Clouth Sprenger - Making good things even better
What began back in 2003, by sealing a joint venture agreement with a pragmatic handshake, is today a 20-year success story.

How it all began
The managing directors of Horst Sprenger GmbH in Moers and Joh. Clouth GmbH in Hückeswagen decided back then to consolidate the expertise of their teams in a joint venture to produce coated creping blades and coater blades for the tissue and paper industry. Customers enjoy a twofold advantage here: On the one hand the longer service lives of the products maximise their productivity, whilst the paper quality is also sustainably enhanced.

Horst Sprenger is a specialist in coater blade metering systems and Joh. Clouth is the world market leader in doctor blades. And so it was that Clouth Sprenger GmbH, based in Moers, was born.

The aim was to become a reliable supplier of coated creping blades and coater blades for our partners in the paper industry.

The initial staff of three was limited in size. The company moved into a 700 m² hall on the site of Horst Sprenger GmbH and invested in the early machines; a first production line was established, initially for aluminium oxide-titanium oxide coated creping and coater blades. Brimming with confidence and certainty that the product could be sold successfully as long as it was of the right quality.

But what may sound like a straightforward undertaking today demanded a challenging "trial and error" phase back then. The technology had further developed and the competition was initially well ahead, while there was also a lack of experience in the grinding process used to produce the blades. The grinding wheels, which are crucial for the final product quality, initially lasted only 5 metres and were then worn out. It goes without saying that the ratio of saleable products to rejects was not favourable.

Always optimally networked
At this point, however, what was to become key to Clouth Sprenger GmbH's success going forward became clearly apparent: the will to succeed, the perseverance and inventiveness of the entire team, as well as a solid connection to the region. A small manufacturer of grinding wheels was in operation in Remscheid, where Joh. Clouth was based before relocating to Hückeswagen. Inspired by the idea and in support of the project, grinding wheels that met the requirements were now available in a record time of 24 hours. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the entire team with initially limited resources, we took a giant leap forwards with our development within a period of just 3 months.

From that point on, our company grew continuously. New colleagues joined us - from the application technology team, which develops the optimally adapted products for our customers, to the employees in research and quality assurance, to a dedicated administration team.

Sometimes things turn out differently - but equally successful
Although we had originally only targeted the coater blade market, we succeeded in establishing ourselves around the world in the field of coated creping blades in particular, and we now supply one third of Europe's market. The company grew as more employees came to work at the site - all of whom demonstrated the same desire to move the company forward and to constantly improve production and product quality.

In addition to CERADIA^® creping blades, which are perfectly adapted to the customer's process, Clouth Sprenger also focuses on the optimal performance of the creping blade holder. As such, in addition to our V-Guard - the online vibration monitoring system, we also offer the low-vibration Galeno creping system. Both are proprietary developments from Clouth Sprenger.

Join us today in celebrating the successes of the Clouth Sprenger team, which drives our customers' manufacturing processes forwards with the familiar degree of reliability, expertise, commitment and our brand-leading CERADIA^® quality.

-----------

Do you actually already know our LinkedIn company page? Here you will find new and informative posts every week. Just click here and follow us. This way you will not miss any news and you will always be up to date regarding the Clouth Group.