, at the sametime, set up its own Putzmeister works inCerkezköy. This Putzmeister works inTurkey (PTR) had since begun to supplyPutzmeister customers in Turkey and insome export markets.”

The Putzmeister works founded in Brazil in1972, initially only in the form of a financialinterest, was finally closed in 2001 aftermany loss-making years. Afterwards salesacquired a local agent.

In South Africa too, the founding of thePutzmeister subsidiary (PMSA) goes back to1972. Despite many difficult years,Putzmeister held onto its site on the Africancontinent. Since 1990 PMSA, incorporatingSales, assembly hall, After Sales departmentand replacement parts store, has been locat-ed in its own new buildings. Due to theimproved economic situation in SouthAfrica, PMSA has registered a significantupswing since 2000.

The subsidiaries founded in the 1970s (Italy,France, Spain, Great Britain, USA, Braziland South Africa) were joined in the 1990sby several new foreign subsidiaries. Theseincluded Japan in 1992, China in 1996 andSouth Korea in 1997. In addition, severalliaison offices in important markets sup-ported the sales activities of the Putzmeisterdealers, such as the Representative Officesin Moscow (established in 1993), Singapore(founded in 1996) and in the United ArabEmirates (opened in 2004). Thanks to thesevarious measures, Karl Schlecht succeededin serving important markets worldwide toan ever-increasing standard.

(April 2008)

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Putzmeister Korea (1997)



1994

48 PM 4062 GB

Putzmeister's commitment to the USA

and the company's history

From 1994 onwards, Karl Schlecht relocatedthe activities of the American Putzmeistersubsidiary from the Gardena site(California) to Sturtevant (Wisconsin). Dueto the shrewd model policy and tumultuousgrowth, production and management atPutzmeister America had to be expandedseveral times from the middle of the 1990sonwards.

KS in retrospect: “In the USA and Canada,American Pecco initially took over distribut-ion of Putzmeister concrete pumps in 1972.The company marketed Peine concrete cranesin North America and had a countrywidedistribution and service organisation.Putzmeister plaster machines had littlemarket opportunity over there at that timedue to the widespread precast part con-struction method. Other materials, such asgypsum and fire protection mortar, wereapplied with machines from the local manu-facturer, Thomsen.” This company will bediscussed later.

At the end of the 1970s, American Peccobegan manufacturing Putzmeister concretepumps with trunk system under licence,initially near New York City, later inHouston (Texas). Karl Schlecht's stated aim,however, was to have a presence with aPutzmeister works in North America, inorder to supply the agent locally and to holdon to specialist knowledge. When theThomsen company, manufacturer not only ofmortar but also concrete pumps, filed forChapter 11 bankruptcy in 1982 and wastherefore involved in composition proceed-ings, Putzmeister assumed financial respon-sibilities and took over the production facili-ties of its former valued competitor inGardena on the west coast of America. Inplace of the flapper system, the Putzmeister-Thomsen machines (the name and its longtradition are kept initially) were equippedwith the Putzmeister S transfer tube. Thisallowed KS to avoid breaches of contractwith the Putzmeister dealer and licenceeAmerican Pecco. The collaboration withPecco ended in 1987, after the company hadbeen sold to investors.

Orientation principles

All these successes and the readiness to bethere for customers in all circumstanceswere no accident. Karl Schlecht formulated avalues catalogue for himself, his companyand Putzmeister employees, in which heacknowledges customer satisfaction as thehighest priority and which puts cooperationwith suppliers on a fair footing, but alsodemands responsible behaviour at a highlevel in his own company. The core state-ments are to be: ■ qualitative ■ innovative ■ flexible ■ competent ■ hard working ■ cost and value-conscious

With these business principles and thestrong will to set an example with andimplement these principles in his own com-pany, Karl Schlecht was certainly manysteps ahead of other companies in the1990s.

Putzmeister America in Sturtevant (Racine), US State of Wisconsin (2007)

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1997

PM 4062 GB 49

Repair work on ships

Two of these large mobile robots clean a Jumbo in two hours

The results did not come to nothing. KarlSchlecht: “We had – and have – very capab-le engineers. After it became apparent thatthe placing booms on our concrete pumpscould be controlled precisely, we wanted tofit the boom tip with all sorts of equipment.”In 1986, Putzmeister started on develop-ment work for the electronic boom controlwith partners from industry and research,in order to simplify handling of the, by now,5-arm large boom. The prerequisites forthese robotics were highly-developed con-trol systems, sensors, angle and positionmeasuring systems, computers and tailor-made software, which Putzmeister alonecould not manage. As a result, in 1988, thehighly flexible handling system requestedby industrial customers with 5-elementworking arm was presented. At the suggest-ion of and with the encouragement of theGerman airline Lufthansa, this system wasfurther developed into the “Skywash” by1997. “These large mobile robots were thenfinally real 'master cleaners' ('Putz-Meister'in German), used for cleaning aircraft”,according to Karl Schlecht. The know-howacquired during the computer development

for the Skywash was to supply importantprinciples for the development of the elec-tronic control system for multi-arm placingbooms with only one joystick, which hadlong been requested. Although the Skywashdid not become a commercial success, itmade Putzmeister into the leading providerof electronic boom controls to this day. “So”,says Karl Schlecht, “the big investments inthis technology were worthwhile!”

At least by the time the Skywash system wasdeveloped, it became clear at Putzmeisterhow tightly interwoven mechanics, hydraul-ics and electronics are. For the interaction ofthese technologies which were each differ-ent in themselves, the Putzmeister founder

developed the higher level concept“Mechydronics”. Today it constitutes thecore of the company's technical expertise. Inorder to safeguard its technical lead,Putzmeister has offered training in mechy-dronics for years and works closely togetherwith research institutes.

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The objective since 1970 had been to im-prove the reliability of the boom controlsand to simplify operation. Many steps ledfinally – thanks also to the pioneering workon the Skywash – to the infinitely adjustableErgonic Boom Control radio remote controlwith joystick operation. Putzmeister intro-duced the advanced “Follow-Me” function ofthe Ergonic Boom Control in 2004.

Where the machine operator at the end ofthe 1960s still had to lift, slew, fold out andbring the placing boom into position manu-ally at the hydraulic valves, in the 1970s thefirst remote controls already existed. Onthese, the actual control device was still con-nected via cable with the boom hydrauliccontrol block. As long as the working rangeof the concrete placing boom was stillmanageable, rolling out and rolling up thecontrol cable was reasonable. However, oncefloors 20 m high were reached, a cable prov-ed to be impractical as it could easily causethe machine operator to become caught onthe scaffolding. The radio remote control,which Putzmeister introduced into the rangefrom 1981, promised to simplify matters.

