Westerwälder Elektro Osmose – past and future
In 1924, the Aloys Josef Müller family bought the company together with the clay socage belonging to it from Graf-Schwerin-Aktiengesellschaft in Berlin.
Decisive for the purchase at that time was the clay socage with the clay deposit, which is still today the basis for all products manufactured in the works. The own clay pit “Timpel” secured the independence and the economical supply of raw material to the company in the past and is the guarantor for its supply with high quality clays from the Westerwald in future.
In 1926, the first single kiln was constructed in order to start with the production of stoneware pipes for the property drainage system. In the same year, the Osmose technology was given up in Staudt, but the company-name, for historical reasons, remained until today.
Whereas the stoneware pipes were sold through an own sales department and on own account at the beginning, the company Osmose became member of the Verkaufsgesellschaft Deutscher Steinzeugwerke mbH in Cologne on 1st January 1932 until its dissolution in 2003.
Over and above that, since 1967, under the registered product name NISOTT, the company from the Westerwald produces and sells also chamotte chimney pipes.
Apart from traditional plastic pressed round and square pipes, isostatic pressed chamotte pipes are produced. This new technology, originally belonging to the porcelain industry, secures the company Osmose a privileged position on the chimney market. With this new high pressure technology, the cold isostatic pressing, from a special granular material with a forming pressure of more than 600 bar, the socket pipe called OSMOTEC is produced.
With entrepreneurial far-sightedness, Osmose started in 1974 to build up, around an existing annular chamber kiln, a production line for salt glazed split tiles. The fast and consequent development of the new division tiles is now the core business of the company with an annual capacity of 3,5 million square metres. The so-called split tile production, the name of which comes from the splitting of the double pressed tile, does no longer exist in the company Osmose since 1997. Modern manufacturing facilities with roller kilns produce plastic pressed tiles, which, not only in design but also in size, clearly stand out from traditional split tiles. The main emphasis of today’s tiles production is put on dry-pressed glazed fine stoneware tiles. The last investment took account the change of the market demands by setting into operation a production line for tiles in large size in 2006.
Through the construction of the first perfect continuous mill in Germany, Osmose exclusively produces, since April 1998, glazed fine stoneware with a water absorption according to DIN EN 14 411 of less than 0,5 %. The pores are smaller, there are less, and the consistence is higher. Our fine grinding technique guarantees a greatest possible security with regard to frost resistance and a quality standard on highest level.
Apart from a manufacturing top performance and the creation of humane workplaces it is also consistently invested in Staudt into environmental protection.
As the first company in the Westerwald, Osmose, in the tiles division, parted with the old tunnel kiln technique and now exclusively produces in modern computerized roller kilns.
Through the reduction of the burning time from formerly 36 hours in the tunnel kiln to 60 minutes in the roller kiln, the energy consumption was drastically reduced. Modern filter systems, own industrial water cycles and environmentally friendly glazes are only some additional measures of this exemplary commitment.
OSMOSE main points of development
1914: Foundation of Westerwälder Elektro Osmose, Tongewerkschaft
1916: Sale of Osmoton to the technical porcelain industry
1926: Start of the production of stoneware pipes in single kilns
1932: Joining Verkaufsgesellschaft Deutscher Steinzeugwerke mbH
1955: Construction of an annular chamber kiln for stoneware pipes
1968: Production of plastic chamotte chimney pipes in the tunnel kiln
1974: Start of the production of salt glazed split tiles in an annular chamber kiln
1978: Construction of a tunnel kiln for the production of glazed split tiles
1983: Construction of the first roller kiln for plastic pressed tiles
1991: Start of the production of dry-pressed tiles
1998: Construction of a perfect continuous mill for the production of glazed fine stoneware
1998: Putting into operation of a cold isostatic chimney pipe press
2001: Change-over of the plastic chimney pipe production to robots
2003: Installation of automatic sorting lines
2006: Construction of the 6th roller kiln for glazed fine stoneware in large size