The Egyptian subsidiary of the Heilbronn-based diemaker Marbach, celebrates its 25th anniversary. The Marbach Group was founded in 1923 as a 3-man business supplying to mainly domestic advertising and packaging industry. Marbach then began a process of internationalisation in 1984. In 1995 Marbach started a joint venture in Egypt.
Peter Marbach, Managing Director of the Marbach Group said, “The year 1972 was revolutionary for us as the first CO2 laser cutting system in Europe for cutting-die production was installed at our Heilbronn plant. This allowed us to achieve a unique quality and efficiency in tool production. Increasingly inquiries from abroad led to the first joint ventures followed by new production facilities in various countries.”
The Marbach Joint Venture in Egypt began operations in June 1995 and started supplying customers in North Africa with cutting tools. In 2004 the company moved to a second location in the free-trade zone of Alexandria.
Mohamed Shaheen, Managing Director of Marbach Egypt, has been involved from the very beginning, “We started back then with a single 400-watt laser machine and a total of 5 employees. In the beginning, our customers were almost all from Egypt. In the course of time, word got around about the exceptional quality of our tools. We currently supply tools to all North African countries.”
Today Marbach Egypt has a workforce of 75 employees. The production area has been increased considerably. Shaheen explains, “Our machine equipment is also impressive: we have a very modern machine park. This includes several laser machines with a total output of more than 5,000 watts, various milling machines, rule processing machines as well as water-jet cutting systems.”
Marbach Egypt is one of the Marbach Group’s 20 subsidiaries and supplies more than 1,500 customers with cutting tools in Marbach’s quality.