Klemens Schulte has been Managing Director of our long-established company since October 2022. From April 2023, he will assume sole responsibility for WSH screws. Regardless of this (personnel) change, we remain true to our principle: to continue to carry the tradition we have lived since our foundation into the future with all its values.
With the introduction of barcode technology, we control our entire material flows, from incoming goods to outgoing goods. This prevents material mix-ups at the production machines. In outgoing goods, consignments can be quickly and reliably assigned to customers.
Thanks to digital maintenance, cleaning and maintenance schedules for our production facilities are monitored and automatically addressed to the relevant departments.
Increased demands on article geometries led to the investment in a press with 6 forming stages. The existing ERP system was upgraded to a future-proof basis through a comprehensive release change. These are all examples of an industrial company which, thanks to its medium-sized character, has always succeeded in adapting to changing circumstances in a forward-looking and future-oriented manner.
Our energy management system is certified.
The company's organic growth requires the construction of a new production hall, which is commissioned in 2014 and leads to a restructuring of the thread rolling and post-processing production areas.
From 2012, the company introduced TPM as a comprehensive system for continuous improvement processes.
The company's continued growth over the last few years has been accompanied by a high level of investment in machinery and equipment. Under new management, capacities have been expanded since 2011 with combined multi-stage presses, a more efficient hardening furnace and modern sorting machines, and the logistics area has been further automated. This expansion was accompanied by the installation of high-availability IT technology and corresponding upgrades to the software solutions for all communicating processes.
Dr. Frank Pahl joins the company in 2010 and takes over the management of WSH with the task of leading the company into the future.
The continuously developed quality assurance system was certified to ISO TS 16949 in 2005. This was another important milestone in the company's 100-year history, which began in 2006.
At the turn of the millennium, modern working methods such as group work in production with systematic process monitoring and optimization were introduced. A fully automated small parts warehouse with 65,000 storage locations was put into operation in 2004 and enabled the efficient picking of customer articles.
After receiving the Q1 Award from Ford in the 1990s, further quality awards followed and finally certification to DIN EN ISO 9001 in 1995, VDA 6.1 in 1998, QS 9000 in 1999 and DIN EN ISO 14001 in 2000. Schumacher has always attached great importance to its own vocational training. Now more and more measures for further training and higher qualification are being added. Professional skills in administration and operations keep pace with economic and technical change!
Today, Schumacher is still able to meet the rapidly changing requirements and is a good example of an industrial company that has always managed to regenerate itself thanks to its medium-sized character.
In 1990, Ford Werke presented Wilhelm Schumacher with the Q1 Award as the first European manufacturer of small bolts, thus confirming the company's quality capability.
Dr. Ulrich Schumacher retired from active involvement in the company on April 1, 1995 and handed over responsibility to an external management team, which, in the spirit of the Schumacher family, shaped the company's ongoing adaptation to technical and economic change. The company's own electroplating shop was given up, as it was no longer economically viable to operate due to the ever increasing demands on corrosion protection and the appearance of the applied coatings in combination with environmental requirements.
Friedhelm Hoffmann is the first external manager to head the company. Together with Dr. Ulrich Schumacher, he manages to steer the “ship” back onto a steady course, which has been buffeted by the waves of the recession.
Dr. Ulrich Schumacher has supported his father in the management of the company since 1957. One particular challenge was building up an extensive business with customers in the USA and Canada.
By the end of the 1960s, Schumacher had already acquired licenses from American screw manufacturers and thus the know-how for the production of fasteners that helped large-scale consumers to reduce assembly costs and increase product safety, e.g. the WSH Spiralform® developed in-house.
The production program was consistently adapted to the changed customer structure. While well-known specialist wholesalers were previously among the most important customers, production was now sold even more than before to the automotive industry and its suppliers, as well as to major consumers in the electrical industry, including the household appliance industry.
Investments in multiple printing presses, automatic machines for machining, computer-controlled electroplating of small parts and the modern hardening shop created the production technology prerequisites for supplying demanding customers, to whose requirements the methods of process organization and quality assurance, which have been continuously refined up to the present day, have also been adapted.
WSH developed steadily upwards, even under the difficult conditions of the inflationary period, but particularly after 1923, when the currency stabilized. In the years from 1933, WSH also experienced an enormous economic upturn, which ultimately ended in the catastrophe of the Second World War. In 1939, the company had 110 employees.
In 1906, Wilhelm Schumacher founded the family business in Hilchenbach, which is now in its 4th generation and has continuously faced and adapted to changing conditions.
Especially in the early years, the company had to prove itself and its products and suffered setbacks during the First World War. However, the Schumacher family believed in the future of the company and already had 40 employees in 1914.