inform 02.2010 e (PDF-file - 3,5 MB)

Transcription

inform 02.2010 e (PDF-file - 3,5 MB)
Volume 6 No. 2 July 2010
Brixen •
The first burst lining site using ductile iron pipes in Italy •
inform-Special
We are Duktus! •
Eckartsweiler •
A drinking water pipeline ploughed in at low cost in an environment-friendly way •
Kreuzlingen •
A new pipeline for the fountain at Kreuzlingen •
PAGE 2 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Contents
3 Editorial
SPECIALS
4 A look back at the first step into the future – Revelation, information,
celebration and a fresh start from Duktus
6 Great expectations – Launch of the brand name on the Bergisel for
Duktus sales and distribution partners
21 Pipes in Lake Constance – A new pipeline for the fountain at Kreuzlingen
Quickly laid – A 250 metre drinking water pipeline replaced trenchlessly
in just a week
22 Installation starts at Sochi – Duktus instructs a laying team
Astonishment in Budapest – A successful presentation to water industry
professionals at Budapester Wasserwerke AG
23
Water for Baghdad – Duktus pipes for the Sharq Dijla water treatment
plant on the Tigris
Some steep demands – Duktus pipe system prove themselves in Bærum
in Norway
REPORTS
8 A fiery event – An international get-together for the water and
foundation engineering industries in Hall in Tirol
24 A formal inaugural ceremony for the Hall centrifugal pipe casting foundry
10 Duktus cast in iron – 19 April 2010: The launch of the brand name
comes to an end at Wetzlar and work begins for Duktus
26 This is how the name gets onto the pipe – Duktus invests in a
fully automatic pipe marking system at the Wetzlar site
11 Views, opinions and words of thanks – Duktus was pleased with the
press reports, reactions to and comments on the new name
27
28
PROJECTS
12 A premiere in Brixen – The first burst lining site using ductile iron pipes
in Italy
Maintenance – repair, upkeep and servicing – There round the clock so
that everything runs smoothly
Fairs and exhibitions – Come and see us at IFAT ENTSORGA
in Munich
Duktus was there! ECWATECH in Moscow
29 Duktus was there! The Watenvi Fair in Brno
14 Drinking water means the job is worth doing properly – Ease of connec
tion allows BLS®-ZMU pipes to score points in directional drilling
15 Steep gradient, high pressure and severe cold – A turbine pipeline for the
Walten small hydroelectric power station in the Passeier Valley
16 A safe and reliable material puts work well ahead – Culverting under
Schweizer Zentralbahn‘s Allmend Tunnel
17 Sewage pipelines to protect the environment – A prestige project at
Preitenegg: Duktus ensures safety below the ground
18 To Eckartsweiler by rocket plough – A drinking water pipeline ploughed
in at low cost in an environment-friendly way
19 No more jams at the Damm – Drinking water and waste water pipelines
on the Kirchhainer Damm, the last bottleneck on the B 96
Drinking water for footballers and fans – Duktus supplies pipes for the
Audi Sportpark in Ingolstadt
20 Ductile holds up better – Big pipes for the little town of Calau
On a secure foundation – Piles for a safe electricity pylon in Sarasdorf
Öhringen / Eckartsweiler: ductile iron pipes being ploughed in
30 Duktus was there! 120th Annual Congress of the ÖVGW and the AGM
SAM in Grenoble
Information for professionals and training in Leipzig
ABOUT US
31 The Duktus Family Day at Hall
32 Welcome to Duktus! Our new members of staff
33 Exchange of employees – Growing together for everyone’s benefit
Quality is important – An Integrated Management System at Duktus
34 Manuel and music – Guitar playing is more than just a hobby
Girls’ Day in Wetzlar – Some interesting insights into “men’s jobs”
35
News in brief – From all over Duktus: Lea Berkmann is the first “Duktus
baby” / A special honour for stacks of pipes / Splendid successes
at school for the apprentices at Duktus in Hall / A question for a
prize in Norway
Anniversaries / Imprint
Lucerne’s Allmend Tunnel site: preparatory work for the pulling-in of the culvert sewer pipeline
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 3
Editorial
Dear readers of inform,
We are Duktus now, and have been for three months, and we are really
happy to be it. Our change of name was officially completed on 19 April
2010 and the reactions to it among our employees and customers have
been extremely positive, even highly enthusiastic in some cases. Clearly we
have been able to explain the need for the change of name satisfactorily,
and to make clear the role and significance that “Duktus” is going to play
and to have for us and our customers in future. Duktus is already almost
taken for granted. And it is good that it should be. In this way we can continue to concentrate on our main task, namely to provide our customers
with services that will win them over in the water business, underground
installation and foundation engineering. That said, in this issue of inform we
shall of course again be looking back on the eventful and inspiring weeks
that there have been during these past months which have seen us become Duktus. Without being overly emotional, it is probably right to claim
that it has been a historic event for the company.
See in particular our articles about it on pages 4 to 11.
Another important feature of this issue is the look ahead to the international
exhibition event of 2010, the IFAT, from 13 to 17 September. Following the
WATENVI Fair in Brno (in the Czech Republic), we shall be on show at IFAT
for the first time to the professional world at large on a big new Duktus
stand (page 28). Please accept our cordial invitation to come and see us in
Munich!
excessive rises have mainly been driven by speculation. We hope that prices will soon be moving back to a reasonable level and that we will be able
to offer a price in the second half of 2010 that is satisfactory to all our partners in the sector.
Within our organisation and among our employees, the things that have
now happened have, for the most part, been pleasant. Join with us in celebrating the first Duktus baby and the Duktus wedding of the year on
page 35.
Once again we hope that you will find inform an interesting and enjoyable
read. Look forward with us to a lovely summer, enjoyable holidays and doing good business!
We are Duktus!
Günter Fuhry
Max Kloger
Stefan Weber
Ulrich Päßler
There have also now been further developments in the work we have been
doing with our customers and partners. In this issue too we are able to report on a large number of successful operations in our domestic and foreign markets. You can read for example about trenchless projects in Brixen
in South Tyrol, (pages 12 und 13), in Potsdam in Brandenburg (page 14), in
Eckartsweiler in Baden-Württemberg where our pipes were ploughed in by
the rocket plough technique (page 18) and in Oftringen in the Swiss canton
of Aargau (page 21). You can also find out about the Walten hydroelectric
power project in the Passeier Valley (page 15), about football fever in Ingolstadt (page 19) and about the refurbishment work done at the fountain in
Lake Constance at Kreuzlingen in Switzerland (page 21).
2010 has nevertheless become a severe challenge, although one that we
expected. After a long and hard winter, difficulties in obtaining finance and
the need to make savings have affected our sector in many countries. There
have again been sharp rises in the prices of raw materials and we have also
been busy recently doing something about these. This is why, after a long
break, we are again activating our scrap surcharge (SPZ) on 1 June. The
The Duktus board of management, left to right: Günter Fuhry, Max Kloger, Stefan Weber,
Ulrich Päßler
A wintry site at the Walten hydroelectric power station in the Passeier Valley: Good progress with the
laying work despite the adverse conditions
A hive of activity at the Olympics site in Rosa Khutor – Duktus pipes being laid for the snow-making
systems
PAGE 4 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
A look back at the first step into the future
Revelation, information, celebration and a fresh start from Duktus
The secret at Nördlingen
Managers learn the new name
Even before the first Duktus inform was printed,
there was a managers‘ meeting in Nördlingen on
the 25th of March at which the company revealed what had, until then, been a well-kept
secret. “Now we are Duktus”, said board member Ulrich Päßler who, in an enthralling presentation, kept his audience in suspense right up until
the last moment. Then the name flashed up on
the screen and at first there was a complete hush
in the room. Duktus! The tension relaxed and a
feeling of general satisfaction spread throughout
the audience.
“It was quite spontaneous the way we understood that this is the right name for us”, said Jürgen Häusler, a Duktus purchasing manager at
Wetzlar. “I had expected a lot, but what I got was
well beyond my expectations”, commented Harald Tschenett, a production manager from Hall.
“The wait was worth it. Now we are Duktus”, was
the delighted response from Friedhelm Kleinblotekamp, a sales manager for Germany. “The
fact that Duktus means ‘leadership’ and ‘showing the way’ and at the same time calls to mind
ductile iron, our tried and trusted material, was
reason enough for it to carry immediate conviction with me and I am sure that the new brand
name is going to be outstandingly successful.”
“For us, the board of Duktus, it was extremely
important to put across our new name impeccably at this first presentation so as to convince our
managers and involve them in the continuing
process”, explained Stefan Weber. “What really
makes a brand is the employees who are behind
it; it has to be accepted where it is going to find
its emotional roots, namely in our workforce.”
The official proceedings concluded with a showing of the Duktus video film and having watched
it the managers cheerfully went on to the “unofficial” part of the event.