However, these devices too only worked in“black and white” mode at first, i.e. for eachcontrol lever movement, a pulse – “On” or“Off” – was sent to the boom hydraulics with

50 PM 4062 GB

Putzmeister remote controls are writing historyThe tumultuous development of the Putzmeister concrete placing booms was ac-

companied by that of the associated remote control. It became increasingly more

comfortable and soon included additional functions.

Unrivalled: the left-hand illustrationshows a replica of a “black-and-white”cable remote control for a M-31-3 over-head roll-and-fold boom as it came backto Putzmeister from a demonstrationtour of the Soviet Union in 1987. Sincethe original control had somehow gotlost, clever machine operators locallyhad made this fully functional replicaout of a metal casing, bakelite mountingplate and toggle switches. The right-hand illustration shows a B&W cableremote control for Wibau truck-mountedconcrete pumps with three boom armsfrom the 1980s. The Wibau controlsystem for 4-arm booms had an addit-ional control lever.

no intermediate position. Experiencedmachine operators were required in order toachieve as even a movement of the indi-vidual arms as possible using this “blackand white” control system and to preventthe whole boom bouncing. Moving the boomby continuously pressing the control lever(“flipping”) was not to everybody's taste inany case.

When Putzmeister introduced its first radioproportional control in 1985, this signified aquantum leap, since the movement speed ofthe arms and the boom could now be adjust-ed proportionally according to the controllever movement.

A more advanced radio proportional control,which had a very attractive design as well,was then introduced by Putzmeister in1998. Where the previous remote controlswere housed in boxes similar to shoe boxes,Putzmeister had adapted the housing of thenew Ergonic models ideally to the machineoperator's daily work. The control systemwas not only more comfortable to carry, itsinnovative design enabled operation of 5-armconcrete placing booms using only one joy-stick. Since BAUMA 2007, Putzmeistertruck-mounted concrete pumps have includ-ed an interactive graphics display as stand-ard equipment.

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PM 4062 GB 51

This B&W cable remote control was suppliedfor placing booms with three arms until1982.

The first Putzmeister radio remote controlfrom 1981 already used digital technologyand encoded frequencies.

B&W cable remote control for 3-arm placingbooms, which Putzmeister offered between1982 and 1992.

B&W radio remote control for concrete pumpswith 4-arm placing boom (1985 –1998).

Putzmeister proportional radio remote con-trol in the Ergonic Boom Control versionwith selector switch for five positions.

Putzmeister equipped its truck-mountedconcrete pumps with five-arm booms withthis proportional radio remote control in themodern Ergonic housing between 1998 and2001.

Proportional Putzmeister radio remote control from the middle of the 1980s, protected by acirculating strip, on the left for 3-arm and on the right for 4-arm placing booms.

Proportional radio remote control for three (on the left) and four (on the right) placing boomarms, as carried in the Putzmeister range from approx. 1989 until 1998. The control systemshad two or three joystick and (later) radio channel selector switches for four frequencies.

Any more? This radio proportional controlwith interactive graphics display, availablesince BAUMA 2007, is included inPutzmeister truck-mounted concrete pumpstandard equipment.

With “Follow Me”, the boom tip automatical-ly follows the manually guided end hose

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000 2001 2002 203 200

52 PM 4062 GB

2001 2003Into the 21st century with enthusiasm

The period following the turn of the centurywas marked at Putzmeister by far-reachingtechnical developments and decisions interms of distribution policy. These include

■ Diversification of the product range■ Expansion of manufacturing on a global

scale■ Cooperation with strategic partners■ Multibrand marketing for mortar pumps

through investing majority shares incompetitors

■ Structuring into different technical mar-ket fields under the management hold-ing of the KS foundations

Control technology revolutionised

From 2001 onwards, Putzmeister set a clearcourse with the mechydronics-basedErgonic Boom Control (EBC). This computer-aided system enables multi-arm concreteplacing booms to be guided in all directions,comfortably and precisely, using only onejoystick to offer continuous, analogue remo-te control. The simplified operation andreduction in vertical end hose swing enablesthe placing output to be increased. More-over, on the EBC system there is the possi-bility of limiting the working area, e.g. inorder not to knock into building walls or collide with walls in conditions where spaceis restricted.

In 2004, with the EPS (Ergonic PumpSystem), Putzmeister presented anothermechydronic device. In contrast to convent-ional hydraulic control systems, EPS con-trols the concrete pump drive hydraulicsfully electronically. The pumping process isoptimised due to the simplified controlhydraulics. This means smoother switchover of the transfer tube, reduced wear,lower fuel consumption and also improvedefficiency due to the reduced number ofhydraulic components.

Further optimisation of concrete

placing booms

In parallel to the boom and pump controlsystems, Putzmeister also expands its placingboom range consistently. The focus of de-velopment are compact four-arm boomssuch as the M 20-4 (2005) and M 28-4(2004), and the completely redesigned M 42-5 (2005) and M 46/47-5 (2003), aswell as the particularly compact, 5-arm M 58-5 (2007). The large boom truck-mount-ed concrete pumps in the 60-metre classeswith up to six boom arms attracted a greatdeal of international attention. These wereoffered by Putzmeister from 2004 in differ-ent variants as the M 61-4, M 62-6 and M 63-5, depending on market conditions.

Better working due to vibration dampening

Without EBC With EBC

Complete redesign: the compact

M 58-5 long-reach boom pump

With 5 or 6-arm technology, large boom truck-mounted

significantly more flexible –here is a modern M 42-5 ...

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PM 4062 GB 53

2005Proper 'Putz-Meister' master cleaners –

high-pressure cleaners for professionals

In 2001 Putzmeister began the manufactureand distribution of high-pressure cleaners.In addition to the connotation of “expertplastering”, this gave the company name afurther link to its products. The diversifiedDynajet product line consists of cold and hotwater devices and appeals to professionalmachine operators in a very varied rangesectors. The most powerful Dynajet operatesat pressures of up to 2,800 bar. Within thePutzmeister Group, the “Water technology”division is located organisationally underPutzmeister Mörtelmaschinen GmbH.

truck-mounted concrete pumps are becoming

dern M 42-5 ....

