
Hansgrohe Assembly Line_1950s_120 Year Logo
What began 120 years ago with three employees in the Black Forest town of Schiltach is now the Hansgrohe Group, an international fittings and shower specialist with around 4,700 employees.
September 2021. There are three characteristics that run like a thread through Hansgrohe’s corporate history and have made a decisive contribution to the successful development of the Hansgrohe Group. With an inexhaustible passion for the element of water, sustainable innovative power and the constant pursuit of perfection, the fittings and shower specialist has become a global player in the sanitation industry since its founding 120 years ago. In Schiltach, a highly innovative region of the Black Forest, where the heart of the company still beats today, Hans Grohe, a trained clothier from Luckenwalde in the Eastern part of Germany, began producing metal spinning products with three employees. Today, with around 4,700 employees, Hansgrohe is considered one of the world’s leading manufacturers of faucets and showers. The company markets high-quality products under its brands AXOR and hansgrohe, the majority of which are manufactured in Germany, at its headquarters in Schiltach and in nearby Offenburg. It also has foreign production capacities in France, China and the USA. Worldwide, the sanitation specialist operates 32 companies and 22 sales offices and supplies faucets and showers to more than 146 countries around the globe.
The Right Instinct
Without a doubt, it was a courageous step that Hans Grohe took two years after moving from Luckenwalde to Schiltach. At that time, he turned his back on weaving and discovered the production of metal goods such as brass pans, clock parts or stovepipe rosettes for himself. From the very beginning, sheet metal showers were also part of the product range of Hans Grohe’s small business. The tinkerer had the right instinct: at the beginning of the 20th century, the private home bathroom came into fashion and Hans Grohe soon specialized entirely in metal goods for the sanitary sector. In the decades that followed, he devoted himself passionately to the further development of his showers and quickly advanced to become the shower specialist in the German sanitary industry. With his ideas, he played a decisive role in shaping Hansgrohe’s corporate history and the future of shower culture. From 1928, his hand-held shower developed into a comfortable alternative to the overhead shower that was common at the time. His ideas continued to shape the style of modern shower technology for many decades. Even at the age of 82, the company founder achieved a stroke of sanitary genius: He invented the shower bar, on which the hand-held shower could be fixed at any height – today a standard in bathrooms all over the world.
Unbridled Drive
Alongside company founder Hans Grohe, who ran the business for 54 years, it was above all his youngest son Klaus who had a decisive influence on the development of the sanitation specialist. He joined his father’s company in 1968 and led it for 33 years from 1975 onwards, developing Hansgrohe from a German drain specialist into one of the world’s leading manufacturers of faucets and showers. The Hansgrohe Group is not to be confused with Grohe: In 1934, Friedrich Grohe, second eldest son of founder Hans Grohe, left Schiltach and two years later took over a faucet factory in Hemer, in the Northwestern part of Germany. This company is known today as Grohe and is managed as a brand of the Japanese Lixil Corporation. At Hansgrohe in Schiltach, Klaus Grohe took over in 1977 and introduced the hansgrohe brand name in the same year. For the first time, he made environmental protection and sustainability an issue in the sanitary industry, drove forward the development of energy- and water-saving products, and paid attention to environmentally friendly and resource-conserving production. With the launch of the AXOR brand in 1993, Klaus Grohe laid the foundation for the creation of iconic objects for luxurious bathrooms and kitchens. Since then, in collaboration with world-renowned architects and designers, faucets, showers and accessories have been created in a wide variety of styles and to the highest quality standards. These distinctive design objects are another expression of the passion for perfection that Klaus Grohe instilled in the company. His management style was characterized by his pragmatic approach and energetic drive, but also by down-to-earth character. His credo as a perfectionist was: “Good is the Enemy of Better.” He chaired the Hansgrohe Supervisory Board from 2008 to 2015 and is now its honorary chairman.
