Milestone year ends in style

The year 2023 will definitely be one to remember for Dieffenbacher as it saw the company mark the incredible achievement of 150 years in business.

On November 17, the company held its last anniversary event of the year in Finland, with its team and stakeholders joining together to mark the 150th anniversary, 15 years of Dieffenbacher in Finland and 40 years of the panelboard business in Wipaktie 1.

“We would like to thank everyone involved for celebrating with us this year and we look forward to the next 150 years,” the company said after the event.

In the months before there were several other important events – a celebration in China in early September to coincide with the WMF exhibition there. David Ye from SWPM, Dieffenbacher’s CFO Volker Kitzelmann and the team from Dieffenbacher Machinery Services in Beijing were among those joining together for music and dinner.

The international events held by Dieffenbacher subsidiaries took on a flavour of the culture of the countries they were based in, with key customers invited to mark the occasion.

The largest event was held at the Eppingen headquarters in September, when 220 guests were invited to a stakeholder event. The factory assembly hall was transformed into an event space for the occasion.

Three keynote speakers addressed the audience and the hall was divided into two areas.

The first was for ‘brain food’ – with speakers talking about transformation from different perspectives. Presentations covered: mindsets of high performers and companies; climate change and energy transition; and lastly artificial intelligence and how that will transform things in the future.

The second area focused on ‘soul food’ and comprised a dinner attended by the mayor of Eppingen, with the paint booth converted into a dance floor. Stakeholder attendees included customers, suppliers, universities and banks.

The following day was a big employee celebration totalling round 2,400 guests, comprised of employees and their families. This included staff from other German sites and new colleagues from Dieffenbacher Energy in Austria and Poland.

Different stages of the company’s history were mapped out in the hall for people to learn about the company’s historic journey, while live performances were held on a stage and a ‘machine canyon’ with augmented reality projection of a CPS+ press allowed people to see how big a production line was.

Everyone attending had the opportunity of signing a ‘first board’ as a memento of the occasion. The MDF board now hangs in the assembly halls.

In the run-up to the celebrations, Dieffenbacher requested that guests refrain from bringing gifts but instead donate to a good cause.

The response raised €33,130, which CEO Christian Dieffenbacher presented to Petra Köllner-Kleinemeier and Saskia Walker from the COURAGE Foundation for chronically ill children at the Centre for Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine at Heidelberg University Hospital.

The COURAGE Foundation aims to give chronically ill children and adolescents more quality and enjoyment of life beyond medical treatment during their hospital stay. It reinforces their courage, strength, confidence and support in fighting their disease.

The donations collected will help fund an annual two-week vacation camp in the Black Forest for dialysis patients and children and adolescents with kidney and liver transplants. Additionally, the COURAGE Foundation supports several other projects, including “Fit for School,” which aims to enable children to start school with friends of the same age without delays or learning deficits, and the children’s palliative care team in the Rhine-Neckar region.

Several weeks after the Eppingen celebration, an event was also held in Canada, including staff and guests from the US, while in Thailand a CPS training event was combined with a celebration party in a hotel. Two keynote speeches and an evening dinner were organised, with CEO Christian Dieffenbacher in attendance.

Of course, many other events were held earlier in the year, including an anniversary party at the Ligna exhibition, previously covered extensively by WBPI.

2023 will certainly go down as a year to remember for Dieffenbacher, marking its long established and extensive contribution in the technology arena, especially in the wood-based panels sector. The company is busy executing its plans for another 150 years!