From a garage to a global market leader: the couple who founded igus celebrate their 90th birthdays

By OEM Update Editorial August 3, 2021 6:02 pm

Together, Günter and Margret Blase laid the foundation for a motion plastics breakthrough in industry in 1964.

In 1964, they founded igus in their back yard garage in Cologne- Mülheim. In 2021, the internationally active company supplies customers all over the world with its lubrication-free and maintenance-free motion plastics. On the occasion of the founders’ 90th birthday, igus is bringing that garage back to life.

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56 years later, on the occasion of the couple’s 90th birthdays, a replica of this garage stands in front of the 90,000 square metre igus factory campus designed by architect Sir Nicholas Grimshaw in 1994. The interior of the replica displays a number of milestones in the company’s history, such as the first injection moulding machine. Much has changed since the garage years: the product range now includes over 200,000 parts that can be delivered from stock and ranges from predictable energy chain systems under guarantee to intelligent 3D printed special parts to robot components for a cost-effective introduction to automation. More than 4,500 people at 35 igus branches all over the world work every day to ensure that customers can improve technology while cutting costs. But igus still holds to a Günter Blase maxim that is truer than ever: “We always have to be ready for 50 per cent less and 50 per cent more.” And the early expansion of machine and raw material warehouse capacities during the pandemic still ensures relatively fast delivery times during this period of rapid economic recovery. Building a new factory will move this development forward into the future. The factory’s construction is a project which Günter Blase, always fascinated with architecture, continues to actively support.