The managers’ meeting in Nördlingen on 25 March 2010
The employees at Wetzlar were pleased with the new Duktus “kit” and very much enjoyed it
The same news at the same time
Duktus informs the workforce at Wetzlar
and Hall
On the 9th of April the time had come. The event
to announce the new name, which had been
eagerly awaited by the employees at Wetzlar and
Hall, began at 1 p.m. As Ulrich Päßler and Stefan
Weber took the stage in the post-treatment building in Wetzlar, Günter Fuhry and Max Kloger did
the same in the foundry building in Hall.
The two teams of presenters first reviewed the
history of the companies and commented on the
positioning and aims of the ductile iron pipe business on the domestic and international markets.
The presentations made it clear how successful
Buderus and TRM had been in the past and that
the process of “growing together” had strengthened the two parts of the company, so that preparations were made for a common brand name
not only for reasons connected with licensing law
Board members Stefan Weber (on the left) and Ulrich Päßler –
The teams of presenters at Wetzlar
Board members Günter Fuhry (on the left) and Max Kloger
present the new name at Hall
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 5
but also as an important part of marketing policy.
The suspense was growing. The staging was
impeccable. And when the letters D U K T U S
flashed up on the screen there was widespread
applause. Following this, the new video film was
shown and the response was enthusiastic both at
Wetzlar and at Hall.
“Informing the employees was a matter of great
importance for us”, explains Günter Fuhry, “because it is a particular concern of ours that the
members of the workforce should identify with
the brand name. The argument that Max Kloger
had was similar: “It’s not a question of our having
buried TRM and Buderus but of having created a
fine new prospect which, as we learnt immediately after the event, our employees have accepted.
We are happy that this is the case and it gives us
confidence that, by continuing to grow together,
we shall find potentials with a promising future
that we will be able to exploit. A good example of
this is the employee exchange schemes. In a
targeted way, we have worked to combine the
knowhow at the two sites into a single unit and
we are sure that our common name will strengthen the feeling that the employees have of belonging to our company and also of belonging together.” (See our related report on page 33)
You can find views and opinions on the brand
name on page 11.
The events to give employees the news at Wetzlar and Hall on 9 April 2010: Everyone was very excited and they were all pleased with the new name once it had been announced
The caps and bags went down very well with the employees at Hall
The new working clothing being handed out at Hall
PAGE 6 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Great expectations
Launch of the brand name on the Bergisel for Duktus sales and distribution partners
“For our sales and distribution partners from both
home and abroad we had thought up a special
location to present our new brand name in a suitable setting”, explains Thomas Schleicher, Duktus
head of sales for Austria and South Tyrol. “The
right place was staring us in the face, we said,
when the decision had been made to choose the
Bergisel. To us, who live here, this imposing ski
jump rising high above the capital of the state of
Tyrol is no more remarkable than the cathedral is
to the people living in Cologne in Germany.”
“The Bergisel has a fascination that works its spell
on almost everyone and that was why it was exactly the right place for our event”, confirms Schleicher’s colleague from Wetzlar Manfred Hoffmann.
That was how, at 3.00 p.m. on 14 April 2010, all
of Duktus’s national and international sales and
distribution partners met, together with the board
members and the sales managers, on the hill
dear to the heart of Innsbruck to watch a varied
presentation whose climax was the announcement of the new name. With a few exceptions,
almost everyone had accepted the invitation. “We
were very pleased about that”, says Thomas
Schleicher. “It showed us that we are a recognised partner on the market and that people are
interested in sharing in our ‘evolution’.” Suspense
had built up about what was expected at the
presentation, which was given in the conference
room belonging to the Bergisel ski jump by Ulrich
Päßler, the member of the board dealing with
Die Punze – das zentrale Grafikelement
Unser Erscheinungsbild wird neben dem Logo
von seinem zentralen Grafikelement geprägt. Es
besteht aus der vergrößert eingesetzten Punze.
Sie kommt auf allen Duktus-Print-Objekten (Broschüren, Flyer, etc.) zur Gestaltung der Titelseite
zum Einsatz. Sie erscheint in unseren Powerpoint-Präsentationen, auf unseren Internetseiten,
Postern und Mailings.
Sie hat einen aufstrebenden Charakter und symbolisiert unsere Zielsetzungen.
Die Farbwelt von Duktus
In der Farbwelt von Duktus spiegelt sich unsere
Arbeit wider.
Ulrich Päßler and the question mark!
On the way to the tour round the Bergisel ski jump
Duktus’s national and international sales and distribution partners met on the Bergisel for the launch of the brand name
Die Farben verdeutlichen, worum es bei Duktus
geht und was uns täglich beschäftigt. Im Kern
sind das die Farben Duktus-Blau und Duktus-Rot
sowie Weiß. Erdiges Ocker sowie ein heller und
ein dunkler Grauton mit ihrem industriellen Charakter komplettieren die Farbwelt und symbolisieren unsere Arbeitswelt.
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 7
sales and the platform host. It lasted almost two
hours and cast a spell over the audience. The
partners out in the market had been aware of the
process of changing the name. They all knew
“Something is going to be happening at Buderus
Gussrohrtechnik and TRM”, but the deliberate
secrecy that was maintained had worked. Duktus
was the long awaited new name!
“Our partners from Germany, Austria and Switzerland, from the rest of Europe, the Arabic countries
and from overseas were most enthusiastic when
the name appeared on the screen”, we hear from
Max Kloger, the technical member of the Duktus
board. “It was a surprise and there could not
have been a better one”, was the pleased and
shared reaction from Thomas Hagenbucher (of
TMH, Switzerland) and Peter Scheiblauer (of Kontinentale, Austria). You can see further comments
on the new name on page 11.
With the suspense over, a guided tour through the
ski jump at the Bergisel followed. This was first
built in 1928 and after repeated conversions and
extensions it was finally given the spectacular
look that it has today in 2001 to the design of the
Arab architect Zaha Hadid. Hadid has combined
a sports arena and a restaurant plus viewing platform to produce a fusion of many of the architec-
tural arts. The tour ended in the Springerstüberl
snack bar with a pleasant get-together helped
along by champagne, a small snack and endless
conversation, which kept on right through the
evening event which followed, the dinner in the
restaurant on the Bergisel. The Duktus partners
could enjoy not only the panoramic view over
Innsbruck and the mountains of the Tyrol but also
the happy atmosphere. Of course, the “initial kit”
for Duktus was there as well: bags containing
informative material, caps, T-shirts and the latest
edition of inform, hot off the press, giving up-todate reports on the introduction of the name.
A workshop in Innsbruck
Next day there was a meeting at the Hilton Hotel in
Innsbruck for a workshop. In a multilingual question
and answer session the effect of Duktus was tested
“the day after”. The result was the same as the reactions on the day before – very good! There was
then a detailed discussion of subjects such as “Introduction of Duktus on the different markets“, “New
documents” and “Legal consequences”. What the
workshop showed was, in brief: All the sales and
distribution partners reacted positively to the new
brand name and are well prepared and motivated
to go forward into the future with Duktus.
After a pleasant get-together in the Springerstüberl snack bar, the Duktus items and inform, hot off the press, were distributed before the evening event in the restaurant on the Bergisel
Ulrich Päßler, the sales member of the Duktus board, cast his spell over the audience with the immaculate presentation he gave
PAGE 8 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
A fiery event
An international get-together for the water and foundation engineering industries in
Hall in Tirol
After weeks filled with preparations and strenuous work, the time had finally came on 15 April
2010 and customer and partners of Duktus from
at home and abroad met in the “Salzlager Hall”
(a renovated salt warehouse) for an international
get-together of the water and foundation engineering industries.
“Unusual events and special occasions need an
impressive setting. The reason why we chose the
Salzlager Hall in Hall in Tirol for the launch of the
brand name was because of the unique style
and character that it has. The one feature above
all that marks it out are the fifteen massive, 80
centimetre thick and 9 metre high columns of salt
that give the Hall a special ambience all its own”,
explains Brigitte Pichler, assistant to the Duktus
board of management.
Some 280 guests – sales and distribution partners, representative of the water industry, representatives of construction companies and firms of
planning engineers from Europe, the Near East
and the United States – had accepted the invitation to Hall. When the guests arrived, the columns were lit in green and blue – the “old” colours of TRM and Buderus. A festive mood soon
spread and stayed for the whole evening.
The event began with “Venusbrass”, a five-piece
women’s marching band, taking the guests on a
virtuoso trip through time covering the history of
the companies in Hall and Wetzlar. Walter Kling,
of Wasserwerke Wien, was a lively presenter and
artfully increased the audience’s anticipation of
what was still to come.
Between the individual courses of the gala dinner, Dr. Mojib Latif gave his interesting talk on
“The future of the world’s supply of drinking water in times of global warming”. The well-known
meteorologist and climate researcher has been a
professor at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences of the Christian Albrecht University of Kiel
since 2003. One of the main focuses of his research is the effects that mankind is having on
the climate. Mojib Latif is a frequent studio guest
on the subject of climate change who appears
not just on German television channels.
