Outperforming all the others

 From the time when Theodore H. Maiman fired up the first laser in May 1960, engineers at TRUMPF GmbH + Co. KG have begun laying the foundations for an impressive success story.
International Metalworking News –Middle East was fortunate to be invited to INTECH 2011 held at TRUMPF's headquarters in Ditzingen, Germany.
For two days, press representatives all over the world witnessed how TRUMPF fully committed itself to the business. After all, building a family owned-company is a humbling experience, which is something that applies in equal measure to everyone who works for it: managing partners, management executives and employees alike.

40 years of laser
From their very first use in welding mainsprings for watches, through high-quality cutting of materials ranging from extremely thin foils to sheets of metal centimetres thick to the employment of ultra-modern direct diode lasers, the industrial laser owes its success in large part to TRUMPF –and it has done so for the last 40 years.
Peter Leibinger, head of TRUMPF's Laser Technology Division, describes it, "Our goal as a laser manufacturer is to be the first to make cutting-edge technology available for use in manufacturing. We transform the latest research developments into mature products that are suitable for industry." Mathias Kammüller, head of TRUMPF's Machine Tool Division and, like Leibinger, a member of the TRUMPF Group's Management Board, adds: "Laser systems are universal tools that can be used again and again in a huge variety of processes. We offer the right laser in the appropriate machine for each and every application."
TRUMPF has provided numerous such machines to the growing market for laser processing. The first, in 1979, was a combined punch/laser machine equipped with 500 and 700 watt CO₂ lasers that at that time the company still sourced externally. Eight years earlier, watch manufacturer Carl Haas, based in the little town of Schramberg in the Black Forest, had already recognised the suitability of lasers for precision watchmaking applications and built the first solid-state laser. Since Haas is now TRUMPF, this marks the beginning of our company's laser era.

In the decades that followed, both CO₂ and solid-state lasers experienced rapid developments. The year 1985 was a milestone for both technologies, since it was then that TRUMPF became a laser manufacturer on its own with the development and production of the TLF 1000 CO₂ laser, and it was also the year that Haas introduced the first laser light cable for industrial use. Just two years later, TRUMPF brought out the TRUMATIC L 3000, the first flatbed laser machine with flying optics, where the machine table stays still while the cutting head "flies" across the sheet metal.
The year 1995 can be regarded as another hallmark. This was when TRUMPF not only expanded its products' capabilities to include processes such as laser welding and tube cutting, but also for the first time employed a solid-state laser to process thin steel sheets in the TRUMATIC LY 2500 flatbed cutting machine – the forerunner of today's huNIKE AIR HUARACHE