From Family Business to Global Corporation
Klaus Grohe’s two eldest sons continued the family tradition in the operating business. Richard Grohe was Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board from 2008 to 2016. He developed hansgrohe into a world-renowned premium brand with numerous innovations. His brother Philippe led the design brand AXOR from 2001 to 2016. In his tenure, he collaborated with many renowned designers such as Philippe Starck, Antonio Citterio or Patricia Urquiola and helped the brand achieve its international break-through. Both brothers made a significant contribution to the success of Hansgrohe’s corporate history in the new millennium and laid the foundation for the transformation of the Hansgrohe Group from a family business to a medium-sized corporation. The brothers stepped down from executive positions in 2016. Since then, the founding family has accompanied the company from a shareholder perspective. Since May 2018, Klaus Grohe’s son Richard has been a member of the Supervisory Board of the Hansgrohe Group, which is run as a European public limited company but is not listed on the stock exchange. The two main shareholders are the US-based Masco Corporation (68 percent of the shares) and the Grohe family via Syngroh Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungs-GmbH (32 percent of the shares).
Pushing Ahead with Structural Change
Hans Juergen Kalmbach has led the company as Chairman of the Executive Board since August 1, 2018. A graduate in business administration, he began his career with the Hansgrohe Group in 1998. Since then, he has held several national and international management positions, most recently being responsible for international sales as a member of the Executive Board. “We are driving structural change through efficient processes, a targeted growth strategy and the further development of our corporate philosophy. In doing so, we benefit today, and have benefitted in the past, from the qualities that have distinguished Hansgrohe and made it strong for 120 years,” says Hans Juergen Kalmbach. “Firstly, from a culture of quality-oriented innovation that has grown and is practiced in all areas of the company; secondly, from consistent international market cultivation, the core of which dates back as far as 1907 with the start of the export business by Hans Grohe. And thirdly, from the extraordinarily high level of commitment and great flexibility of our employees, on whom we can always rely. Even as a globally active group, we have never forgotten our roots as a medium-sized family business. Passion, innovation, and the pursuit of perfection have a long tradition with us. And so, in the future we can continue to build our strength on the basic building blocks of our success: continuous innovation, uncompromising quality and design, and responsibility towards society and the environment.”
Focus on People
“The fact that our company is today considered one of the innovation leaders in technology and design in the international sanitary industry is primarily due to our relentless search for better solutions,” CEO Hans Juergen Kalmbach is convinced. “Like our company founder Hans Grohe and his son Klaus, we are not satisfied with good things today, but look for even better solutions for tomorrow. The goal of every new development is to increase customer benefits and thus create real added value. Innovation must make people’s lives easier or more convenient.” Examples of pioneering innovations include the shower bar (1953), to which any hand-held shower can be fixed at any height, the Tribel (1974), the world’s first hand-held shower with adjustable spray types, and the Select technology (2011), which allows the flow of water in the kitchen and bathroom to be controlled at the simple touch of a button. Even 120 years after the company was founded, the constant optimization of water flow is a driving force within Hangrohe. Throughout its history, Hansgrohe has adhered to inventing quality products for the bathroom and kitchen. From an early stage, the highest functionality of products goes hand in hand with beautifully designed products. When Klaus Grohe began commissioning industrial design professionals such as Hartmut Esslinger (Frog Design), Phoenix Design and Philippe Starck to develop products in the 1970s, design became an integral part of the corporate culture. As a decisive quality feature, it established the success of branded products from the Black Forest in global competition. More than 15,000 industrial property rights and more than 600 awards from independent juries in international design competitions show, that the art of engineering and creativity are of outstanding importance. In collaboration with some of the world’s most successful architects and product designers, timeless forms are created for bathrooms and kitchens. As individual and as different as people themselves, the products express different styles: from the vibrantly functional eat-in kitchen to the nature-inspired haven of calm in the bathroom.