Then, towards 10 o’clock, it was time for suspense pure and simple. In the Salzlager Hall,
flooded with light, Ulrich Päßler, sales director of
the former Pipe and Pile Group, took the stage to
explain the background, values and aims of the
group of companies. The audience was an international one so there were headsets to provide a
simultaneous translation into English. The climax
of the presentation was the revelation of the new
logo, displayed in a blaze of pyrotechnics. In a
Prof. Mojib Latif spoke on the subject of “The future of the world’s
supply of drinking water in times of global warming”
“Venusbrass” accompanied Walter Kling’s presentation
The gala dinner in the Salzlager Hall
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 9
Duktus board member Günter Fuhry opens the event
Board member Ulrich Päßler explains the background to the
change of name and its aims
thrilling fire performance showing off various facets of his art, the fire dancer Saraph-Hannes
Schwarz seemed to unleash the element to play
as it pleased. Radiant spouts of fire whooshed
through the Salzlager. Fire staves twirled and
torch choreography summoned reddish-yellow
circles to take form in the air and these – produced in a vigorous whirling dance – made clear
the power of fire. The final part of this spectacular
show was the long awaited revelation of the
name. As if rising from fire Duktus appeared
burning bright before the watchers.
The guests rose unprompted from their seats
and welcomed the new name with a standing
ovation. The trip through time was over. Duktus,
born from the will to “grow together” and to be
seen and to act as a unit, had survived its bap-
tism of fire. “Venusbrass” took up the symbolic
theme and now appeared in red dresses and
white helmets. At the after-dinner party that was
then held the mood was exuberant and people
were out to have a good time. After all the tensionfilled moments of the evening the guests, and of
course the “Duktusers” too, insisted on saluting
the name that had appeared before them in such
an emotional way at the baptism. And of course
the enjoyable music made its contribution. The
Hall was filled with dancing, laughter and chatter
and there was the inescapable impression that
everywhere one could sense this special “We are
Duktus” feeling.“An unforgettable evening! For all
the guests and most certainly for the company
too”, was how Walter Kling put it in a nutshell.
You can find further reports on page 11.
DUKTUS appears in a blaze of pyrotechnics
Fire dancer Saraph-Hannes Schwarz in action
Standing Ovations
The mood was good all through the evening
A change to a red costume for “Venusbrass” at the end of the trip
through time
PAGE 10 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Duktus cast in iron
19 April 2010: The launch of the brand name comes to an end at Wetzlar
and work begins for Duktus
In Wetzlar on 19 April, the day when business
officially began under the new name, Duktus
gave the news to, last but not least, representatives of the press, business partners, representatives of unions and associations and political decision-makers from the region. In Austria the
press had already been given the news on the
occasion of the inauguration of the centrifugal
pipe casting foundry at Hall (see our report on
the inauguration on pages 24 and 25).
“We wanted to make the press event in Wetzlar,
which concluded the launch of our brand name,
something particularly special because the other
events relating to the launch of the name had
taken place mainly in the Tyrol”, explains the
sales member of the Duktus board Ulrich Päßler.
Together with his colleague Stefan Weber, it was
Päßler who undertook to explain to the 30 or so
guests the motives for the change of name and
the aims of the company.
“We decided to take this step because we, together with our sister company TRM of Hall,
Casting of the Duktus badge
wanted to present ourselves more distinctly as a
single unit to our customers in our markets. In the
past that has not been possible because of the
different company names”, were Päßler’s words.
“We want to show strength on the market”, declared Weber, who also give those present an
insight into the long history extending from 1731
to the present day. “We are proud of this history.
At the same time, the new name is a pointer towards the future, where the part of our company’s story that is going to be even more important
for us lies,” was how Weber summed things up.
“We are Duktus”, were his final words. While the
guests were watching the new Duktus video film,
a transformation had been completed outside.
The old company signs had disappeared and
had made way for the Duktus name. Lorries car-
rying tilts emblazoned with Duktus stood in the
yard and there were Duktus flags waving in the
breeze.
However, there was yet another high spot that the
guests had waiting for them – the casting of the
name badge. There is always something inspiring about the atmosphere of a foundry for people
who are entering this place of brightly glowing
iron for the first time. And that was most of those
present found when they were able to see, live,
how the molten iron flowed into the mould. The
foundrymen from Wetzlar showed that it is not
just big pipes that they can cast by the centrifugal casting process but also parts which are delicate and decorative by comparison, such as the
name “Duktus”.
The iron ran into the mould. Duktus was cast.
The flags wave: Day 1 – work begins under the new name
The casting was successful. The new badge is shown round
Board members Stefan Weber and Ulrich Päßler
Conclusion of the events to mark the launch of the brand name
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 11
Views, opinions and words of thanks
Duktus was pleased with the press reports, reactions to and comments on the new name
“We were pleased with the press coverage,
which was good and objective. The large amount
of positive feedback from our sales and distribution partners, our business partners and our
customers and also the spontaneous comments
made by our employees at the Wetzlar and Hall
sites have shown us that we are on the right track
and that the wide acceptance will soon enable
the Duktus brand to assert itself on the market”,
declared the board members with one voice.
hard to rival.” (Thomas Entenmann, Tröger +
Entenmann of Heidelberg)
The press reactions were consistently positive
The reactions from the German and Austrian
press were entirely positive and what the reports
concentrated on were the reasons for changing the names of the Buderus and TRM companies despite their rich traditions. It was chiefly the press reports from Austria which also dealt
with the 6 million Euros invested in the centrifugal
pipe casting foundry at the Duktus site in Hall.
The Tyrol daily Tiroler Tageszeitung entitled its report “A new brand name and millions for pipes”
and pointed to the positive growth which can be
expected in the company’s business.
“May I congratulate you on the choice of name.
Even after time for thought, I am absolutely convinced that Duktus, including the logo that has
been designed, is an ideal brand name. The
properties mentioned at the presentation and
the reasons given for choosing the name and
the logo were correct and one had absolutely no
difficulty in following and agreeing with them.”
(Karsten Rauber, Lufthansa Systems BS GmbH)
A small selection of the many reactions
“I would again like to congratulate you most sincerely on the successful presentation you gave
of how the name ‘Duktus‘ was found. The event
was a great success and for me it was also a
very unusual birthday.” (Karl-Heinz Engelmann,
executive partner, HTI Collin OWL of Gütersloh).
“...You can be proud of what you have achieved.
With enthusiasm and understanding, we shall
be continuing to push ahead with the establishment of Duktus on the Libyan market.” (Charles
Bristow, Real World Builders of Hull in England)
“Back at work and having explained all the details of the change of name to my colleagues, it
was an unforgettable event that it is going to be
Duktus is picking up speed
“Yesterday evening was a worthy first step into
the future with Duktus, the new company name.
Congratulations on the successful show that was
put on – it was a great hit with the customers.
Best regards from a supervisory board who are
very happy.” (Peter Gaugg, board member of the
Bank of Tyrol and Vorarlberg of Innsbruck)
“The name Duktus is simple, short and pithy and
is a direct reference to the outstanding property that the pipes have, namely their ductility.” (Peter Scheiblauer, chief executive of ÖAG Konti of
Gerasdorf near Vienna)
“Duktus is easy to use internationally. What it
gives above all is the unified image that the individual subsidiaries need to have on the markets
while at the same time preserving the regional
references.” (Mag. Christoph Dolezl-Brandenberger, chief executive of Wallner & Neubert of Vienna)
“Once the meanings of the name had been explained, it was clear to me that Duktus is right
for us.” (Herbert Wassermann, head of the Heat
Treatment Department at Duktus in Hall)
“Right at the start I was a bit surprised, but after I’d watched the film I could see myself in this
new identity. Even so, I’ve already been with
‘Buderus’ for 40 years so the old name is still going to be slipping out sometimes.” (Friedel Wolf,
maintenance and repair, Duktus in Wetzlar)
“We make ductile cast iron pipes and the Tyrol is our home. That hasn’t changed. It’s perfectly simple really. Now there is Duktus spreading over everything and below that there is Tiroler
Rohrsysteme.” (Stefan Erhart, head of the Maintenance and Repair Department/electrician at Duktus in Hall)
“I think it is right and good that we ductile iron
pipe people now have a name of our own.” (Walter Wagner, Purchasing/Materials management at
Duktus in Wetzlar)
Back home safely in spite of the volcanic
ash cloud – even if by roundabout routes
“Thank you for the invitation to this perfectly organised event. This is a brief description of our
journey back to Riga: Munich to Berlin to Warsaw
by train, Warsaw to Vilnius to Riga by hire car. It
was Sunday morning when we reached Riga.
Everything is OK now!” (Martins Klegeris, Indutek
of Riga in Latvia)
“My thanks to Duktus for the wonderful time I had
in Innsbruck. The event on Thursday in particular
was very impressive. I’ll never forget the journey
home. It was 2 p.m. on Sunday when we finally
got to Kotka. Total time for the journey: 56 hours.
Not too bad under the circumstances!” (Tapani
Oksanen, Oy Lining of Tampere in Finland)
“I had a fantastic time in Innsbruck and enjoyed
Duktus’s unforgettable hospitality.” (M.T. Prasad,
General Manager of CLIC of Kuwait). M.T. Prasad took the record time to get home. He started his trip back from Innsbruck on 16 April and it
was four days before he arrived in Kuwait.
