Sulzer

Formation and growth

The company Gebrüder Sulzer, Foundry in Winterthur was founded in 1834 by Johann Jacob Sulzer. His sons, Johann Jakob and Salomon produced cast iron and built fire extinguishers, pumps and apparatus for the textile industry; later, they also started installing heaters. In 1836 the workforce grew to some forty journeymen, subworkers and apprentices. In 1839, a foundry was added, a mechanical workshop was set up, and the first steam engine was built and installed in Winterthur (1841). In 1845, the company's own "Sick Support Association for Factory Workers" was founded. This later became the Sulzer Health Insurance Fund; this was renamed Provita in 1997 and now operates as an independent health insurance fund as part of the SWICA insurance company. In 1851, English engineer Charles Brown joined Sulzer. With the development of new steam engines, he was instrumental for the early success and growth of the company. In 1859, the first "partnership agreement" between the Sulzer brothers was signed. New products were introduced, first steam engines, later also ships, a new organization and production methods. In approximately 1860, Sulzer opened its first foreign sales office in Turin, and the company participated in the world exhibition in Paris in 1867. The workforce had grown by then to more than 1,000 workers.

In 1870, Switzerland's first company-owned vocational school with training workshops was founded. In 1872, 24 workers' dwellings were built in Winterthur by the “Gesellschaft für Erstellung billiger Wohnhäuser” (Society for Affordable Housing Construction). Further apartment buildings in addition to private homes followed in other parts of Winterthur.

From 1880, steam engines particularly contributed to the growth of Sulzer to around 2,000 employees. In 1881 a branch was founded in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany. In 1898, the first Sulzer diesel engine was developed in cooperation with Rudolf Diesel. By approximately 1900, the company had over 3,000 employees and sales offices in Milan, Paris, Cairo, London, Moscow and Bucharest, as well as the Japanese city of Kobe from 1914.

As a family business, the company had grown over the years in the form of a general partnership, and in June 1914 it was converted into two stock corporations with registered offices in Winterthur and Ludwigshafen am Rhein, both of which were renamed Gebrüder Sulzer Aktiengesellschaft. In 1917, both companies were bundled in a holding structure under the name Sulzer-Unternehmungen AG and subsequently the foreign sales offices were also transferred to independent companies. Sulzer initiates Switzerland’s first regularly published in-house magazine in 1919. At the same time, the technical customer magazine “Technische Rundschau Sulzer” (later “Sulzer Technical Review”) was launched.

During the 1930s, production fell by two thirds as a result of the global economic crisis, and personnel was massively reduced.