Nearly 14 years after two Austrian machinery companies combined forces, Wittmann Group is dropping the Battenfeld brand name from its injection molding machinery.
The decision does not include any organizational or company name change, only the brand strategy.
Wittmann Kunststoffgeräte GmbH bought Battenfeld Kunststoffmaschinen GmbH in April 2008, and since then the company has used two brands: Wittmann for auxiliary equipment including robots, and Wittmann Battenfeld for injection molding machines.
"In recent years, though, the group's competitive edge of being able to offer complete solutions from a single source has gained substantially in significance," the Kottingbrunn-based company said in a Dec. 23 news release.
"In due consideration of this development, the one-stop-shop advantage is now to be given special emphasis by a uniform brand designation and color scheme for the entire product range. This is why the Wittmann Group has decided to use the Wittmann logo for all of its advertising activities and product lines in future."
The change will start Jan. 1, 2022, and will be completed by the K 2022 trade show in October, the company said.
Battenfeld has been a well-known plastics machinery brand for decades. The company traces its origins to 1876, when it was founded as a metalworking shop. It added injection molding equipment in 1948, and started to expand globally after opening a factory in Meinerzhagen, Germany, in 1954. Battenfeld added a second plant, in Kottingbrunn, in 1962.
Battenfeld made headlines in the 1990s with its large machines, including some with clamping forces of more than 8,000 metric tons. But Battenfeld ran into financial problems in the early 2000s and closed the Meinerzhagen factory — which made those ultra-large presses — in 2005.
Industrial conglomerate SMS GmbH sold Battenfeld to German private equity firm Adcuram Industriekapital AG in 2006, but Adcuram did not keep the business for long. Family-owned Wittmann Group bought Battenfeld in 2008. At the time, Wittmann specialized in robots, auxiliary equipment and molds.
Just prior to the Fakuma 2021 trade show, CEO Michael Wittmann said the company was on track to record between 360 million ($417 million) and 380 million euros ($440 million) in sales this year, up 21 percent from 2020. The company has 2,240 employees.