PAGE 12 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
A premiere in Brixen
The first burst lining site using ductile iron pipes in Italy
The Stadtwerke Brixen AG water supply company of South Tyrol is playing a pioneering role in
the region of northern Italy. It is the first water
supplier in the region to opt for the burst lining
technique to replace an old water pipeline.
In Brixen‘s lovely old-town area, on the Stadelgasse, there has been, since 1904 (!), a drinking
water pipeline of grey cast iron of a nominal size
of DN 150. A length of 100 metres of this pipeline
urgently needed to be replaced. For years now,
Stadtwerke Brixen has been putting its trust in
reliable ductile iron pipes from Duktus. After detailed talks to advise them on the applications
engineering aspects, both the technical manager
of the company, Dr. Ing. Alfred Rottonara, and
the project co-ordinator Andreas Schroffenegger
were happy with the convincing proposal to replace the old pipeline by a trenchless technique.
Working with Maurizio Bissolo of the Tracto Technik company, it therefore took Duktus just a few
weeks to organise the entire project and complete it successfully.
Curtain up on the first burst lining project in
the region of northern Italy
This premiere for burst lining attracted attention
well beyond the borders of South Tyrol. Stadtwerke Brixen itself sent out invitations to site viewing days held on 16 and 17 April 2010 and drew
attention to the fact that the pipe replacement
work on the Stadelgasse was the first site using
this technique in northern Italy. So it was no surprise to find politicians, engineers and planners
travelling in not just from all over South Tyrol but
also from the neighbouring provinces of Trento,
Padua and Tuscany to see how the burst lining
technique works. What all these people were
thinking about were historic old-town areas, often
a warren of narrow streets, which are severely
affected by conventional pipe-laying techniques.
They were all enthusiastic about this fast trenchless laying system which, what is more, also
A throng of people at Italy’s first burst lining site in Brixen
makes for considerable cost savings. “There is
no doubt that it would have been difficult to use
the conventional digging of open trenches in this
case, because there would have been quite a
lengthy inconvenience to pedestrians, residents
and businesses and to the wellness hotel situated on the Stadelgasse”, explained Andreas
Schroffenegger. “This method ensured access to
the pedestrian zone at all times during the two
days of laying and avoided restricting on the
commercial activities of the shops and businesses.” The inhabitants of this university town in the
Eisack Valley district also took a lively interest in
the site. In contrast to what normally happens
when streets lined with houses are dug up and
are a hindrance for days on end, nobody got
annoyed on the Stadelgasse. It was actually quite
the reverse; people marvelled at the site and
wanted to know how this trenchless technique for
pulling-in pipes works.
The Grundoburst 400 G in the receiving pit
With a population of some 20,000, Brixen in the Eisack Valley district is South Tyrol’s third largest town.
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 13
Clearly visible – the 106 year old grey cast iron pipe
The stars of the show: Duktus ZMU pipes
with the BLS®-/VRS®-T joint
The pipes used were DN 150 drinking water
pipes with the BLS®-/VRS®-T restrained joint and
a cement mortar coating (ZMU).
“As result of the advice we gave, the client opted
for ZMU pipes because there is no denying that
sharp-edged shards will occur with the burst lining technique because of the bursting apart of
the old pipe. The material of the new pipe therefore has to be unaffected by these. As well as
this, the cement mortar coating also gives it excellent protection”, explains Christoph Obkircher,
Duktus’s sales manager for South Tyrol. “In burst
lining – as in pretty well all trenchless laying techniques – considerable forces are exerted on the
joints in the pipe, so the decision to use the
BLS®-/VRS®-T joint was virtually a foregone conclusion because it is the joint that allows the highest permitted tractive forces. Stadtwerke Brixen
can be sure that with our ZMU drinking water
pipes it has made the right choice for a pipeline
that can be relied on in the long term. Added to
this there were the shallow depths of working, the
short installation time of only three days and the
fact that the surface did not have to be restored,
which meant that a cost-saving of about 40%
was achieved in comparison with the conventional open-trench technique”, Obkircher continues.
The ductile drinking water pipes being brought in
The work was completed after only three days
Burst lining with the GRUNDOBURST system
The characteristic feature of static burst lining with the GRUNDOBURST system – as used in
Brixen – is that, working from a pit of very small size, a string of ladder-like rods (the Quick-Lock
bursting string) is pushed into the old pipe to be replaced.
Having reached the target pit or pulling-in pit, the string has the bladed bursting head, with the
new pipe attached, connected to it. With the static technique, the string is then simply pulled
back and as this is done the blade cuts open the old pipe and the fragments are pressed into
the surrounding earth radially.
The new pipe is pulled in at the same time. The ladder-like form of the string ensures that the
whole of the tractive force is transmitted from the pulling machine to the bursting head. Any
possibility of its slipping-through is ruled out. The Grundoburst equipment is easy to install and
operate and the setting-up times are therefore only short. The technique has now become the
most widely used trenchless replacement technique all over the world.
The tractive force was constantly monitored with Tracto Technik’s Grundolog measuring unit
ZMU drinking water pipes at the site on the Stadelgasse
The new pipeline being pulled in
TRACTO TECHNIK’S GRUNDOBURST 400 G
PAGE 14 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Drinking water means the job is worth
doing properly
Ease of connection allows BLS®-ZMU pipes to score points in directional drilling
To the north-west of Potsdam, the capital of the
German state of Brandenburg, lies the village of
Fahrland, which is part of Potsdam for administrative purposes and whose drinking water needs
are seen to by the Energie und Wasser Potsdam
GmbH (EWP) company.
Since the beginning of the new century, Fahrland
has been enlarged by new residential areas, and
the drinking water supply to the village has therefore had to be adjusted to match.
In the course of this work a new drinking water
pipeline of a nominal size of 250 mm has been
installed along the L 92 secondary road and right
into the village. For a variety of reasons the client
decided that, outside the village, the pipeline
would be laid trenchlessly by the directional drilling technique.
In the first place it was important to be careful of
both the narrow road itself and also the old lines
of trees and to cause the least possible interference with traffic. Secondly there was also the
high water table for which allowance had to be
made. In the centre of the village the pipeline is
being laid in the conventional way in open
trenches because the main sewer and the road
itself are also being completely renovated and
the connections to the houses are being made
directly to the drinking water pipeline.
“Under the given constraints, EWP was convinced that it had chosen the ideal technique in
directional drilling and the right material in pipes
of ductile iron. We suggested the cement mortar
coating as an external coating in order to be on
the safe side in view of the stresses that there are
on the material in the directional drilling technique”, reports Lutz Rau, Duktus’s sales manager for Brandenburg and Berlin. “The preparatory
work started in May. As we usually do, we assisted the company in charge of the installation work
by also making the traction head available with a
Traction head with a BLS®-/VRS®-T restrained joint
The L 92 secondary road: DN 250 ZMU pipes were pulled in by the directional drilling technique
BLS®-/VRS®-T restrained joint. As well as this we
have also provided a large number of accessories and special tools.” Rau goes on to explain.
The ease of connection of the ductile iron
pipes was a convincing advantage
For the approximately 660 metre long stretch
which was to be directionally drilled, the machine
and connecting pits were set up at intervals of
150 metres. The well-known underground construction and pipe-laying company TEG of Glindow was in charge of the installation work, and
for it the MTS company of Demmin in Mecklenburg first drilled the pilot bore using a pilot drill
string and then enlarged it to the appropriate
size. The drilling and flushing suspension used
for this (bentonite) also acted as a supporting
fluid for the tubular “tunnel” that was produced.
The traction head had a BLS®-/VRS®-T restrained
joint which gave it a flexible connection to the drill
string. This was followed by the connecting-on of
individual cement-mortar coated BLS®-/VRS®-Tpipes at the tempo set by the pauses in pulling-in
for disconnecting the drill string at the machine
pit. Before the pipes were pulled in, the sockets
and spigot ends were cleaned and sheet-metal
cones and rubber sleeves were drawn along the
bodies of the pipes. After this the pipes were
connected together in the connecting pit using a
suitable laying tool for BLS®-/VRS®-T ductile iron
pipes.
The installation firm found this very simple, quick
and above all secure connection process to be a
convincing advantage. The entire stretch was laid
in just a few days with no interference of any significance to traffic.
A machine pit
Duktus ZMU pipes prepared for pulling in
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 15
Steep gradient, high pressure
and severe cold
A turbine pipeline for the Walten small hydroelectric power station in the Passeier Valley
After only 22 years of operation, the Walten hydroelectric power station near the village of the
same name in the Passeier Valley in South Tyrol
has had to be completely replaced.
The reason for this premature refurbishment was
the amendment to the law relating to the socalled “green certificates”. These certificates can
only be claimed if all the components of an existing plant are replaced. Consequently, Elektrogenossenschaft Walten, the operator, was faced
with the task of replacing the penstock pipeline,
turbines, generator, water intake structure and
sand removal system if it was to have the benefit
of an assured contract for the feed-in of electricity
which would guarantee a feed-in tariff of about
22 cents per KW/h over a period of 15 years.