Tradition Obliges
Just as it was in the three-man operation back in the days, quality is also a cornerstone of the Hansgrohe philosophy today. The “Made by Hansgrohe” quality concept applies to all production sites around the globe, from Schiltach to Shanghai. This stands for “German Engineering” and encompasses the highest standards of product quality. “Our customers can rely on safe, stable and sustainable faucets, showers and shower systems with a long service life,” the Chairman of the Executive Board explains. “For the Hansgrohe Group, quality also means the highest standards of service. Customer wishes are already included in the development process.” In production today, Hansgrohe continues to rely on selected materials, high-tech and precision work for high-quality and environmentally friendly manufacturing.
Responsibility for the Environment, Employees and Society
Hansgrohe’s passion for water since 1901 is strongly linked to its corporate and social responsibility for the environment, its employees and society. For example, the company was one of the first in the sanitation industry to start looking at water and energy efficiency of its products. The research and development department passionately works on new technologies that reduce water consumption, such as EcoSmart, Air Power or CoolStart. This allows water and energy to be saved in everyday use without sacrificing design or ease of use. AirPower technology, for example, mixes water with air, making drops plump and soft, enhancing showering pleasure and water efficiency. Always oriented to the needs of its customers, Hansgrohe develops and optimizes its products to ensure their durability, repairability, resource conservation and safety.
Efficient products and manufacturing processes are only part of Hansgrohe’s lived responsibility. As early as the late 1980s, it was one of the first companies in the sanitary industry to introduce an environmental management system. In 1992, Klaus Grohe implemented the construction of what was then the largest roof-integrated solar power plant in Europe on the new factory building in Offenburg, Germany. Three years later, the state Minister of Environment awarded the company with the Environmental Prize for special achievements in environmental protection. In the same year, Hansgrohe became the first company in the sanitary industry to be certified in accordance with the EU’s Eco-Audit Regulation. And today, too, the focus is consistently on further development into a sustainable company. “At Hansgrohe, protecting the environment and assuming social responsibility are integral parts of the corporate culture,” confirms CEO Hans Juergen Kalmbach. “It is lived at all of our production, logistics and sales locations worldwide. We operate an environmental performance indicator system and are focusing on the climate compatibility of our sites and products in this decade. Our goal is to have climate-neutral production at all our production sites worldwide in terms of direct emissions and energy by 2022, and additionally in terms of products by 2030.
For Hansgrohe, sustainability also means taking responsibility for social issues. The company offers its employees numerous initiatives on health, occupational safety, employability, and work-life balance. At the same time, employees can continue their training and development within the company’s internal campus. Outside Hansgrohe, too, the sanitary specialist is committed to fair, humane working conditions and demands these from its partners. In addition, the Group is involved in a wide range of social projects that focus on water as the elixir of life, such as the current “Clean Danube” project with Dr. Andeas Fath, or the reintroduction of salmon to the Kinzig River in the Black Forest.
“The future needs origins, they say. We are proud of our roots and our company history and look forward to continuing this with our inherent passion, flexibility and our dedicated employees,” affirms Hansgrohe CEO, Hans Juergen Kalmbach.
Pictures
120 Years Hansgrohe
From a Black Forest Workshop to a Global Player
Hans und Klaus Grohe 1937
1937: Hans Grohe Sr. with his third son Klaus Grohe on his arm. Like his father, Klaus Grohe has shaped Hansgrohe for decades with a great inventive spirit and drive.
Hansgrohe Firmenwagen
1930: Hans Grohe buys a used motor vehicle. It is converted into a delivery van and serves as the company’s first vehicle. This allows the products to be transported to the train station for shipment. In the Kinzigtal, the car is known by the nickname “Dahlgutsch” (valley carriage).
Hansgrohe Fertigung 1909
1909: A factory building is added to the residential house in the Auestrasse in Schiltach. The first floor houses the production department, the upper floor the warehouse and the shipping department; the office is located in the residential building. For the first time, it is now possible to produce with electricity instead of the unreliable waterpower.
