Harro Höfliger, based near Stuttgart, specialises in the manufacture

Harro Höfliger, based near Stuttgart,
specialises in the manufacture of production and packaging machines. Joseph Altham reports on a company
whose high standards of quality and
engineering expertise have proved to be
a solid basis for long-term growth.
All you need
H
arro Höfliger was established in 1975. In the early years of the
company’s life, its activities were centred on bag and cartoning
machines, the latter of which still stand out from the competition
today. Harro Höfliger’s horizontal cartoning machines can be supplied with
a customised solution for the product feed system, while the company’s toploading cartoning machines offer the customer the advantage of flexibility
in relation to product combination and packaging size.
However, over the last 20 years, Harro Höfliger has also established
itself as a leading manufacturer of pharmaceutical packaging machines.
Sales of this type of machine first began to exceed sales of machines for the
packaging of food and consumer goods in 1990. Harro Höfliger now offers
a wide range of pharmaceutical production technology and packaging
lines, with pharmaceutical and medical products representing 83 per cent
of sales. The company has designed a capsule-filling machine, the Modu-C
Mid Speed machine, with an output of up to 100,000 capsules per hour.
It also develops machines for the production of wallet and blister packs.
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Micro-dosing technology for inhalants is another growing segment, and
Harro Höfliger’s dosing systems enable accurate control and measurement
of doses for inhalation devices.
Global presence
Harro Höfliger’s customers include many of the biggest names in the pharmaceutical sector, such as Roche, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer. The company
is located in the town of Allmersbach-im-Tal, in the prosperous German
region of Baden Württemberg. But the company is export oriented, with
over 80 per cent of its output sold outside Germany. Back in 1994, Harro
Höfliger opened a sales office in Pennsylvania, and the company now has
offices in Russia, China and Singapore, as well as France and Switzerland.
However, the company combines this global perspective with a personal
touch. Much of its output is customised and it sees the ability to listen
as a key to its success. Turnover has grown from €40 million in 2001
to over €90 million today, and its workforce has grown steadily as well.
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Last year the number of employees broke the 600 barrier, making 2010
an important milestone. Harro Höfliger is now building a new assembly
hall, 3000m2 in area, which will be used for storing specimen materials and
as a training centre.
Process security
Harro Höfliger has positioned itself to ensure it can satisfy the pharmaceutical industry’s requirements in terms of quality, safety and precision. The
company operates a process-oriented quality management system certified
according to ISO 9001. In 2003, it opened its in-house powder laboratory.
Two years later, it set up testing facilities on site, allowing for the trial of
new product lines under controlled conditions and in accordance with good
manufacturing practice (GMP). As a result, Harro Höfliger is well equipped
to offer the process security that pharmaceutical companies demand. Its
powder laboratory enables the company to study the properties of different powders and their level of compatibility with dosing systems. Production machines can be tested in a clean room, 300m2 in area, under actual
production conditions.
Alongside its systems for formed-pack production, the company has
a strong line in web converting technology. Machines in this category are
used for many different purposes, from the manufacture of oral film strips,
which are becoming increasingly popular as a way of giving medicine to
children, to the production of diagnostic strips, which enable patients to
diagnose themselves.
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Excellence United
Harro Höfliger’s innovation and flexibility are supported by its top-class
skills in machine construction. The precision demanded in sophisticated
pharmaceutical technology, such as Höfliger’s Omnidose range of powder
filling machines, can only be achieved with high quality components, while
state-of-the-art laboratory equipment and pharmaceutical expertise are
required for the feasibility studies that test how effectively a production
process can deal with a particular powder.
While Harro Höfliger remains very much a family firm, it is able
to achieve strength in numbers through a strategic alliance with five
other independent companies that are also active in the field of machine
engineering for pharmaceutical production. Besides Harro Höfliger, the
‘Excellence United’ alliance is made up of Bausch & Ströbel, Fette Compacting, the Glatt Group, Uhlmann and Ulhmann VisioTec. This alliance offers
its members the benefit of a network of specialist companies whose reach
is global and whose competence spans the entire value chain. The areas
covered by Excellence United include laboratory equipment, equipment
for product analysis, the development of devices, the production of clinical
samples and the planning of production plants. For optimum efficiency,
the customer receives the alliance’s entire range of services from a single
source, and through a single contact person. ‘All you need’ is the company’s
motto, and with the Excellence United alliance, Harro Höfliger is taking this
tried and tested approach one stage further. Visit: www.hoefliger.de
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