“The turbine pipeline lies in terrain which is very
rocky in places and has to handle a head of 240
metres. In view of this, in the negotiations and
consultations, we were able to convince the
Genossenschaft, which supplies both Walten and
parts of St. Leonhard with energy, that it was only
ductile iron pipes with the restrained BLS® joint
and a cement mortar coating that could be considered for the 1.4 kilometre long pipeline”, we
are told by Andreas Moser, the turbine product
manager at Hall.
Laying in winter – no problem for Duktus
pipe systems
Duktus pipes of a nominal size of 700 mm were
therefore delivered to Walten in July 2009. The
installation period for the pipeline dragged on until December because the old pipeline of steel
pipes had to be removed at the same time. Also,
the empty polyethylene pipes took considerably
more time to lay than the easily and quickly connected BLS® pipes.
“In December, the laying company, Josef Maier
GmbH, had to contend with adverse climatic
Winter site on the Waltenbach stream: good progress was made with the laying work despite the adverse conditions
conditions such as below-zero temperatures,
snow and ice. What also made the laying work
more difficult was the fact that water used to collect in the pipe trench. Nevertheless, good
progress was made on the winter site at Walten
and we were able to show how little of a problem
it is for our ductile iron pipe system to cope with
even extreme conditions”, continues Moser.
The refurbished small hydroelectric power station
went into operation in the spring of 2010. Its fourjet vertical Pelton turbine, with an operating pressure of 24 bars and a rated output of some 800
KW, will be producing around four million KW/h
of electricity a year. With its tried and tested BLS®
joints, the turbine pipeline passed all the pressure tests without any problems.
Feed pipeline to a small pressure pipeline
The DN 700 ductile iron pipes being laid in winter
Feed pipeline to the turbine house
Feed pipeline at the water intake structure
PAGE 16 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Safe and reliable material puts work well ahead
Culverting under Schweizer Zentralbahn‘s Allmend Tunnel
On 9 December 2008, there was a bonfire and
firework display on Lucerne’s federal common
(the Allmend) to signal the start of development
work on the Zentralbahn, the railway system serving the towns of Lucerne, Brünig, Engelberg,
Interlaken and others in the centre of Switzerland.
The project, costing 250 million Swiss francs, is
doing the basic work needed to ensure that the
Zentralbahn can continue to play its important
role as an attractive and efficient system for tourism and urban rapid transit. In Lucerne, the onemetre narrow gauge Zentralbahn system is being
given a high-performance infrastructure by developing it to have twin tracks and taking part of it
underground. A sub-project of the overall operation is the 470 metre long Allmend tunnel under
the common, which is being driven under compressed air by the top-down cut-and-cover method. A serious obstruction to the tunnelling work
was a sewer which carries sewage from the municipality of Horw to Lucerne. The clients (the City
of Lucerne, the cantons of Obwalden and Nidwalden and the Zentralbahn Lucerne-Engelberg
division of the railway company) therefore decided to run a culvert pipeline under the tunnel in
order not to jeopardise the progress of the tunnelling work. The design and laying of culvert
pipelines is still a challenge to experts in the field
of pipe networks. Every culvert has to be
matched to the local conditions and every project
to install one calls for fresh thought to be given to
the design, the method of installation and the
choice of the right material. A culvert pipeline is
only as reliable as its joints and the material of its
pipes. As well as being resistant to corrosion,
ductile ZMU pipes also have the great strength
under high internal pressures and external loads
needed to ensure that pipelines can be laid safely even under complicated conditions. Together
with the rugged BLS®-/VRS®-T joint, they therefore provide safe and reliable solutions for the
design and laying of culvert pipelines.
Work to prepare for the pulling-in of the culvert sewage pipeline on the site for the Allmend Tunnel in Lucerne
“Following detailed negotiations with the general
contractor, Implenia Bau AG of Lucerne, we were
able to get Duktus sewage pipes with the BLS®-/
VRS®-T joint and a cement mortar coating accepted for this ambitious project”, we are told by
Bruno Solenthaler of Duktus’s Swiss sales and
distribution partner TMH Thomas Hagenbucher.
In the spring of 2009, 96 metres of DN 800 size
sewage pipes and 48 metres of DN 300 size
pipes plus the appropriate fittings were delivered
to the site, a site which is very much in the public
interest due to the special method of tunnelling
adopted. In parallel, three strings of pipes were
pushed into respective steel casing tubes at a
depth of 15 metres. A variety of fittings, and cut
pipes produced to sizes correct to a millimetre,
enabled the installation to be completed to the
proper professional standards in a very short
time. “By pulling in the culvert pipeline quickly
and without any problems, we are delighted to
have been able to make a contribution to the
Allmend Tunnel project as a whole and to have
been able to satisfy all the contractors involved
and the clients”, says Bruno Solenthaler.
A level in the 15 metre deep driving pit, 2 x DN 800,
1 x DN 300
A DN 800 ductile iron pipe with skids for sliding before being
pulled into the steel casing tube
The pre-cut DN 800 pipes being connected
Coaches of Schweizer Zentralbahn
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 17
Sewage pipelines to protect the environment
A prestige project at Preitenegg: Duktus ensures safety below the ground
A new sewage and wastewater pipeline system is
being laid in the little town of Preitenegg in Carinthia. It will be completed by October 2010 and will
cost more than five million Euros. When the first
sod was turned on 29 October 2009, environmental and water management consultant Reinhart
Rohr underlined the importance of the project for
the town and for environmental protection in Carinthia. He said that for some time now the proper
environmental disposal of sewage had not been a
universally accepted matter of course. Carinthia,
he went on, was serving as a model in this regard,
and new projects were constantly being added.
At Preitenegg, it is not only the pipeline network
that is being extended for connection to the system belonging to the Abwasserverband Oberes
Lavanttal sewage company in Twimberg. In the
centre of the town, the existing sewer, which
needs to be renovated, and the existing treatment
plant are also being withdrawn from service and
replaced by the latest technology. Contracts for
the installation work were officially placed in August 2009. “We are proud to be part of this trendsetting project in Carinthia with our Duktus pipes
and to be making sure of safety below the
ground”, says Thomas Schleicher, Duktus head of
sales at Hall. “The preparations took quite a long
time but that is nothing unusual with a project of
this size and during them we, in the form of our
sales managers and applications engineering
division, were always available to assist. There is a
particular way in which sewage pipelines serve
the cause of environment protection. They meet
the extreme demands that are made on them for
long life and an absence of leaks. We were able to
convince the clients and the planning engineers,
the Horst Guggemoos company of Graz, that it is
only our ductile iron sewer pipe with the BLS®-/
VRS®-T joint that offers the requisite safety margins,” explains Walter Korenjak, the Duktus sales
manager for Carinthia. On 1 October 2009 the
excavators were ready to go. A start was made on
section 01 of the installation work to lay pipes to
the Höflerberg, Unterpreitenegg and Waldstein
districts of the town and to complete sub-projects
along the sewer routes. All the pipelines, which
are provided with the PUR Longlife external coating, are being laid by the conventional technique.
“It is important for us to deliver the pipes punctually to this large site, which is after all under tremendous pressure from time because the project is
due to be completed by the end of October 2010.
That was why, with a short break due to the weather in January 2009, we worked right through the
winter,” explains Klaus Ziegler, head of Order Management at Duktus in Hall.
For section 01 of the installation work Duktus is
supplying 2,600 metres of DN 150 ductile iron
sewage pipes with BLS®-/VRS®-T joints, and another 2,297 metres of DN 200 pipes, 1,752 metres
of DN 250 pipes and 3,176 metres of DN 300
pipes. To add to this there are 2,647 metres of DN
150 pressure pipes. Duktus has given impressive
proof of how well it can perform on this major
project. On all the sections the laying company,
Mandlbauer of Bad Gleichenberg, was most enthusiastic about the excellent way in which the
ductile Duktus sewer pipes could be laid, especially as no difficulties whatever occurred even in
wintry conditions and the areas of steep terrain
and stretches of stony ground that were encountered were coped with without any problems. This
prestige project in Carinthia is nicely on schedule
and the deadline for completion should be met.
A pipe trench along the road
Difficult terrain is demanding on both man and material
Ductile iron pipes with the proven BLS®-/VRS®-T joint are excellent at coping with the requirements imposed by sometimes difficult laying conditions
PAGE 18 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
To Eckartsweiler by rocket plough
A drinking water pipeline ploughed in at low cost in an environment-friendly way
The village of Eckartsweiler on the outskirts of
Öhringen, the chief town of the administrative
district, in Baden Württemberg has a drinking
water network which has an independent supply
of its own taken from local springs. After a few
dry summers, which sometimes caused a shortage of the precious liquid, the city fathers of
Öhringen decide to invest more than a million
Euros in a drinking water network that would
provide an assured supply. In future this network
will be supplying the village with water from the
Öhringen waterworks. With some minor modifications the old system will continue in use to supply
water for non-drinking purposes. The area is a
mainly agricultural one with wide expanses of
field and meadow. Because of this, the focus
when the project was being planned was placed
on a long period of use, laying techniques which
were kind to the environment and installation and
life-cycle costs which were as low as possible.