... as well as a M 62-6, which still has

horizontal reach even at great height

The M 20-4 introduced in 2005 is favoured on cramped construction sites with

difficult access

Dynajet high-pressure cleaner UHP 170

during coating removal at 2,800 bar

Formwork cleaning with Dynajet

at 350 bar

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2002 2003 2004 2005 2

54 PM 4062 GB

2003 2006Alliances, shareholdings and

takeovers

In 2003, a global collaboration began betweenSika AG (Switzerland) and Putzmeister AG.Within the framework of the new alliance,the know-how of both companies is combin-ed. Through the involvement of Sika – amanufacturer with a great deal of experi-ence of chemicals and concrete additives,among other things – Putzmeister Ibéricatook over development and production ofconcrete wet spraying machines. In accord-ance with the Putzmeister strategy for largesubsidiaries, Putzmeister Ibérica obtainedthe important opportunity to generate 30 %of its turnover in export sales.

At almost the same time (2003),Putzmeister AG took a share in the com-panies Brinkmann, manufacturer of floorscreed conveyors and Lancy, the Frenchsupplier of pumps for mortar and for selfnivelling floor screed, pneumatic floorscreed conveyors and concrete wet and dryspraying machines. In 2006 PutzmeisterMörtelmaschinen GmbH acquired the com-pany Strobl, which specialised in coatingtechnology. Its paint pumps, roller devicesand pressure sprayers rounded offPutzmeister's range for the painting andinterior decoration sector.

In 2006, the Esser works founding familysold the shares in their company toPutzmeister Holding. Since 1949, the Esserworks have specialised in the constructionof particularly wear-resistant delivery pipesfor mining and the mineral industry. In theconcrete pump sector, Esser is international-ly considered as a leading company withhighly wear-resistant dual-bearing pipes(“Twin Pipes”) developed in-house. TheEsser delivery pipes will also be used morein future for pneumatic stowing in mining,for gravel, sand and oil sand extraction, incoal-fired power stations and glassworksand in many other sectors. Organisationallyand in its market presence, Esser will sup-ply, also PM competitors, via their own salesnetwork worldwide completely separatelyfrom Putzmeister.

Compact concrete wet spraying machine from the Sika-Putzmeister alliance for

tunnels and galleries with a small cross section

The Strobl coating technology is now

also included in the Putzmeister range

Putzmeister Lancy subsidiary

Putzmeister has had a participating

interest in Brinkmann since 2003

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PM 4062 GB 55

2007

Esser as well as Brinkmann, Lancy andStrobl continue as independent companieswithin the Putzmeister Group, which isunder the ownership of the not-for-profitKSG foundation. Corresponding to the re-quirements of the global markets, they willcover differing customer requirements inthe sense of multibrand marketing and arealso in competition with Putzmeister com-panies' products.

In 2007 Allentown, a US manufacturer witha 100-year tradition from the town of thesame name in the state of Pennsylvania, wastaken over by Putzmeister America.Allentown has an outstanding reputation onthe American continent as a provider of con-crete wet and dry spraying machines, aswell as pumps for fireproof mortar. Thebackground to the takeover is the greaterflexibility and specialisation of Allentown,via whose sales network the mortar pumpsand so-called “small line concrete pumps”are marketed by Putzmeister America.Added to this is the sale of wetcrete concretewet spraying machines by PutzmeisterIbérica for the North American tunnellingand mining sectors and for concrete spatter-ing (“guniting”), which is widely used in theUSA. Allentown also has an excellent repu-tation in the steel industry with the so-cal-led “tundish”. This involves a process forcoating blast furnace discharge channelwith fireproof mortar – applications andsectors in which Putzmeister America andPutzmeister Ibérica would like to growstronger in future.

Putzmeister activities in India are beingfurther developed according to a strategyalready tried and tested at other locations.

The beginnings of Putzmeister's commit-ment on the subcontinent go back thirtyyears already. Against the backdrop of theIndian concrete sector, which is seeing tre-mendous growth and is protected by tariffbarriers, the licensing and shareholding col-laboration, which had existed since 1995,was carried over into a Putzmeister ownwork in Goa, designed for growth.Stationary concrete pumps in the BSA 1400product line and truck-mounted concretepumps with M 36 boom have already beenmanufactured on-site since October 2007. Inparallel to this, there is expansion of a dis-tribution structure on the subcontinentcovering the whole area, which now compri-ses eight sales and service branches. After atransition period, the Indian Putzmeistersubsidiary is trading under the name ofPutzmeister Concrete Machines Pvt. Ltd.,and headquartered in Goa.

In 2004 in Russia, the newly founded subsi-diary “OOO Putzmeister-Rus” succeeded thePutzmeister liaison office, which had beenactive from Moscow since 1993

In Turkey Putzmeister has had a participat-ing interest in cooperation partner Tatmakfor many years. Under licence fromPutzmeister, Tatmak manufactured largequantities of both stationary concretepumps and truck-mounted concrete pumps.Since October 2007, concrete pump assemb-ly and increasing local production has takenplace in the modern, newly constructedCerkeskoy works belonging to thePutzmeister Turkey subsidiary, establishedin 2007, approximately 80 km north-west ofIstanbul (see page 47).

Hardening of the dual-bearing pipes is complex and time-consuming. Above, a

cutaway view of a dual-bearing Esser delivery pipe.

"Guniting" is widespread in the USA

The new Putzmeister works in India

The liaison office in Moscow became the

"Putzmeister Russia" subsidiary in 2004

The newly constructed Putzmeister works

in Turkey

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PM 4062

56 PM 4062 GB

Holding structure for the Putzmeister organisation

In the Spring of 2007 the PutzmeisterGroup adopted the new Putzmeister com-pany structure PMO 2008, now trading sole-ly under the KS foundations as a GmbH. Itaims to create smaller, flexible and moregrowth-oriented business units with inde-pendent entrepreneurial management. Sizemust not become a disadvantage. Numerouscontributory measures have since beenimplemented according to plan.

The new structure now breaks downPutzmeister activities by function into so-called Market Technology Fields (MTF):

n Putzmeister Concrete Technology “PCT”.The legal controlling company for thislargest MTF is Putzmeister ConcretePumps GmbH, which since 2008 hascontinued the concrete pump businessof the former Putzmeister AG after thereorganisation.

n Putzmeister Mortar Technology “PMT”.Represented by the 100 % shareholdingsin Putzmeister Mörtelmaschinen GmbH(PMM) and Lancy as well as the share-holding in Brinkmann GmbH & Co KG,consolidated in the controlling companyPutzmeister Mortar Technology GmbH“PMT”.

n Putzmeister Industrial Technology "PIT"with “Putzmeister Solid Pumps GmbH”(formerly PAT), newly established in2008.

n Putzmeister Pipe Technology “PPT” withEsser Werke GmbH & Co.KG and itsshareholdings.

