From local company to global enterprise with a recipe for sustained success: Zünd Systemtechnik AG in Altstätten celebrates 25 years.
Together with 125 employees and their families, business associates, local community and political leaders, Karl Zünd celebrated his company’s 25th anniversary and inaugurated the new Minergie-P building. He also took this opportunity to announce that, at the beginning of 2010, he would formally turn over Zünd Systemtechnik AG’s day-to-day operations to his sons, Mike and Oliver Zünd. Karl Zünd will maintain his leadership role in strategic planning, ensuring Zünd‘s continuity in maintaining local roots while exerting global influence. He will continue to actively participate in management and preside over the company’s board of directors.
Introducing numerous technical innovations over the years, Karl Zünd has successfully evolved the company from a small business to a worldwide leading manufacturer of digital cutting systems.
The crowning event of the company’s 25-year festivities was the inauguration of the latest expansion of its headquarters, the first Minergie-P industrial building in Switzerland.
In 1984, the company’s early days, Karl Zünd began distributing Wild flatbed cutters. Within two years, he had recruited a number of engineers to help develop new tool heads and other add-ons, such as an automatic advance mechanism for rolled materials. Five years later, he brought the first Zünd plotter, the P-1200, to market. Multifunctional tool heads and a systematic pursuit of modularity formed the basis of Zünd’s diversification strategy and, to this day, continue to provide the gateway to many new opportunities.
Today Zünd is the leading supplier of flatbed cutters to the graphics industry worldwide and a close second in packaging. In the leather and textile industries as well, Zünd is among the principal providers of digital cutting systems. „These days,” as Mr. Zünd sums it up, “we are virtually surrounded by products that come off our cutters—products that at some stage have been cut, routed, or scored with Zünd equipment.”
With its innovative products, Zünd continues to set milestones in cutting technology. A little more than a year ago, the company launched G3, the third and most advanced generation of Zünd digital cutters/routers.
Just in time for the anniversary, Zünd Systemtechnik AG moved into the third expansion of its headquarters in Altstätten, Switzerland. The new addition is bound to attract nationwide attention since it is the country’s first industrial building certified as Minergie-P. It utilizes 5 times less energy than newly constructed conventional buildings and produces 5 times less CO2. Approximately 12% of total building costs went toward meeting Minergie-P standards. The building’s future-oriented architecture is a reflection of Zünd’s corporate culture of responsibility toward man and nature. It combines economic efficiency with sustainability and harmony with nature.