No compromises when selecting the material
After a wide-ranging study, the engineering consultants responsible, FKS of Bad Mergentheim,
therefore concluded that the pipeline should be
laid trenchlessly by the rocket plough technique.
“Once the method of laying was decided, it was
clear that only ductile Duktus pipes with BLS®-/
VRS®-T joints and a cement mortar coating
would be considered”, explains Alexander Bauer,
a Duktus sales manager in Baden Württemberg.
“With the rocket plough technique one has almost no control on the bedding conditions.
Therefore the pipe material used has to be so
rugged that any risk of future damage, and any
need for future repair, can be ruled out. That was
why Duktus got the order to supply around 700
metres of DN 100 ductile ZMU pipes and around
500 metres of DN 150 pipes. There was equally
little compromise about the material selected for
the DN 100 and DN 150 feeder pipelines from
the Öhringen South high-level service reservoir,
Eckartsweiler near Öhringen: ductile iron pipes being ploughed in
so we supplied another 1,300 metres of Duktus
pipes for these as well.”
The rocket plough technique – fast, lowcost and kind to the environment
In the rocket plough technique, the pipe string is
fitted directly to the soil-displacing body (the
rocket) and is pulled into the cavity which the
soil-displacing body creates. The soil-displacing
body is able to produces cavities measuring up
to 500 mm in diameter.
The pre-connected string of pipes, which is 200
to 300 metres long, is laid out running back from
the launch pit and is pulled in as the plough is
driven forward. The tractive forces which are exerted on the pipe string are monitored with the
help of measurement facilities.
In trenchless techniques, a sheet-metal cone is
mainly used to protect the connecting sockets.
The company in charge of the installing work,
Wolff & Müller of Waldenburg, was most enthusi-
astic about the swift laying of the pipeline by the
Kainath company and about the company responsible for the pulling-in, Föckersberger, which
developed the patented rocket plough technique.
The pressure test was successfully carried out in
May. For the next decades, the pipeline will be
ensuring that the village of Eckartsweiler has a
reliable supply of drinking water.
.
The rocket plough, showing the ploughshare and the widening
body
The pipes being pulled into the launch pit
A pre-connected pipe string with BLS®-/VRS®-T joints. The sheet-metal cones which protect the connecting sockets are clearly visible
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 19
No more jams at the
Damm
Drinking water for
footballers and fans
Drinking water and waste water pipelines on
the Kirchhainer Damm, the last bottleneck
on the B 96
Duktus supplies pipes for the Audi Sportpark in Ingolstadt
“Berliner Wasserbetriebe (Berlin’s water supply company) has put its trust in
the ductile iron pipe for a long time now. It is part of BWB’s normal ‘works’
standard for drinking water supply but more clients are now putting their
money on ductile iron pipes from Duktus for pipelines for sewage and rainwater as well” says Friedhelm Kleinblotekamp, Duktus head of sales for Germany. A very good example of this is the pipeline systems on the Kirchhainer
Damm road in Lichtenrade, of which the installation has being going on since
the beginning of the year as part of the work to develop the road. This bottleneck, a narrow secondary road between the Berlin part of the Kirchhainer
Damm, which has been developed into a four-lane highway, and Brandenburg, will soon be a thing of the past, as also will the infamous tailbacks that
build up at it. “For 20 years now we have had to get through this bottleneck
when we drove from Berliner Wasserbetriebe to our wholesaler partner HTI
Bär & Ollenroth in Grossmachnow. We are pleased about the Duktus pipes
there are now on the installation site, but also about the prospect of getting
through being a breeze in future”, says Kleinblotekamp.
As part of the development work, drinking water and waste water pipelines
are being re-laid or new ones are being laid. As a service provided as part of
the applications engineering consultancy, Duktus made the stress analysis
calculations for the pipeline system and was, in the end, given the order to
supply the drinking water pipelines and some of the pipelines for rainwater
drainage. The operation started at the beginning of the year, after the frosty
spell was over, with the installation of the rainwater drainage system. Duktus
supplied around 300 metres of DN 800 waste water pipes and 60 metres of
DN 1000 waste water pipes. Large wall-thicknesses were needed because of
the small amount of top cover and the traffic in the form of heavy goods vehicles which is expected. A large number of the waste water pipes have already been laid and the drinking water pipelines will be following shortly.
To match its promotion back into the Bundesliga 2nd division, FC Ingolstadt
04 is getting a new home. As from August 2010, it will be playing its home
games in the new Audi Sportpark on Manchinger Strasse.
The building of the new stadium, which will have seats for around 15,000
spectators, began in the summer of 2009 on what had formerly been the
grounds of the Bayernoil refinery. The development work for the supply of
water began in April 2010.
“We were soon able to convince the client, Ingolstädter Kommunalbetriebe,
of how well our ductile iron pipes perform, and this means that a large proportion of the pipelines which will be supplying the stadium with drinking
water will be made up of Duktus pipes”, we are told by Wilhelm Faulstich,
Duktus sales manager for the region of Bavaria. In future, the water is going
to be conveyed into the grounds of the stadium from the network belonging
to the municipal utilities company through a 300 metre long DN 300 connecting pipeline. An approximately 700 metre long DN 200 ring pipeline will
supply the area within the stadium with drinking water. In an emergency it
will also be possible for fire-extinguishing water to be taken from this pipeline. “At the start of the laying work we, in company with the Ing. Ludwig
Freitag company of Parsberg which had been given the contract, gave an
instruction course on the techniques of laying ductile iron pipes. Dieter Ludwig of the Duktus Applications Engineering Division in Wetzlar trained the
laying personnel in the technique of connecting our pipes, a service which
the Freitag workers were very happy to take advantage of”, reports
Faulstich. The work of laying the socketed pressure pipes with a Zinc-Plus
coat went off with no problems whatsoever and was completed within the
scheduled time. The Audi Sportpark will be opened on the 24th of July and
the new season, with the team in the Bundesliga 2nd division, begins four
weeks later. Duktus wishes them plenty of goals!
Duktus waste water pipes for the rainwater sewer on the Kirchhainer Damm
Branch to the DN 200 ring pipeline from the DN
300 connecting pipeline
Berliner Wasserbetriebe’s site board on the Kirchhainer Damm
Connection of DN 300 fittings
DN 200 Zinc Plus pipes for the ring pipeline supplying the area within the stadium with drinking
water and fire-extinguishing water
PAGE 20 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Ductile holds up better On a secure foundation
Big pipes for the little town of Calau
Duktus DN 800 waste water pipes for the rainwater pipeline on the Springteichallee in Calau
Since the autumn of 2009 the little town of Calau to the south of the Spree
Forest in Brandenburg has been busy completely replacing the infrastructure on the road named the Springteichallee. As part of this work it was urgently necessary not only for the road and pavement to be fully upgraded
but also for all the utility pipes and cables to be completely replaced.
“We provided a service beforehand by doing the stress analysis for the individual load cases. This showed that, due to the small amount of cover and
the poor soil conditions, it was only ductile iron pipes of wall-thickness class
K 9 which could be used “, we hear from Lutz Rau, Duktus sales manager
for Berlin and Brandenburg.
That is how, since October 2009, around 450 metres of drinking water
pipes of a nominal size of 300 mm with restrained joints and 220 metres of
waste water pipes of nominal sizes of 500, 600, 700 and 800 mm for the
rainwater pipelines have been supplied. Laying tools for the various nominal
sizes have also been made available.
“Before the laying work began, we instructed the company doing the work,
the Kolkwitz branch of EUROVIA, in the techniques of laying and connecting ductile iron pipes”, Rau tells us.
The large pipes were connected to the manholes by a pivoting joint by
means of manhole connectors from the well-tried sewer range which were
cast into the concrete. This enabled even the full length of a six-metre pipe
to be connected in safely without the need for an extra joint to be installed
close to the manhole. Because of the ductile microstructure of ductile cast
iron, there is no chance of the pipe material fracturing or cracking as a result of slight settlement.
Piles ensure the safety of an electricity pylon in Sarasdorf
In June 2010, 800 ductile piles of a nominal size of 118 mm were used for
expansion work at the Sarasdorf transformer substation in the village of the
same name in Lower Austria. The Sarasdorf substation cost 9.5 million Euros
when it went into operation in the autumn of 2007 and its purpose is to regulate the transmission of wind-generated electricity. The client for the project is
Austria’s largest producer of electricity Verbund, whose subsidiary VERBUND-Austria Renewable Power GmbH operates three wind farms. There is
expected to be a considerable increase in the generating capacity derived
from wind energy over the next few years and because of this the substation
needed to be expanded to have a new pylon for feeding wind-generated
electricity onto the grid and for onward distribution. Because of nature of the
soil locally, the foundation that the substation was given at the time was a
stone column foundation. Excessive secondary settlement had occurred and
because of this the system needed to be changed for the expansion work.