Each Market Technology Field can incorpor-ate different companies. Larger businessunits such as PCP will be or are already di-vided into increasingly corporately manageddivisions – which when there is the appro-priate growth, can legally become stand-alone entities (for example, the PutzmeisterBelt Tech (PBT) division at PMA,Putzmeister Underground Concreting (PUC)at Putzmeister Ibérica; the PUMI® Divisionnow at Putzmeister Italy, the PutzmeisterWater Technology (PWT) division at PMM,etc.).

Each division/business unit has full decis-ion-making authority on the subjects whichaffect their own operational business. Keystrategic issues and matters affecting thewhole Putzmeister Group, however, are co-ordinated and decided synergistically with

the higher level Putzmeister Holding GmbH(PMH). The objective of this change to thePutzmeister organisation is to make opti-mum use of the growth potential of eachMarket Technology Field.

PMO 2008

US $ €

200

0

400

600

800

1000

407 440

Mio. € /m. US$

Putzmeister Group – consolidated turnover

467 536

755

1183

866

393

1200

1400$ 1487

’99 ’00 ’01 ’02 ’03 ’04 ’05 ’06 ’07

€ 1010

900

731

553

427445390383393

QUALITATIVE – INNOVATIVE – PREPARED – FLEXIBLE – COMPETENT – VALUE CONSCIOUS

PM Holding GmbH

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 20092007

10 % voting rights99 % shareholder

90 % voting rights 1 % shareholder

PMSPM Shanghai

PMRPM Russia

PMSAPM South Africa

PMTPM Mortar Tech

PPTPM Pipe Tech

PMMPM Mortar Machines

BrinkmannSchloß Holte

LancyBordeaux

StroblBiberach

Dynajet A/SAichtal

PWTAichtal

Esser KGWarstein

Esser LTBFrance

Esser Twin PipesUSA

PSPPM Solid Pumps

Esser Twin PipesChina

PMAPM America

PBTPM Belt Tech

AllentownPennsylvania

PUCPM Underground Constr.

PMIBPM Ibérica

PMIPM Italia

PUMI®

Company

Market TechnologyField

PTRPM Türkey

PCMPM India

PMJPM Japan

PMFPM France

PM UKPM UK

PMKPM Korea

PCPPM Concrete Pumps

PCTPM Concrete Tech

PITPM Industry Tech

Esser Twin PipesJapan

PMZPM Changzhou


56

PM 4062 GB 57

For the construction of the Burj Dubai, atover 800 m shortly the tallest building inthe world, several Putzmeister high-pressureconcrete pumps have been used since 2005.Its own record in vertical concrete pumpingof 532 m set in 1994, had been surpassedtime and again by Putzmeister in the pastmonths with every concreting section andthe world record in high-rise concrete pump-ing was topped by 606 m in April 2008. Foran output of 28 m3/h, the concrete pressurein the end was 200 bar, so the super high-pressure pump still had considerable re-serves left. This performance was possible,among other things, due to the commitmentof the local Putzmeister agent German GulfEnterprises and the founding family Eller.Find out more about this Putzmeister dealerand its difficult beginnings in the followingpages.

The Burj Dubai in April 2008 – concreting of the 159th storey at 606 m is completed

The M 70-5 in an articulated lorry configuration for California

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6 2007 2008 2009 20092008143 145

Two records for the 50th anniversary

There are situations which can be influenc-ed or even brought about. And there areevents whose scheduling, with the best willin the world, is not predictable – they simp-ly happen! This seems to be the case withthe two world records, which Putzmeisterwill establish somewhat coincidentally (orshould we call it ”incidentally”?) at the sametime on the company's 50th anniversary:the supply of by far the largest truck-mount-ed concrete pump and the new all time highin high-rise concrete pumping.

Thus Putzmeister is presenting for the firsttime at the end of May the new M 70 largeboom truck-mounted concrete pump with 5-arm technology. The mammoth truck-mount-ed concrete pump is constructed on a 10-axlearticulated lorry and is impressive for itsdimensions alone. The gross weight of thismachine is less than 80 tons. Putzmeisterdeveloped the M 70-5 for the US marketinitially, a European version is being workedon. The boom, base structure and pump unitare constructed together with the independ-ent power unit on a 5-axle articulated lorry.During pumping operations, the tractor unitremains connected to the semi-trailer andacts as a counter-weight. The decision tobuild this machine was taken at Putzmeisterin Spring 2007. The first M 70 mammothconcrete pump is destined for a customer inSacramento in the US state of California,and there are further orders.


58 PM 4062 GB

? Mr Eller, what actually made you

emigrate to the Gulf States in the

1960s? And how does one live there

as a foreigner?

! There was no talk yet of emigration then,in 1965. At the time I still worked for aGerman company, Beton-Monierbau. Weconstructed harbour facilities and jettieson the Gulf coast. There were no roads. Togo by car from Sharjah to Dubai, you eitherhad to drive through the sand dunes or viathe compacted beach along the coast. Wewere accommodated in a small camp; webuilt the houses ourselves.

A reliable on-site partner for over thirty years

In addition to its own export organisation and foreign subsidiaries, Putzmeister has also been working together with expert

dealers and local distribution partners in numerous countries since the early 1970s. As a shining example of commitment and

reliability, the Putzmeister agent German Gulf Enterprises Ltd. (GGE) should be mentioned here. It has been representing

Putzmeister for over thirty years in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

From the first roughcasting machine in

the Gulf to the world record in high-rise

concrete pumping

GGE was founded in 1974 in the Emirateof Sharjah by Rudi Eller as a dealershipand service station for Putzmeister andAtlas Weyhausen. During his time in theregion there was no hint of the extent ofthe current construction boom or thestrongly growing financial and servicessectors. Instead of palm-lined boulevards,dusty and unsurfaced sand tracks connect-

ed the settlement areas of the seventh GulfEmirate. In the past 34 years, GGE hasearned a distinguished reputation in theregion as a committed and capable partnerin the new and rental machinery businessand has specialised, amongst other things,in maintaining hydraulic components. Wehad the opportunity to have a talk withGerman Gulf founder Rudi Eller (born in1939), excerpts of which are reproducedhere.


