KHS Group: very good incoming orders and successful development in business year 2013

The KHS Group has been able to considerably strengthen its position in an extremely competitive and dynamic market environment. With a turnover of €1,017.8 million KHS was 3.9% up on its figure for the previous year and exceeded the million-euro mark for the first time. Incoming orders rose by 11.3% last year, clocking up a total of €1,131.5 million. Profit before taxes, which in 2012 was slightly in the red, increased to €10.6 million. Compared to 2011, this is an improvement of over €90 million.

In 2103 KHS realized 32.8% of sales in Europe, 16.5% in the Middle East and Africa, 21.9% in the Asia/Pacific region and 28.8% in the USA and Latin America. KHS is the partner of choice for both big concerns and small and medium-sized enterprises, wherever they are in the world. 

 
Innovation as a market force

On the markets KHS chiefly scored with its energy and resource-saving innovations for the sustainable economic success of its clients. Labeling and container dressing and new filling and packaging systems were the prime areas of development in 2013. At the leading international drinktec 2013 trade show KHS presented a spectacular array of new products, among them technology for the direct printing of PET bottles and the innovative Nature MultiPack packaging system, where PET bottles are turned into multipacks merely by the application of a special adhesive. These were two really disruptive innovations, as both systems enable significant savings in packaging material to be made, these marketed under the single umbrella of NMP Systems GmbH. With its new rotary aseptic machine KHS also launched a safe and reliable system for the bottling of sensitive beverages in the high-capacity range. Monitoring systems, such as the MES manufacturing execution system, were also further developed and the app-based KHS everywhere info system was introduced.
 
Consistent customer orientation

The conversions business was one of the mainstays of KHS Service in 2013, with no less than 947 conversions commissioned – a plus of 34.7% compared to 2012. Innovative systems like AirbackPlus for the cost-effective and sustainable manufacture of PET bottles also had an important role to play here. KHS also released a number of new service concepts – for example detailed consultancy prior to investment and service packages tailored to specific customer needs across the entire life cycle of their lines and machines. These are further important generators of business. KHS' vision, which the company is consistently pursuing, is to be first choice in technology and service.
 
Trusted partner worldwide

One of the special projects for 2013 was the order from Unicer Bebidas, a beverage manufacturer and the biggest beer producer in Portugal. KHS supplied the company with two turnkey glass lines, three glass bottle fillers, three keg washers and rackers and another pasteurizer. In 2013 the Carlsberg Group also opted for no less than three PET lines, for instance. Coca-Cola Enterprises, to date primarily a consistent partner for complete glass and canning lines, invested in a KHS PET line for the first time. Also worth mentioning are the many orders which came from the booming craft brewery scene in the USA. For example, last year Lakefront Brewery took delivery of the newly launched Innofill Glass Micro glass bottler, Oskar Blues Brewery invested in its second KHS canner and the traditional brewery D.G. Yuengling & Son again went for a KHS kegging system.

KHS' endeavor to act as an innovative trendsetter in the industry – with a clear focus on its customers – is thus mirrored by its successful international project business and very good order situation.
 
Optimistic prognosis

For the fiscal year 2014 the KHS Executive Management Board believes that sales and profits will again be well above the previous year’s level.

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Matthias Niemeyer, CEO of KHS GmbH, says, "Our high capacity utilization, lively service business and the success of the Fit4Future program form the foundations of this prognosis. We believe that a growth of 4% for 2014 is quite realistic."
 
 

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KHS GmbH is one of the leading manufacturers of filling and packaging systems for the beverage, food and non-food industries. Headquartered in Dortmund, Germany, the company has over 4,500 employees worldwide. 

KHS GmbH is a wholly owned subsidiary of Salzgitter AG. With around 25,000 employees throughout the globe the German steel and technology group achieved a turnover of over €9 billion in the business year 2013. Within the Salzgitter Group the KHS Group and two other special machine manufacturers make up the technology division and are part of the core business of the MDAX-listed corporation.