Following detailed checks, the company responsible for the specialist foundation engineering, Grund- Pfahl- und Sonderbau GmbH of Himberg near Vienna, therefore decided to use Duktus’s ductile pile system to enable their tender to include a solution which would be safe in the long term for the foundations of the portal pylon and the lightning conductor mast and for the pedestal for the equipment. “Making sure that the foundations of electricity pylons
are safe and secure is one of the most important requirements for ensuring
safety in a difficult environment and for ruling out the possibility of secondary
settlement”, explains Dipl.-Ing. Martin Hayden, the project manager at the
Grund- Pfahl- und Sonderbau GmbH company. “That was why we agreed to
the use of piles pressure-grouted with concrete. The special feature of this
project was the carrying out of two static bi-directional load tests with the Pile
HAY-Proof system. This system enables a more meaningful estimate to be
made of bearing capacity than conventional methods of testing, particularly
when there are variations in the characteristics of the soil in the region of the
toe of the pile. Also, there is no effect on the test pile from the reaction piles,
which rules out any possibility of the measurement results being distorted.”
Static load testing of a pile with the “Pile HAY-Proof” system
The waste water pipes of a variety of nominal sizes were laid by the conventional technique
Foundation of the equipment pedestal for the new electricity pylon at the Sarasdorf transformer
substation using ductile piles pressure-grouted with concrete
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 21
Pipes in Lake Constance Quickly laid
A new pipeline for the fountain at Kreuzlingen
A 250 metre drinking water pipeline replaced
trenchlessly in just a week
Since 1959 the fountain in Lake Constance just off the shore at Kreuzlingen
has been spraying water to a height of up to 50 metres. Kreuzlingen is Switzerland’s largest town on Lake Constance and the fountain is its landmark.
The pipeline supplying this spectacular pillar of water having begun to leak,
the Kreuzlingen Municipal Utilities Company got down to the job of re-laying it.
The pipeline is also being lengthened to ensure that the foundation is now a
good 50 metres further from the shore so that visitors strolling along by the
lakeside will not get an unwanted shower if the wind is in the wrong direction.
After several weeks of preparation, the time had come at the end of April
2010: the 100-metre-long lake pipeline, consisting of Duktus DN 150 ZMU
pipes with the BLS®-/VRS®-T joint which is so very suited to this application,
was connected together on land and then drawn out onto the lake. Floats
stopped it from sinking before it was intended to. Only when its full length was
floating on the lake was the pipe string sunk into the water and buried in the
underwater trench that had been excavated. The pipe was laid below the lake
bed in order not to interfere with rowers or surfers in the area close to shore.
To finish off the job, the top assembly of the fountain was installed from a special vessel for doing work on bodies of water from Fussach in Austria. “It was
an extraordinary project for us”, says Kurt Kasper, who is the man responsible
for pipe and cable laying at the Kreuzlingen Municipal Utilities Company.
“There are special preparations that have to be made for a lake pipeline. This
was why were so pleased that the work could be completed successfully,
thanks not least to the easy of laying and ruggedness of the Duktus pipes.”
A water pipeline was to be laid on the Panoramastrasse in the Swiss municipality of Oftringen in the canton of Aargau and the original plan was to do
this by the conventional open trench technique. However, objections and
wayleaves which were not granted meant that the pipeline had to be re-designed. It was decided to replace the existing pipeline trenchlessly using
BLS®-ZMU ductile iron pipes from Duktus.
The Trenchless Piping Systems AG (TPS) company of Zurich, a subsidiary
of Duktus’s Swiss representative TMH THOMAS HAGENBUCHER, was
given the contract to pull in the new DN 125 pipeline by the trenchless
press-pull technique.
Hindering the work was a Swisscom telecoms cable which ran alongside
the water pipeline only a short distance away from it and which was a major
obstacle to the installation of the traction machine and the connecting up of
the new pipeline and to the tapping holes for the new house connections.
Nevertheless, the pulling-in of the pipeline was successfully completed within a week in just three sections measuring 100, 45 and 85 metres respectively.
TPS was also responsible for connecting the pipeline and for making the
tapping holes for the house connections of the EWE type.
On completion, not only the client, EW Oftringen AG, but also the local residents were delighted with the short overall laying time of a mere three
weeks. With open trenches and different pipes the site would have been
there for nearly twice as long.
Floats stop the supply pipeline for the fountain at Kreuzlingen from sinking
Pipes being pulled in
Duktus ZMU pipes being connected on land
The cut-apart old pipe in the intermediate trench
A hydrant being inserted in the new pipeline
PAGE 22 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Installation starts at
Sochi
Astonishment in
Budapest
Duktus instructs a laying team
A successful presentation to water industry professionals at Budapester Wasserwerke AG
Early in May 2010, the Turkish pipelaying company Hazinedaroglu, which
will be laying the 14 kilometres of ductile iron pipes for the snow-making
systems at Sochi, was given an on-site training course in laying. Florian Althaler, Duktus product manager for snow from Hall, instructed the 40-strong
laying team in the techniques of connecting and laying BLS®-/VRS®-T ductile iron pipes to make sure that the work could then go ahead swiftly and
without any problems. Time is pressing, because this part of the ski runs is
due to be opened on 15 December. The 2014 alpine skiing competitions
(downhill, slalom, giant slalom and Super G), all of which will end in a stadium able to hold 18,000 spectators, are going to be held on this part. 205
hydrants with 185 snow guns installed in fixed positions and a few transportable ones will then ensure an immaculate carpet of snow for the ski
runs. The extension of the snow-making systems to cover the areas for free
style, ski cross, half-pipe and slope style will be taking place in 2011. In
2014, when the competitions in the alpine and Nordic disciplines of the
Winter Olympics are held in the ski resort of Rosa Khutor, there will be 55
different ski runs available totalling 54 kilometres in length and 15 ski-lifts
giving lifts of 1,470 metres. The ski resort will have been open on 140 days
of the year. (As a comparison, these are figures for Hochfügen in the Zillertal: 54 ski runs, 54 kilometres, 19 ski lifts, lift of 600 metres, 120 days of skiing). Russia’s prestige project promises an impressive and unforgettable
Winter Olympics.
As part of a presentation to water industry professionals at the Budapest Waterworks company which had been organised by the Hungarian Pureco
GmbH company, Duktus’s new representative in Hungary, the trade audience were shown the advantages of ductile iron pipe systems for trenchless
laying. Manuel Nivet, deputy director of services at Budapest Waterworks
opened the event. In his welcoming address, he pointed out that though
trenchless laying techniques were not as yet being used as part of everyday
practice in the Hungarian water industry, there was a great deal of interest in
this technique for pipe installation which had already proved its worth time
and time again in Germany and Austria. István Öllős, Pureco’s sales manager, then astonished the 80-strong trade audience who had travelled in from all
over Hungary with his talk on the obvious advantages that ductile pipe systems have for trenchless laying operations. He stressed the fact that, with the
burst lining technique for example, a pipeline up to two sizes larger in diameter can be pulled in place of the old pipeline, which produces considerable
increases in capacity. Öllős also gave a brief summary of the history of Duktus, to point out the significance of the new name and to tick off the milestones in the history of the development of the ductile iron pipe. Manfred
Loidl, the head of KRAFT & Wärme, the Austrian company specialising in
pipe laying and underground construction which is part of the PORR Group
and has its headquarters in Vienna, gave evidence of the capabilities of Duktus pipes, relatively unknown as they still are to the Hungarian water market,
by pointing to the success story that ductile iron pipe systems had been on
the Vienna water pipe network. A description of the burst lining technique
and a vivid video film rounded off his talk. In their talks, Dr. Markus Werderitsch, representing the Vienna Waterworks company, and Péter Kiss of the
Vibropac company, which represents amongst others TRACTO-TECHNIK,
the maker of no-dig systems, in Hungary, also described the satisfactory experience that had been had when the Vienna network of drinking water pipes
was being renovated. Questions could then be asked. This gave Stefan
Hobohm of Duktus’s Applications Engineering Division at Wetzlar an opportunity to make it clear how well suited Duktus ZMU and ZMU-Plus pipes are to
all no-dig techniques because the safe and reliable external protection that
they have allows them to be laid in almost any type of ground. To conclude the
event, and in some ways as its climax, György Kiss of Budapest Waterworks
let the organisers and guests know that the technique which had been presented was going to be used to replace a pipeline on a street carrying heavy
traffic in Budapest. The preparatory planning for this is going on at the moment and the experimental project is going to be implemented in the second
half of the year. Kiss invited all those who were interested to inspect the site.