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Rudi Eller has been on hand over four decades

of change in the Gulf States (Ill. Eller)

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? How were buildings constructed in the

Gulf then?

! At that time, the locals – mostly fishermenand pearl divers with their families – stilllived in huts made of coral material. Laterthe walls were made of clay and hollowblocks, and the roofs were mostly coveredwith dried palm fronds. Now I am experi-encing the fourth building generation: atfirst the buildings only had a ground floor.Then there was a phase, in which two andthree storey buildings were built. Later,houses with ten to twelve floors were stand-ard. And now people are working on build-ings here which are over 800 m high.

? How did German Gulf come to be

founded?

! At the start of the 1970s, I went back toStuttgart initially. Then shortly after thefirst oil crisis (1973) I was drawn back to theGulf again with my family. At the time,something like an awakening could be felt inthe region. Most of the proceeds from the oilbusiness were no longer flowing abroad, ashad previously been the case. Instead, alarge part of the funds was reinvested in theoil-producing countries. And constructionbegan. So I, together with my local partnerAbulrahman M. Bukhatir, founded a busi-ness, a plastering business; because onething was immediately apparent to me:there was not yet much to see in the way oftechnology and mechanisation on construct-ion sites in the Arabian Gulf. Through mywork in Stuttgart in the gypsum business Iknew, however, that completely differentresults could be achieved with mechanicalplastering. After very modest beginnings, Iwas then soon working with five people and

At the port of the Emirate of Sharjah (circa 1965) (Ill. Archiv Eller)

The Dubai Creek, an estuary approximately 14 km long, divides the city of Dubai

into a northern and a southern half. The picture is from around the middle of the

1960s. (Ill. Archiv Eller)

A Krupp semi-trailer vehicle brings the new stationary Putzmeister concrete pump to the construction site. The photo is from

circa 1980. (Ill. Eller)

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course, while work goes more quickly usingthe mortar pump, operating staff wages arealso higher. And then there are also thehigher material costs for the machine plast-er. Works dry mortar and plastering machin-es were therefore in direct competition tothe cheap workforce who mixed theircement plaster on the construction sitesthemselves. And there was more: whenplastering by hand, so when trowelling,nowhere near as much force is needed aswhen smoothing using a 1.5 or 2 m longlevelling rod. And many worker were simplynot fit enough to do this in the high temper-atures here, so it was very difficult at thestart to earn money using the new technolo-gy.

a P13, a Putzmeister mortar pump which isincidentally still being built today. Sprayingmortar onto the wall may already have beenwidespread in Germany at the time – for usin the Gulf, however, it was a sensation.Through the fact that we worked with theplastering machines and also gave practicaldemonstrations, we were able to adviseother prospective customers much morebelievably, and finally convince them to pur-chase a mortar pump, than if we had beensimple dealers.

? Were the locally manufactured mortar

mixtures comparable with those in

Germany?

! No, not at all, there were nasty surprises atthe start. Because the sand eroded by thesea had too many coarse and too few fineparticles, and could therefore not be pump-ed. There were constant blockages. Andwhen the hoses have to be cleaned fivetimes in a morning, this costs not only timebut brings with it a lot of aggravation. Wethen worked closely together with theStuttgart company Karl Epple, which manu-factured dry mortar. Epple was only able toimprove our mortar mixtures using chemic-al additives to a limited extent, however.

So we had still not solved our fundamentalproblem. We then hit upon the idea of con-structing our own dry mortar works. Thiswas a decisive step forwards, for now wecould precisely control the composition ofthe plastering materials. After numerousattempts, we finally succeeded in manufact-uring mortar mixtures which were suited tolocal requirements, which could thus beused in the heat here, because the plastersmade according to German formulae werecompletely unsuitable. Sometimes theycould not even be pumped. Or they harden-ed too quickly. Or there were cracks. Plasterand mortar are highly complex and a sciencein themselves.

? Was mechanical plastering even

worthwhile in the UAE at the time?

! Once we had solved the material problems,I handled even really large projects with myteam of plasterers I remember a contractfrom Abu Dhabi, where we mechanicallyplastered a whole district with around 500houses, with a team of more than 100 menat peak times. That dragged on for 15months. Everything really had to be wellorganised there and the preliminary workcompleted – i.e. electrical systems installed,corner rails laid, windows masked, etc.,otherwise the advantages of mechanicalplastering are soon lost again. Because, of

The façade of the 321 m high 7-star hotel Burj al Arab is based on the sail of a

dhow (Arabic cargo boat). The concreting was performed using a stationary

Putzmeister concrete pump, serviced by German Gulf

Putzmeister P 13 mortar pump on a

construction site in the Gulf

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Now, the quality of the concrete is no longeran issue, there are ultramodern mixingplants everywhere. The sand from the coastis no longer used at all now, instead thematerial is processed from the old riverbeds, but we predominantly process brokenmaterial here. Inspection of mixture break-downs has now become standard. Servicealso plays an ever more important role, butalso the availability of replacement andwear parts as well as the provision of train-ing.

A very important mainstay of German Gulfis the hydraulics department, with itshighly-qualified employees and a very well-equipped workshop. This is certainly a big

? Do you also remember the early years

as a concrete pump vendor?

! Of course! Almost simultaneously we werepreparing the market for concrete pumps.We introduced Putzmeister concrete pumpshere in the Gulf for the first time in 1975. Asregards pumping, the machines were lesssensitive than the mortar pumps withrespect to the material. Instead there was anew problem now due to the lack of mixercapacity during pump filling. Our smallmixers had a capacity of perhaps 50 to 100 l/min, and even if four of these mixerswere positioned at the concrete pump hop-per, no more than 10 or 15 m3 of concretecame into the formwork per hour. We there-fore needed efficient concrete mixing works.German Gulf and Epple then founded a jointcompany – CONMIX. And this companythen constructed a concrete mixing towersystem with integrated dry mortar mixingsystem. Now - in the second half of 70s – wewere able to load the large truck-mountedconcrete pumps with 31-metre boom and120 m3 output per hour using truck mixersholding 6 or 7 m3. We were the first to pumpmortar and concrete in the Middle East. Inthe United Arab Emirates in any case, thismade Putzmeister and Gulf the pioneers inthis area. This means we first had to gatherexperience in extreme climatic conditions,of course we also had to learn the hard wayand did a lot of convincing.

