Celebrating a century in cement

On 3 August 1922 Heinrich Aumund founded the Gesellschaft für AUMUND-Patente MB.H. in Berlin, an invention and engineering office, which laid the cornerstone for the globally operating AUMUND Group of companies, today employing around 500 people of more than 30 nationalities. With approximately 24 000 references in around 150 countries, the AUMUND Group is one of the global players and technology leaders in the high-performance conveying and storage of bulk materials. At first AUMUND established itself as a global brand in the cement industry, and followed this success into various other key bulk materials industries internationally. Today AUMUND Group machines, systems and process technologies are in operation in metallurgy, mining and minerals, lime and gypsum, chemicals - in particular fertiliser, foundries, power plants, agribulk, ports and terminals, as well as in the area of alternative fuels with its current significance in environmental politics and environmental technology. The 100-year history and development of AUMUND spans three generations and is inextricably linked with the business leaders Prof. Dr.-Ing. h.c. Heinrich Aumund, Günter-Claus Aumund, and Franz-W. Aumund, who is currently Chairman of the Advisory Board.

The AUMUND Group today consists of six subsidiary companies covering conveying, storage, loading/unloading, chains, installations & commissioning, and logistics. The global conveying and storage business is currently driven internationally by 20 locations in Europe, the Americas, and Asia, supported by five service centres in Germany, Hong Kong, USA, Brazil, and Saudi Arabia, and reinforced by approximately 80 representations and a network of around 100 supervisors and inspectors who advise on and accompany installation, commissioning, and on-site inspections with the PREMAS^® Preventive Maintenance Service for AUMUND, SCHADE, and SAMSON machines as well as for those of other manufacturers.

Effective from mid-2022, after 100 years of family management Franz-W. Aumund, who had been Managing Proprietor of the AUMUND Group for 38 years, has handed over his operational activities to the management of AUMUND Fördertechnik, in the persons of Dr Pietro de Michieli, Reiner Furthmann, and Uwe Altena.

Franz-W. Aumund: “From the early stages my objective was to market AUMUND machines all over the world, which is today the guarantee for the continuity of the AUMUND Group. In 1975 the AUMUND subsidiaries in Brazil and Canada were created, followed by USA in 1980, France in 1991, India in 1996 and Hong Kong in 2005. The AUMUND rep. office for technology, purchasing and production was opened in Beijing, China, in 1994 and this was followed by the incorporation of the AUMUND subsidiary in Beijing in 2006. AUMUND has had its own representations in Russia since 2008 and Dubai since 2010. In 2022 an office was established in Indonesia.”

With a product depth of more than 70 application-based machine types, for both horizontal and vertical conveying, and storing and discharge of the most varied of bulk materials, the AUMUND Group has the widest global spread in the conveying and storage technology market. The portfolio of AUMUND Fördertechnik covers pan conveyors, bucket elevators, chain conveyors, stationary material feeders, and discharge systems. The technological know-how is reflected in more than 200 national and international patents. The technological and production know-how for the key components of the AUMUND products lies with AUMUND Fördertechnik in Rheinberg, where technology, research, development and design work hand in hand.

Product range and diversification

With the acquisitions of Maschinenfabrik LOUISE GmbH in 1991 and WTW Engineering Maschinen- und Förderanlagen GmbH in 2006, AUMUND expanded its product range and its product know-how in Rotary Discharge Machined and Drag Chain Conveyors. The purchase of the spare parts business for Silo Discharge Systems of Besta & Meyer GmbH in 2014 fitted with this portfolio, and the acquisition of the spare parts business of KoWey GmbH in 2021 was appropriate in connection with Bucket Elevators.