HG Selecta 1968
1968: The Hansgrohe Selecta is added to the range. It is the world’s first hand-held shower with adjustable spray types. It sells over 30 million units and is widely copied.
Unica Handbrause Porzellangriff
1953: Even at the age of 82, the company founder achieved a stroke of sanitary genius: He invented the shower bar, on which the hand-held shower could be fixed at any height – today a standard in bathrooms all over the world.
Tribel
1974: The Hansgrohe Tribel is the first convertible hand-held shower with three different spray types. It is created in collaboration with Esslinger Design and marks the beginning of a new product development process. From now on, design becomes an integral part of the corporate culture and a decisive quality feature of the branded products from the Black Forest in global competition.
Hansgrohe SE WSA
In Schiltach, in the middle of a highly innovative region of the Black Forest, Hans Grohe founded his company 120 years ago. This is still where the heart of Hansgrohe beats today, having developed from a workshop into a global player in the sanitary industry.
Aquademie Außenansicht
The Hansgrohe Aquademie is the Hansgrohe Group’s visitor center at the company’s headquarters in Schiltach. Here, water can be experienced: generously spaced brand worlds feature the product and style worlds of AXOR and hansgrohe, as well as bathroom and kitchen space concepts. Seminars for partners from the trade business and for end consumers, as well as attractive events, make the Hansgrohe Aquademie a visitor magnet for around 70,000 guests a year. The Shower World invites visitors to try out showers, and the Hansgrohe Museum shows the history of the private bathroom from its beginnings to the present day.
Hansgrohe SE WOG Solarturm
Under the management of Klaus Grohe, son of the company’s founder Hans Grohe, ecological thinking and environmental protection take center stage at an early stage. In 1992, he implemented the construction of what was then the largest roof-integrated solar power plant in Europe on the new factory building in Offenburg, Germany. The solar tower, a self-sufficient low-energy building next to the factory, goes into operation in 1994.
Hansgrohe Kunststoffgalvanik Werk OG Luftbild
30 million Euros is the latest investment by the Hansgrohe Group in its new plastics electroplating facility, which covers 10,000 square meters on the existing plant site in Offenburg, Germany. One and a half years after the foundation stone was laid, the large-scale plant was put into operation in spring 2019. (Building on the right center of the picture between other Hansgrohe production buildings).
Founder
Sustainable thinking and action are deeply rooted in the Hansgrohe Group. An attitude that is passed on from generation to generation: From Klaus Grohe (left), son of the founder, to CEO Hans Juergen Kalmbach (right).
Hansgrohe-Group 2021 CEO Kalmbach Hans Juergen
Hans Juergen Kalmbach, Chairman of the Executive Board of Hansgrohe SE.
hansgrohe
Since 2018, Hansgrohe has been testing novel approaches on the path to innovation with the InnoLab in Schramberg (Black Forest). Here, an interdisciplinary team works on completely new product ideas that have the potential to open new markets.
Campus
With six faculties on the topics of digitalization, efficiency, brand, employees & leadership, sales, and strategy & innovation, the Hansgrohe Campus offers employees a wide range of opportunities for personal development. In addition to the learning aspect and the transfer of knowledge, “networking” across all hierarchies is also an important component of the Hansgrohe Campus.
AXOR Starck Coop Motiv Edition1
1994: AXOR and French designer Philippe Starck bring a completely new philosophy to the bathroom with the AXOR Starck collection: it is something revolutionary – both in terms of design and technology. What’s more, with its clear, homely accents, such as wooden floorboards, plastered walls and a large window, the AXOR Starck bathroom from 1994 makes an important contribution to the transformation of the bathroom from a functional wet room to a place of well-being.
hansgrohe group 2020 WSA Strahlforschung
Hansgrohe’s research and development department is passionate about creating new technologies that reduce water consumption without sacrificing design or ease of use. AirPower technology, for example, swirls water with air, making drops plump and soft, increasing showering pleasure and water efficiency. The Hansgrohe spray laboratory optimizes water sprays and their acoustics.