? The sale of concrete pumps is one

thing, but the machines also had to be

serviced, especially in this extreme heat

in the UAE and with the fine sand which

penetrates everything?

! The service provided by German Gulfreceived unrestricted appreciation from cus-tomers (and those of the competition –everything gets around quickly in this sec-tor) right from the start. And it went downwell that we never abandoned customers,despite some setbacks. Because for us, thedeal did not end with the sale of a newmachine; we wanted the customer to be ableto use it, to be satisfied and to have no un-necessary downtimes. This means we carriedout repairs on the construction site or – ifthis was not possible – immediately made areplacement machine available. This of cour-se included training the machine operatorsand stockkeeping for the most important re-placement and wear parts. Naturally thatcost us a lot of money, but the customer wasable to continue working. Incidentally, thisattitude towards the customer has beenretained by German Gulf right up to thepresent day.

? Did Putzmeister really have to adapt

its concrete pumps to the extreme con-

ditions in the Gulf?

! Over the years, we had problems with theconcrete mixes, the grading curves often laybeyond pumpability. We then ordered con-crete pumps from Putzmeister which werespecially suited to conditions in the UAE.This concerned, among other things, theelectrical system, delivery cylinder, the Stransfer tube, the tapering in the pressurepipe and the cooling system. Not everyoneat Putzmeister supported us at the time, butwe asserted ourselves. And the result, i.e.the very high market share, proved us rightto the present day.

Sheikh Zayed Road is the showpiece boulevard of Dubai. Here dozens of architect-

urally ambitious high-rise buildings are strung together.

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advantage and strengthens our position inthe market. We represent Bosch-Rexrothand other manufacturers of hydrostaticactuators and control systems not only inthe UAE, but also in the neighbouring statesof Kuwait, Bahrain, Muscat and Oman aswell as Qatar. In Europe it is rather unusualfor more than one competitor to be repre-sented by the same dealer. But here in theGulf, it is seen as practical: because differ-ent brands of hydraulic components areoften found in our customers' machinery.And we cannot say then that we only repairthe defective part from one manufacturerand not another – no customer would acceptthat here!

A look inside the German Gulf Enterprises modernly equipped hydraulic workshop

(Ill. Eller)

The Palm Jumeirah is one of several artificial island groups which are being created or are already finished off the coast of Dubai.

Putzmeister concrete and mortar pumps are involved almost everywhere on construction of the infrastructure as well as villas and

apartment complexes.

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? Then things have been only been on

the up for German Gulf since the start

of the 1970s?

! No – by no means. There were also times,when things were not going so well.Because every political crisis here in theregion has immediate effects on construct-ion activities and investments. I still remem-ber well the outbreak of the civil war inLebanon (1975-1990) and the Iran-Iraq war(1980-1988), where I could hear of the thudof the shells. When Kuwait was occupiedduring the first Gulf War (1990-1991), wewere evacuated. When they tell you that thelast Lufthansa flight from Dubai leaves at 3 pm, it's not quite what you expect. Thesecond Gulf War (2003) and the AfghanistanWar (2001) had similar economic effects, ifonly temporary. In recent years, however,things have improved sharply, and in theUAE we have growth the likes of which hasnever been seen. Correspondingly, the con-struction boom has also developed. German

Gulf still had around 100 employees in themiddle of the 1990s, now there are almost500. The business is booming, which is ofcourse due to the fact that there is the rightmarket for it here. But how all this develop-ed – that is a dream, that is madness!

? Mr Eller, what conditions must be right

in order – as you managed it – to be so

extraordinarily successful?

! Yes, there are certainly a lot. I think to besuccessful, a series of factors play a part.First, one must have an idea – and I had a lotof those – and then the idea has to be imple-mented. In my opinion, this involves a reali-stic assessment of the situation, specialistknowledge, enthusiasm, competitive spirit,positive and also economic thinking as wellas willingness to make decisions. Moreover,you should be trustworthy and reliable andbe true to your word, even if it is againstyour own – short-term – interests.

Diligence and perseverance must not be lacking. A further prerequisite is, of course,that there is a market and the basic condit-ions are fairly suitable. Just as important,too, are the employees. To motivate themand win their trust is essential for a well-functioning company. Of course it alsorequires fair wages, recognition – above all,however, mutual respect and appreciation.And we seem to have got that right.

I have let myself be guided as far as I couldby the virtues mentioned and also had therequired amount of luck. Above all, however,the boundless support of my family andGod's blessing were the key to my success.In conclusion, I would like to thank all ourbusiness partners – and here very particul-arly Putzmeister – for their excellent collab-oration!”

On the numerous high-rise construction sites in the Emirates, not only Putzmeister concrete pumps,

but also stationary concrete placing booms are used

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? How is German Gulf prepared for the

future?

! Today, German Gulf Enterprises is manag-ed by Rudi Eller's son, Richard Eller. “It isalready gratifying to know that the companyis in good hands. The smooth concreting atthe Burj Dubai at a height of over 600 m iscertainly our finest hour as a Putzmeisteragent. My son got very involved in all thepreparations. I am very proud of Richard",adds Eller senior, visibly satisfied. The com-pany now represents more than two dozenwell-known companies in the UAE. In a fewmonths, GGE will relocate its head officefrom Sharjah to Dubai 10 km away, tomodern offices and an expanded servicearea. This is not due to the work on the BurjDubai (which will be nearly completed bythen), but due to the many customers basedhere and the large number of new projects.(See also www.german-gulf.com)

The generation change at German Gulf is prepared. Pictured are Rudi and Richard

Eller. (Ill. Eller)

Dubai and the Sheikh Zayed Road at night. The picture was taken from the Burj Dubai from a height of approximately 500 m.

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1998A glimpse into the future of Putzmeister

For five decades now Karl Schlecht has ledand accompanied the development ofPutzmeister. How does he see the tasks orpossible problems of the Putzmeister Groupin the coming years?

KS: “The future of the Putzmeister family ofcompanies will be best safeguarded, if wecontinue along our previously adopted pathconsistently in terms of our tried and testedcompany philosophy and by maintainingour principles. In doing so, with a view tothe many emerging global markets, we wantto concentrate primarily on our growing corebusiness worldwide, namely on the pipedelivery of particularly difficult media andthe activities directly related.