Diversification was the strategy behind the acquisition of Gustav Schade Maschinenfabrik GmbH in Dortmund, today SCHADE Lagertechnik GmbH, and of British company B&W Mechanical Handling Ltd, today SAMSON Materials Handling Ltd, in 2001 and 2002 respectively. SCHADE designs and supplies machines such as Stackers and Reclaimers for bulk materials stockyards and blending beds, which are particularly in demand for handling bulk materials in the most varied of key industries. The Rail Wagon Tipplers which were originally sold by AUMUND were integrated in to the SCHADE portfolio at the beginning of the 2010s. B&W/SAMSON manufactures mobile Material Feeders, Shiploaders and Ecological (Eco) Hoppers, which are predominantly used in ports and terminals but also in industrial applications.

With the acquisition of Th. Tilemann GmbH Gelenkketten- und Räderfabrik, Essen, Germany, in 2016, the AUMUND Group gained an experienced manufacturer of high-quality chains and associated components. The company was re-named TILEMANN GmbH and equipped with the latest production and assembly technology for the fabrication of AUMUND Bucket Elevator Chains, and also conveying chains to supply to manufacturers of stockyard and blending bed equipment and scraper conveyors, including SCHADE.

Key industries for bulk materials – the ‘home’ of AUMUND Group products

AUMUND products have a long tradition in the mining and minerals sector, with optimised solutions for every process stage for conveying, storage and loading of often abrasive and sticky bulk materials. AUMUND has experience with the handling of the most varied of materials such as basalt, bauxite, dolomite, ores, fly ash, urea, potash, limestone, clay, petcoke, phosphate, pozzolan, salt, sand, sulfur, and zinc oxide. The application and the characteristics of the materials determine the conveyor. Precise planning is of the utmost importance because this is the basis for the economic success of the plant.

Way over half of the over 24 000 pieces of equipment operate in the cement industry all over world. The logistics of the various raw materials, combustibles and additives play a significant role in the cement production process. This is a discipline in which AUMUND Fördertechnik has more than 60 years of technological expertise. From a broadly positioned range of products, optimised solutions are offered, for example for raw material processing, kiln feed, raw meal conveying to the heat exchanger, reception, storage and conveying of combustibles (both coal and alternative fuels), and hopper discharge. Solutions for clinker loading, clinker dispatch, and clinker storage are also part of the portfolio.

In metallurgy the handling of hot bulk materials such as sinter, pellets, DRI, HBI, fines, coal and coke takes on a special role, and here AUMUND products are operated in conveying, charging, and discharge, if necessary with cooling or conveying under inert gas. A partner to the iron and steel industry since the 1960s, AUMUND offers solutions as integrated process elements which support customers’ production flows. This is shown as an example in connection with the development of CO₂ reduced production processes. Since the beginning of the 2000s direct reduction has proved its worth as a largely available alternative to the classic blast furnace process, where sinter and coke are used as charge. Direct reduction using natural gas produces pig iron from iron ore pellets. Depending on the technology, the sponge iron products are either DRI or HBI. For the handling of these products, i.e. the cooling and charging in the manufacturing process, the operators of direct reduction plants can take advantage of very innovative solutions.

AUMUND also offers conveying technology for the complete process chain in foundries which manufacture on the basis of wet moulding. These include conveyors for degating, sorting, and cleaning of castings, cooling conveyors for transporting and cooling of hot castings, bucket elevators for vertical conveying and conveyors for feeding furnaces with scrap metal. For many years AUMUND has been supplying equipment for conveying and storing raw materials with the most varied of characteristics for operation in the chemicals industry. AUMUND is particularly in demand in the widely varying processes and production technologies of the fertiliser industry, where products are in operation in the areas of material extraction and processing, raw materials, and additive conveying, loading and handling.

AUMUND equipment is also part of the machinery in power plants for example for reception of coal, calorific domestic waste (RDF), biomass, or limestone in various types of firing plant whether it be grate firing, pulverised coal firing, or fluidised bed combustion, as well as for export of materials such as gypsum, ash, sludge, and dust.

