Press Release on the Open House event held by Bieling & Petsche Stanzformen GmbH in Elixhausen near Salzburg

Press Release on the Open House event held by Bieling & Petsche Stanzformen GmbH in Elixhausen near Salzburg

In December 2013, cutting die manufacturer Bieling & Petsche Stanzformen GmbH, with its Salzburg-based production site, moved into new company premises in Elixhausen near Salzburg, having made a conscious decision to continue manufacture at two production locations in Austria. The pivotal factors for this were the proximity to the customer base, the specialised skills of the workforces in Grödig and Vienna and, not least, the social responsibility the company has towards its employees. At the two locations in Elixhausen and Vienna, Bieling & Petsche is operating in its own properties and each facility has a floor space of 1,100 m².


Presentations and specialist talks held in the marquee

On 16 May 2014, the company formally presented the new building in Elixhausen to international customers with an Open House event. Approximately 150 visitors attended – from Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Italy – and they gained a positive impression of the company’s performance ability. Alongside presentations and specialist talks held in the marquee, attendees were able to fully exploit the opportunity to witness the daily routines of a diemaker. Staff members were on hand to explain their individual work steps and techniques, enabling them to be easily grasped – literally. Many of these customers experienced live for the first time how their tooling comes into being and how much outlay is put into the technology required in order to guarantee consistently perfect quality.

In his welcome address, Managing Director and majority shareholder Gerald Minniberger naturally included details about the history of his company. We learned, for example, that the company was founded in Grödig on 21 February 1972 by Messrs Winfried Bieling and Günther Petsche. In 1979, the first laser system for die production in Austria was installed. Special mention should be made here that this was actually an in-house development. During the years that followed, laser systems, plotters and rule processing equipment were developed and constructed in Salzburg and marketed across the whole of Europe. Their first customer was the company known today as DieVision Holding B.V. in Holland; when the equipment was installed in 1980, this marked the beginning of a long-standing, close working relationship and friendship between both diemakers. So it was not surprising that Frans Valkenburg, the owner of the DieVison Group with plants in Holland, Belgium and Poland, was amongst the visitors at the Open House.


f.l.t.r.: Mag. Günther Petsche, Ing. Gerald Minniberger,
Andrea Minniberger, Winfried Bieling, Veronika Bieling

Gerald Minniberger, who has been running the Bieling & Petsche operations since 1996, continued to explain that his company now has four laser systems with a total capacity of 8,500 watts, plus 10 rule bending machines, two cutting machines for straight rules, three high pressure water systems for processing rubber, three milling cutters for Pertinax and steel as well as three special installations for producing stripping tools. At each plant, both flat form and rotary tools are built. The range of services offered also includes stripping and blank separation tools. At the same time as the move into the new building in Elixhausen, the diemaking company Andreas Moser Laserstanzformen GmbH was also acquired and integrated into the new location. This was achieved with the full support of Andreas Moser who is currently plant manager at Elixhausen.

An additional milestone in Bieling & Petsche’s development was reached in 2012. This was the year when CITO-SYSTEM GmbH joined the company as a partner. This business relationship is also based on a long-standing friendship between both company heads who used to work together back in the 80s and is associated with the marketing and development of laser systems.


Presentation of compact measuring devices for die-cut products

During his presentation, company director and partner of CITO-SYSTEM GmbH, Jürgen Marien, focused on the collaboration within the DieFutureGroup. This is a development alliance where CITO works together with the European diemakers already mentioned in this article. Mr Marien talked about the joint developments that have already been implemented in the tooling used by Bieling & Petsche and the DieVision Group. Due to the market demand of the diecutting industry, these developments are increasingly being used by other diemakers. Whilst the current projects were being presented, two subject areas aroused particular interest amongst the visitors at the Open House event: the compact measuring devices for die-cut products which were introduced and the project for an alternative base sheet material for cutting dies. The DieFutureGroup is working on a new material which possesses a much better dimensional stability than wood, is also lighter than wood and which in addition should show a big improvement in terms of being CO2 neutral. Jürgen Marien then continued by stating that he anticipates the first cutting dies made with this material to be in production in 2014.

The Open House event continued until the following day. On Saturday 17 May 2014, neighbours from Elixhausen, friends of the company and staff family members were given the opportunity to get to know the plant better. The employees’ offspring were particularly interested to find out all the things their dads have to deal with during the working day! Throughout both days, additional excitement was provided in the form of an archery tournament. No-one was surprised when Friday’s winner was a customer from Switzerland, because he was simply carrying on the tradition of William Tell. Musical entertainment was provided on the Friday by the upbeat songs of cabaret artist Walter Martetschläger.