With more local presence and with innovat-ions in everything we do, we see the bestopportunity to safeguard our traditionallyhealthy growth under our own steam with asolid equity capital endowment of at least40 %. This means after three tremendousgrowth years and investments in newworks, that a consolidation process is takingplace at present. Further steps to expandwill be limited by the capital resources earn-ed. We will, however, strive for growth in

future too, through continuing further de-velopment of our company management.Because due to the competition from the FarEast, which is catching up quickly and hascost advantages, we will have to adapt to thetempo there. Thus more effective working,ongoing learning and continuous trainingwill become even more important in future.With our expanded company academy andHuman Resources Management, the coursefor this is set.”

Businessman and benefactor

In 1998 Karl Schlecht transferred 99 % ofthe shares in his company, Putzmeister AG,to the Karl Schlecht non-profit foundation(KSG with 10 % of voting rights), 1 % is re-tained by the Karl Schlecht FamilyFoundation KSF (90 % of voting rights).Thereby the company is protected in futurefrom being broken up in the case of success-ion and from being split up. The privatewealth of the Putzmeister founder remainsseparate from this.

Karl Schlecht prepared for this step for along time and considered it well. “You can'ttake it with you. Benefactors are not onlypatrons and philanthropists, they see them-selves also as investors for a good cause. Sothey are also businessmen, who - as usual ineconomic life - act of their own accord.” Forthem entrepreneurship means “time andagain rising above oneself in pursuit of avision and at the same time pulling othersalong too, so that everyone wins. “As a bene-factor and businessman, he wants to setgood things in motion, which will stand thetest of time.

With foundation assets at current marketvolumes of almost € 1 billion, KSG is one ofthe largest non-profit foundations inGermany. However, it currently invests inselected projects “only” approximately € 750,000 annually from the yields of thefoundation capital stocks of € 15 million. KS:“We reinvest the Putzmeister profits in thefamily of companies to build confidence forour customers.”

Mr. Schlecht sees in his decision to start anon-profit foundation above all an express-ion of gratitude. The serious Rotarian wantsto fairly pass on what is achieved in his life-time to society and thereby, at the sametime, contribute to the future security of hiscompany. For the “rich” are proverbiallyactually those who can do without the most.

Putzmeister Holding presents to international students at the new Exhibition Centre

in Stuttgart

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2008

It is KSG's task to help communicate moreeffectively than before the experience, valuesand company knowledge gained to youngpeople internally and externally. From hisown experience, it is important to bene-factor Mr. Schlecht to make Putzmeistermanagement aware of the value of tradition-al virtues and the human qualities gainedfrom them which are important for a richlife. He also places great value on nurturingemployees in the in-house company acade-my, getting them to take a businessapproach and to see each grow noticeably.Mr. Schlecht also strives for this aim byoccupying two chairs at the Universities ofHohenheim and Stuttgart, financed by KSG.Moreover, he assists research and dissertat-ions for an “economic global ethic charter”at Professor Dr. Hans Küng's Global EthicInstitute in Tübingen.

Endowed Chair of

Entrepreneurship

The Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship(SEH) with a professor and six scientificstaff is part of the science faculty at theUniversity of Hohenheim. The task of theSEH, among other things, is the promotionof science and exploration of the humanfactors which contribute to the success of agood company. The SEH will be closely link-ed in future with St. Gallen University(Switzerland) and should therefore to agreater extent contribute to entrepreneurialthinking in German-speaking universities.

Endowed Chair

of Wind Energy

Since his youth, Karl Schlecht has been fas-cinated by the recovery of natural energy.Even later, as a student, the subject of windturbines stayed with him. This is the contextin which Karl Schlecht's commitment to the

Endowed Chair of Wind Energy (SWE) at theInstitute for Aircraft Construction at theUniversity of Stuttgart should be understood.KSG currently finances the C-4 professorwith an academic staff of nine. With thisKSG combines the objective of trainingyoung engineers from a whole range of dis-ciplines to consider the technical/economicaspects of wind turbines as a whole. Theyare comparable in their complexity to themechydronics of Putzmeister concretepumps. For Karl Schlecht, scientific monitor-ing of the company's own wind turbinesduring operation is also important. Theinvestments in wind energy are supposed tobring his KSG foundation a continuous yieldfor stable financing of its projects, comparedto capital investments. And this is independ-ent of the earning power of the PutzmeisterGroup.

Global Ethic Foundation

Not as founder, but with conviction as asponsor, KSG has supported the GlobalEthic Foundation in Tübingen for manyyears. The Global Ethic project developedthere by the theologian Prof. Dr Hans Küngand his team follows the notion that worldreligions can only contribute to the peace ofhumanity, if they reflect on a basic consensusin relation to their original binding values,rules and tenors – and do not, as is usuallythe case, emphasise what separates them.The aim of the Global Ethic Foundation istherefore to mediate for interfaith and inter-cultural dialogue on all levels. The imple-mentation of the Global Ethic ideal into theeconomy is a particular desire of KSG spon-sorship. This applies especially toPutzmeister, where people of many religiousdenominations work together. KSG is alsothe main sponsor of the Tübingen GlobalEthic lectures given by the former BritishPrime Minister Tony Blair, the former UNGeneral Secretary Kofi Annan, FederalPresident Horst Köhler and formerChancellor Helmut Schmidt.

Stiftungslehrstuhl Entrepreneurshipder Universität Hohenheim

Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and Karl Schlecht in discussion

at a Global Ethic Foundation event in May 2007

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Karl Schlecht was born on 28/10/1932 asthe eldest of four siblings and grew upduring the war years without a father. Thefamily lived in Bernhausen, on the southernedge of Stuttgart airport, initially atKirchgasse 10. In his youth, son Karl, inaddition to school, helped out time andagain on the small family farm. KS: “Whenmy father returned, thank God safe andsound, from the Second World War, he work-ed his way up to master plasterer and in1947 started his own business.”

When his parents decided to build a houseon their land in Bernhausen, Sielminger Str.77 (now Nürtinger Str.), secondary schoolpupil Karl gladly helps to concrete and laybricks. His favourite subjects during hisfinal years at school include Chemistry, thenlater Physics. “Natural science research wasmy childhood dream”, remembers Mr.Schlecht. In 1951 he sat his school-leavingexamination, the 'Abitur': “After leavingschool, however, I had only one wish, tobecome a good mechanical engineer, a pathwhich my father had dreamed of. To this dayit is the best career for me”, he says.

During secondary school and while trainingto become a mechanical engineer at THStuttgart, he supplemented his pocketmoney by helping his father on constructionsites. Here he earned enough to finance hisstudies and pay for the upkeep of hisLambretta Roller scooter.