For more than 60 years AUMUND has been supplying bucket elevators for the agribulk industry. These were specially developed to convey cereals and similar agricultural bulk materials. More recently, renowned sugar producers have been placing their trust in AUMUND conveying technology, such as specially designed screw dischargers for residue-free emptying of white sugar silos. A specially designed discharge system was supplied for the Al Khaleej Sugar Group plant in Dubai for the complete emptying of a white sugar silo with a diameter of almost 60 m. The photo shows the 27 m long screw discharger which was supplied in three parts ready to assemble in Dubai.

Energy-intensive sectors such as the cement and steel industries, and power plants, are being called upon to adopt climate-friendly processes, and they are seeking cost-effective solutions in order to achieve this. Such solutions are available from the recently created alternative fuels division of AUMUND Fördertechnik. The AUMUND Fuel Mill, AU-MILL^® for short, prepares calorific plastic waste, known as RDF (refuse derived fuel) to pass on for use as an alternative fuel in place of coal, oil, or gas, for example in the rotary kiln of a cement plant. AUMUND’s range of products for conveying alternative fuels includes solutions such as the trailer docking station, the walking floor, the screw discharger, and a specially modified drag chain conveyor.

For the import and export of material the AUMUND Group offers a very wide spectrum of machines and equipment in conveying and storage technology. For ports and terminals, the mobile (i.e. driven) ship loading and unloading systems of SAMSON Materials Handling such as Shiploaders, Eco Hoppers, the Samson^® Material Feeder and the STORMAJOR^® are particularly attractive.

Service is the key to customer proximity and customer satisfaction

The AUMUND Group offers extensive after sales and customer support services all over the world, ranging from consulting to upkeep, preventive and predictive maintenance (PREMAS and PREMAS 4.0), repairs and spare parts, to the training of customers’ maintenance personnel. AUMUND Group Field Service GmbH ensures a globally standardised commitment to quality in installation and commissioning of AUMUND, SCHADE, and SAMSON machines, and also of equipment manufactured outside the group, with its international network of around 100 supervisors and inspectors.

The provision of high-performance service was also the basis for the incorporation in 2007 of AUMUND Logistic GmbH as an autonomous company. The focus of its activities is worldwide dispatch of machines and machinery parts by sea freight, air freight, and land transportation for AUMUND, SCHADE, SAMSON and TILEMANN as well as for the overseas AUMUND companies.

‘We convey a greener future’

“The linking of ecological aspects and business considerations, for the benefit both of our customers and of the AUMUND Group itself, has defined our thinking and actions for decades, in fact even before concepts such as conservation, sustainability and reduction of CO₂ emissions became important for so many companies all over the world. In this the AUMUND Group is one of the pioneers in the bulk materials conveying and storing sector,” says Franz-W. Aumund.

‘We convey a greener future’ applies to the two fields of activity where the AUMUND Group unites ecology and business: The product companies AUMUND, SCHADE, and SAMSON support our customers on their journeys to environmentally conscious production processes, and activities which comply with environmental legislation.

The AUMUND Group takes its responsibility for conservation of resources and protection of the environment seriously on its own sites as well. As an example, no fossil fuels are utilised in machinery manufacture, and additional measures are consistently being undertaken to save energy.

Fit for the future

Franz-W. Aumund: “I am convinced that we are well-positioned now and for the future and that we will always have the right ideas to enable us to recognise and fulfil the requirements of our customers. In this connection innovation and investment are of the utmost importance to me. They secure the future of the individual companies, and with them the future of our Group. We have an investment agenda which takes into consideration markets, manufacturing locations, ideas, innovations, employees and much more. This is why we do not only concentrate on activities in our familiar key industries, but we also open up new future-orientated areas such as alternative fuels. “Fit for the future” also means for the AUMUND Group that it should continue to develop in a healthy way. This means with a combination of organic, self-generated growth and inorganic growth, for example generated by acquisitions.”

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/special-reports/02122022/celebrating-a-century-in-cement/