hansgrohe Raindance
2011: The hansgrohe Select operating concept stands for simplified routines in everyday life and fool-proof operation in the bathroom and kitchen. One click is all it takes to change the spray type, activate a different showerhead, or turn the water on and off.
hansgrohe group 2020 WOG Montage
Today, around 4,700 employees work for the internationally positioned company. The majority of the high-quality AXOR and Hansgrohe products are manufactured in Germany, at the headquarters in Schiltach and in nearby Offenburg.
hansgrohe group 2020 WSW Poliererei
In production, Hansgrohe continues to rely on selected materials, high-tech and precision work for high-quality and environmentally friendly manufacturing.
innovation axor pvd
PVD surfaces are produced in an exclusive service area of the Schiltach production plant for individualized faucets, showers and accessories. AXOR Signature Services currently offers 15 standard surfaces and coordinates every other color request with the customer. In this way, every modification gives the bathroom a personal signature with high value.
AXOR Edge Production 2
Striving for perfection: The AXOR Edge collection is manufactured using a latest-generation diamond machine developed specifically for this purpose. The diamond tool, known from the aerospace and laser industry, mills the chamfers at an angle of exactly 45° so that they meet with pinpoint accuracy. The fine structural details are created just as precisely: diamonds face the surface of the solid brass block with micrometer accuracy. Line for line, precise pyramid stumps are created in several steps, reflecting a fascinating play of light and shadow.
AXOR Starck Organic
Hansgrohe’s spray research team has developed a new water spray especially for washbasin faucets in the AXOR Starck Organic bathroom collection, which were created in collaboration with Philippe Starck. Like a generous showerhead, the faucet has 90 individual small openings from which countless gently pearling drops fall. These provide an added water experience and functionality, as the water flow rate is just 3.5 liters per minute.
RainTunes Good Morning
Driven by the question of what significance digitalization has for its customers, an interdisciplinary innovation team developed a product that fundamentally changes the shower experience – RainTunes. The digital system networks water, light, sound and smell and appeals to all the senses with various shower scenarios.
AXOR MyEdition FinishPlus Ambience
25 years after its creation, AXOR presented its anniversary collection AXOR MyEdition in 2018 – a new dimension of individualization. The faucets of the collection offer over 225 design variants in the selection of body surface and material of the support plate.
About the Hansgrohe Group – Setting the Beat of Water. Since 1901.
With its brands AXOR and hansgrohe, the Hansgrohe Group, based in Schiltach/Southern Germany, enjoys a reputation as a leader in innovation, design and quality within the bath and kitchen industry. Founded in 1901 in the Black Forest, the company gives water form and function with its faucets, showerheads and shower systems. The 120-year history of the company is marked by innovations, such as the first hand-held shower with multiple spray types, the first pull-out kitchen faucet, and the first wall bar to hold a hand-held shower.The company holds more than 15,000 active property rights. The Hansgrohe Group stands for long-lasting quality products and for responsibility towards people and the environment. Sustainable production of resource-conserving products is central to the company’s business activities around the globe. With 32 subsidiaries and 22 sales offices supplying products in more than 146 countries, the globally active company in the sanitary industry is a reliable partner to its customers in all regions of the world. The Hansgrohe Group, its brands and products have won numerous awards, including more than 600 design prizes since 1974. The products of the Hansgrohe Group are found worldwide: on renowned cruise ships, in luxurious 5-star and boutique hotels, in international metropolitan cities, in extraordinary spas, exclusive bathrooms of lodges and luxury villas, public facilities, as well as in countless private homes. The Group’s high quality standards are ensured by five wholly-owned production facilities: two in Germany, one each in France, the United States and China. In 2020, the Hansgrohe Group generated a turnover of EUR 1.074 billion. It employs more than 4,700 people worldwide, about 60 percent of whom work in Germany.