After his studies, his mother wanted hereldest to apply for a (supposedly) secureposition as a staff engineer in a well-knowncompany. This was probably down to theinitially disappointing experiences buildinghis first mortar pump, which Karl had start-ed on during his 7th semester.

KS: “However, after my diploma thesis,which consisted of my first roughcastingmachine - the realisation of a dream for myfather - he encouraged me not to give up. Iam still grateful to him for this today, becau-se without this background I would not havebeen able to finance his commission to con-struct a roughcasting machine, nor to test itand later demonstrate it.”

Karl Schlecht has always been busy sincehis youth. He is considered to be a versatilecreative mind who gets excited about newideas again and again. As a student he passed his L1 gliding certificate, later wasone of the first windsurfers in Germany and

furthermore devours books. He sees himselfas a maverick and does not enjoy wastinghis time: “Even today, I'm not bothered whatthe holes on the golf course think of me.”His personal circle of friends remainsmanageable.

Karl Schlecht married in 1964. In order tocombine family and professional life asclosely as possible to each other – in a spatial sense as well – the Schlecht familymoved into a penthouse flat above theEchterdinger Strasse office building whichwas completed in 1967. Their eldestdaughter Katrin (born 1965) was followedby son Martin (born 1967) and daughterBarbara (born 1968). Their little free timetogether, the Schlecht family enjoyed spend-ing at their weekend house on LakeConstance. During these years, Mr. Schlecht'shobbies included sailing in his own boat(dragonboat class) and windsurfing. The fas-cination with wind and flying had never lefthim since his student days. Decades later hewas to invest in wind turbines at severalEuropean locations.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the Schlechtcouple separated. The son and daughtersstayed with their mother at first. Following

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The Putzmeister founder in private

... with his first labour-saving “machine”

Karl Schlecht senior (in 1965, the

father of the Putzmeister founder)

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their studies, the children went their ownways – outside their father's company.Katrin holds a doctorate and works today aslawyer in Berlin. Son Martin embarked onthe career dreamed of by his father at alarge Swabian car group. The youngestdaughter lives at their former home. Allhave good contact with their father.

A very close partnership unites him withhis second wife, Brigitte, to this day. In1983, she brought with her sons Frederikand Ralf into the newly formed family andheads KSG today as Executive President.While the younger son Frederik (born 1968)worked for several years in Putzmeistersales while completing his MBA, he hassince taken assumed responsibility as asales manager at another company in theconstruction machine sector.

Dr. Ralf von Baer (born 1963), the elder ofKarl Schlecht's two stepsons, joined thecompany in 2004. After a successful careeras an anaesthetist and emergency doctor ata university hospital, followed by five yearsin a consultancy and planning business,after completing his MBA studies at St.Gallen University, he came to Putzmeister.Since 2005, Dr. Ralf von Baer has beenManaging Director of Putzmeister HoldingGmbH. He enjoys tackling the tasks andtaking responsibility in the highly divers-ified group of companies. KS: “Although Iam sometimes labelled as difficult and amaverick, things seem to be working quitewell between us! Hopefully I soon won'tneed to be involved at all.”

... bought with the first money he earned

himself, then in 1959 came the first

Porsche ...

In 2006, the wind turbines operated by Mr. Schlecht generated three times as much

power as the Putzmeister works in Germany used in the same period

Gliding certificate L1 passed – Karl Schlecht in the alpine gliding school in

Unterwössen (1953)

Fascinated by wind power — whether flying, sailing or wind turbines

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Mr. Schlecht had been taken with the Rotarynetwork with its four pillars – the so-calledFour-Way Test (“Is it the truth? – Is it fair toall concerned? – Will it build goodwill andbetter friendships? – Will it be beneficial toall concerned? – since the 1990s. These fourquestions stand in the preamble of everycontract or agreement at Putzmeister, as away of inspiring confidence.

Karl Schlecht is still in regular contact withhis three sisters and with relatives backhome in the Fildern area. Here his ancestorswere first mentioned in a document in 1574.Thus, he values down-to-earthness highly.

In his free time, he spends many hours athis PC, also at his holiday home in Spain. Hehas many ideas which he would like to putinto practice and many projects to occupyhim, which he actualises and updates. Onetime when he cannot rest is when workingon a reference book, for instance. “When Iget to it, I also sometimes enjoy listening toclassical music and enjoy reading a goodbook.”

With a harmonious family life, daily swimand regular gymnastics, Karl Schlecht keepshimself fit even after his 75th birthday. No

KS at his 75th birthdy (28/10/2007)

with his wife Brigitte

Birthday pleasures with his

grandchildren

Professor h.c. Karl Schlecht teaches at

famous Tongji University, Shanghai

less important to him is healthy eating. Asan international-facing Swabian, he hasretained his fondness for home cookinghowever. So since his childhood well-cookedlentils and Spätzle (noodles), Swabian pockets (homemade pasta squares) andtraditional roast beef with onions and vege-tables are still among his favourite dishes,preferably cooked by his wife, Brigitte, whois an excellent cook.

To this day, Putzmeister is for Karl Schlechthis fountain of youth. As Chairman of afamily of companies, which in 2007 achiev-ed a turnover of more than a billion eurosand has almost 4,000 employees, Mr.Schlecht sees – in addition to seeingthrough his foundation projects – stillenough challenges as senior technologyadvisor for the coming years.

Innovation award ceremony 2007 at the Elite University, Karlsruhe

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Imprint

■ Editor: Putzmeister Holding GmbH, Max-Eyth-Straße 10, 72631 Aichtal / Germany

■ Conception Frontpage, graphic assistance: Karl Schlecht, Max-Eyth-Straße 10, 72631 Aichtal

■ Editorial department: Jürgen Kronenberg, Layout and graphics: Friedrich Pippich, Production: Monika Schüßler, Putzmeister Concrete Pumps GmbH, Max-Eyth-Straße 10, 72631 Aichtal

■ Print: Druckerei Mack, Siemensstraße 15, 71101 Schönaich

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Putzmeister Concrete Pumps GmbH, Max-Eyth-Str. 10, 72631 AichtalPSdg, Deutsche Post AG, Entgelt bezahlt, E 60458

All rights and technical details subject to alteration · The illustrations show special mechanical equipment and snapshots in practice on construction sites, which do not alwayscorrespond to the regulations of the Industrial Employers’ Liability Insurance Association · © 2008 by Putzmeister Concrete Pumps GmbH · Printed in Germany (70805Ma)


50 years of putzmeister

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