Infrastructure and sites

Just five years after opening its first office building in Ingelfingen, Bürkert expanded by founding a production facility in Strasbourg. This building quickly reached its capacity and so the company constructed a further production facility for thermostats and gas, and oil regulators in Triembach-au-Val, in Alsace, which remains in operation to this day. The picturesque landscape, with its lush greenery, reminded Christian Bürkert of his hometown Ingelfingen, and he felt a deep sense of connection with his new surroundings.

In the years that followed, Bürkert experienced rapid growth, and so, alongside its main location in Ingelfingen, the company opened sales offices in Frankfurt and Hanover to maximise sales potential. The sales-office-based structure established itself part of the company strategy, laying the foundation for the company’s current global presence.

Two additional production facilities were built near Bürkert’s main site: one in Öhringen and one in Gerabronn. Starting in 1960, Öhringen began producing flow controllers for the oil burners of that era, and from 1961 onwards, Gerabronn was manufacturing over a million washing machine valves every year. These two products opened up access to the industrial mass market. In Gerabronn, former employees from a hosiery factory that closed down were hired and retrained – a prime example of the shift in the German industrial landscape.

The establishment of Bürkert Contromatic GmbH in Basel marked one of the most significant milestones in the global expansion of the rapidly growing company. From this base, international operations were managed through dedicated, technical sales subsidiaries with high levels of technical expertise, with Belgium, England, Austria, and The Netherlands leading the way.

To amply accommodate its new organisational models, Bürkert invested approximately €13 million in buildings over a period of 15 years. Additional manufacturing capacities were created at the plants in Gerabronn, Triembach, and Öhringen. A dedicated “chemical area” was set up in the Gerabronn facility to produce epoxy resin in-house, and the headquarters in Ingelfingen was expanded to facilitate the production of plastic valves.

A significant milestone was the construction of a state-of-the-art production facility in the neighbouring town of Criesbach. At Bürkert, the banks played a minimal role as financiers for investments, which is still the case today. Thus Bürkert was able to remain independent and adhere to the founder’s long-term philosophy of making autonomous decisions and managing all key processes and developments independently.

Bürkert began to expand its manufacturing capabilities through investments in other companies. The first such investment was in the company Anschluss-, Kunststoff- und Montagetechnik GmbH (AKM), founded by individuals who had worked at Bürkert for many years. The addition of new partner and subsidiary companies led to increased manufacturing depth and infrastructure.  

As early as the 2000s, the concept of the Systemhaus was firmly established and strong enough to drive a fundamental organisational transformation. In addition to standard products and their custom variants, the Systemhaus could now offer tailored solutions. The first Bürkert Systemhaus was inaugurated in Ingelfingen-Criesbach in 2007. Today, there are five of them across Asia, Europe, and North America.

The Bürkert Innovation Centre in Karlsruhe was established as a central hub for developing pioneering ideas and solutions in fluid technology. Here, teams of engineers, physicists, and mathematicians worked with an interdisciplinary approach on innovative projects. The centre also provided opportunities for students and experienced professionals to work together on cutting-edge projects and experience the Bürkert culture in a dynamic environment.

In Ingelfingen-Criesbach, a production and manufacturing building was constructed, featuring office spaces, a training centre, an underground car park, a company restaurant, and an 18-metre tall high-bay warehouse. Together with the existing buildings, this formed the Bürkert Campus, which was inaugurated during a grand celebration marking the company’s 70th anniversary.

Bürkert had been present in the USA since 1984, initially with just a sales office. This was followed by office buildings with their own development, assembly, and manufacturing operations in Charlotte. In April 2017, Bürkert’s first dedicated production site in the USA was opened in Huntersville, a suburb of Charlotte. To this day, the 16,000 square metres of the facility include areas such as sales, Systemhaus, manufacturing, and assembly.

This was a year marked by global growth: both the 40,000-square-metre, state-of-the-art Bürkert facility in Taicang Port, China, featuring its own production, technology, and logistics centre, and new production and logistics spaces at the French site in Triembach were inaugurated.

Additionally, the company expanded its global reach while staying close to local customers with its new production facility under construction in Pune, India.