KHS Maschinen- und Anlagenbau, a German-based international manufacturer of filling and packaging systems for the beverage trade has posted a strong set of results for the financial year 2001/2002 on the back of increased sales.
Reversing a worldwide trend in declining order receipts in the mechanical engineering sector, the KHS Group increased its order receipts by 14 per cent from €536 million to €609 million. According to the company, the improvement has largely been due the response to the alignment of its machine programme to meet customer requirements.
KHS Group sales increased to €557 million from €538 million the previous year. The overall per capita employee performance is approximately €208,000. At the end of the financial year effective 30 September 2002, the KHS Group employed a workforce of 2,643 employees (from 2,712 the year before).
The result before taxes (preliminary figure) clearly indicates the upward development of the group. Compared to the previous year, this result increased by €50 million to €29 million.
The focus of development for KHS during the past year has been on the fields of filling, labelling, and packaging technology with primary emphasis on innovative PET concepts, a market which is currently experiencing rapid growth.
Among the innovations the group has developed is a new combined filling system that is equally predestined for filling beer in glass as well as plastic bottles. The company claims that with this filling system, breweries can specifically avoid investment risks in the future. New filler and rinser concepts in the cold aseptic sector likewise meet the worldwide trend toward PET packaging. Trade-oriented further development additionally took place in the field of sleeve labelling as well as in the modular concept for packing and palletizing machines.
More than €13 million was invested in various KHS plants as well as in expansion of the KHS Bad Kreuznach site where an investment was made in a new technical centre.
The KHS Group maintains plants in Germany, Brazil, the United States, Mexico, and India. By integrating the Kisters Maschinenbau company into the KHS Group from the beginning of next year, KHS will be expanding the number of production plants in Germany to include locations Kleve and Arolsen.