Work to prepare for the laying of the pipes
The team from the Pureco company, Duktus’s new representative in Hungary
A hive of activity at the site in Rosa Khutor – Duktus pipes being laid for the snow-making systems
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 23
Water for Baghdad
Some steep demands
Duktus pipes for the Sharq Dijla water
treatment plant on the Tigris
Duktus pipe system prove themselves in
Bærum in Norway
In Iraq, a bottle of drinking water costs twice as much as a litre of oil. What
was once the country with the largest supply of water in the region is now
battling with environmental pollution and drought. Pipeline systems which
were dilapidated even before the war and a fall in the precipitation in the
mountains of Kurdistan which feeds the Tigris are causing ever greater
problems in providing a supply of drinking water in subtropical Baghdad.
A large number of projects need to be completed in the next few years to
stabilise the drinking water situation in the country. Duktus is involved in
one of these projects. Near Baghdad, a water treatment plant is being built
for the river water of the Tigris. The celebrated German plant constructing
firm WaRoTec of Aschaffenburg is responsible for the process design of the
“Sharq Dijla Water Treatment Plant” – as the project is officially designated
– and is supplying the electro-mechanical equipment for the second and
third phases of development of the plant. In 2009, WaRoTec and Duktus,
both members of the GWP (German Water Partnership), made contact in
order to work on this project together. “We are very happy to be working
with a company like WaRoTec, which has a wealth of experience extending
over many years in providing a full range of services, which operates all
over the world and which, at the moment, is very active in Iraq amongst others”, is the feeling of Peter Wassmuth, Duktus Sales Manager for Africa/Asia
and Special Projects. “The co-operation of two German companies both
experienced and successful in the field of water has resulted in the job being handled in a highly professional way at the Sharq Dijla Water Treatment
Plant. Duktus ductile iron pipes, fittings and flanged pipes are being installed in the plant planned by WaRoTec and are making a sustainable and
reliable contribution to ensuring that the Iraqi capital has a secure supply of
drinking water.” In July last year, Duktus sent the first advance shipment off
on its journey. In the first construction lot, 40 tonnes of ductile iron pipes
and fittings were laid for the first settling basin to be built. That was just the
beginning. The main delivery – 104 tonnes of fittings and flanged pipes –
for the treatment plant and the pumping station took place in February and
March. For them to be transported to the installation site on the Tigris the
goods had to be transferred a number of times: from lorry to rail, and then
to ship and then back to lorry. To satisfy the customer’s requirements, the
decision was made to ship the goods by container. This ensured transfers
to the different forms of transport which would be kind to the goods, limiting
to the maximum possible extent any damage in transit and easy handling.
Sixteen 40-foot containers were needed for the Duktus pipes and fittings.
The Sharq Dijla Water Treatment plant is being financed by the Iraqi government and the local authority and when it is completed its total output capacity will be as much as 7,500 m³/h. The treated water will make a substantial
contribution to the supply of drinking water in the capital, Baghdad.
Bærum is a municipality close to Oslo, the capital of Norway and, due to
the increasing numbers of people living there, the water supply, which was
taken from two springs, could no longer be guaranteed. Back in 2006 it
was therefore decided to connect a further spring into the supply network
by laying a pipeline. The laying operation was divided into three sections.
Because of the geological conditions in the Staver – Bryn section, which
made laying down a steep slope unavoidable, there were special requirements which the pipe material selected had to meet. Norconsult, the engineering consultants responsible for the planning, therefore decided to use
ductile iron pipes to meet the requirements profile and to ensure that the
pipeline could be laid on time. The Duktus Applications Engineering Division assisted Norconsult with advice during the planning of the work and
convinced it of the advantages of the BLS®-/VRS®-T push-in joint. This
meant that around 1000 metres of DN 1,000 (K10) Duktus drinking water
pipes, 354 metres of DN 800 (K10) pipes and 252 metres of DN 500 (K10)
pipes, together with fourteen 3 metre lengths of smooth and socketed pipe,
could set off on their journey to Norway. The external protection selected for
the pipes was a zinc coat and a cement mortar coating (ZMU). The deflectability of the restrained push-in joint meant that the pipeline could be
adjusted to suit the topographical conditions while using only a few socket
bends. The installation of the pipes was carried out by the pipelaying company Isachsen Entreprenør, and before it began on-site applications engineering instruction was given as a joint effort with Duktus’s Norwegian sales
and distribution partner Brødrene Dahl.
“Rainfall was very frequent in Norway in the summer of 2009, but in spite of
this the ease of installation of the Duktus pipe system enabled the tight
schedule to be met. The pressure tests on the section of pipeline that has
been installed are going on at the moment”, we are told by Per Egeberg of
Brødrene Dahl. Another section between Bærum and Oslo will, in the future, be ensuring that there is a reliable supply of drinking water to the municipality which, with its population of 111,000 people, is considered to be
the most affluent in Norway. We would like to take this opportunity of thanking the municipality for the trust it is putting in Duktus pipe systems.
Duktus drinking water pipes with a cement mortar coating make sure of the safety and reliability of
pipelines in the Norwegian municipality of Bærum
On the Tigris in Baghdad
Steep slopes were no problem for the ductile pipe systems with their BLS®-/VRS®-T joints
PAGE 24 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
A formal inaugural ceremony for the
centrifugal pipe casting foundry
Duktus’s pipe casting facility in Hall is the most up-to-date of its kind in Europe
Bildtext
Max Kloger, Duktus technical board member, welcomes the guests of honour in the new foundry building
On 15 April 2010, after almost 2 years of construction time, a formal ceremony was held to
inaugurate the new centrifugal pipe casting foundry at Duktus in Hall. The capital sum of six million Euros which has been invested (see our report in inform 1/2010) will safeguard production
capacity in the long term and gives Duktus the
most up-to-date pipe casting facility in Europe.
With 3-shift working, it will be possible in future
for more than 1000 kilometres of cast iron pipes
and piles a year to be produced at the Hall site.
Attending the official commissioning ceremony
were representatives of the government of the
state of Tyrol, city fathers from Hall and Wetzlar,
the president and chief executive of the Federation of Austrian Industries Tyrol, representatives of
the Tyrol Chamber of Commerce, the University
of Innsbruck and the Austrian Foundry Research
Institute, and representatives of trade associations and trade groups. The guests of honour
invited also included representatives of German
and Austrian banks and of business partners,
and members of the Duktus supervisory board.
Günter Fuhry, chairman of the Duktus board of
management, welcomed the guests in the gala
marquee which provided a suitable setting for
the event on the factory grounds. “The inauguration of this, our investment of the century, was
considered a very important part of our celebrations to mark the launch of the Duktus brand
name because it does, after all, show how well
we shall be able to perform and our willingness
to present ourselves as a stable factor on the
market in the future”, explains Duktus technical
board member Max Kloger. “That the same date
was set for the inauguration and for the market
In the gala marquee on the grounds of the Duktus works in Hall ...
... board members Günter Fuhry (on the left) and Max Kloger
opened the event
The machinery in operation
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 25
Symbolic production of the “first” pipe on 15 April 2010
launch sent out a positive signal not only to the
guests but also to our employees that this farreaching investment means that Duktus is going
to be playing a significant role in the international
ductile iron pipe business.” After his welcome
address in the gala marquee, Günter Fuhry
looked at the brand name and explained to the
guests of honour the background to the change
of name.
“It is not common for a company to have a history dating back 279 years and it is something that
deserves to be acknowledged”, Fuhry told the
guests. A screening of the new Duktus film
showed the company’s present-day persona –
fresh, lively and ready to perform. Following the
welcome address, the guests and hosts took a
short walk to the centrifugal casting building,
which was gleaming in its new splendour. Max
Kloger opened the commissioning ceremony
with a speech of thanks to the owners of the
company who had ensured that investment in
the site could continue unchanged. He expressed his particular appreciation of the work
done by the project team – and particularly by
the project managers Robert Humnig and Helmut Gollreiter, the head of production Harald
Tschenett and the foundry manager Andreas
Schreitel – whose years of work had all contribut-
ed to the success. Kloger continued, “Nor should
we forget the workforce at the foundry who
showed great flexibility and outstanding commitment not only during the construction phase but
also after it.”
Then came the great moment. Together with Hofrat Mag. Tratter, the Lord Mayor of the town of
Hall, Günter Fuhry and Max Kloger opened the
foundry by producing a pipe. The formal handover was followed by a tour of the works for all
those present.
“We were please to see how struck some of our
fellow foundry people were, during the tour of the
foundry, with the tidiness and cleanliness”, comments Harald Tschenett. “All the employees here
at Duktus in Hall are very proud of being able to
work in Europe’s most up-to-date centrifugal pipe
casting foundry. It gives them all a beneficial feeling of self-confidence and motivates them to continue performing well.”
The final part of the event took place in the gala
marquee, where excellent food and drink was
provided. In a pleasant atmosphere, there was
then time for a lot more discussion and shop-talk.
In the background, the company fire brigade
had, in their tried and tested way, been making
sure that the event went off smoothly.
Guests and hosts at the formal inauguration of the
centrifugal pipe casting foundry in Hall
A fine spread of food and drink was provided
Even Duktus was part of the meal
PAGE 26 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
This is how the name gets onto the pipe
Duktus invests in a fully automatic pipe marking system at the Wetzlar site
The product advertises itself if the name of its
maker and its special features are clearly visible.
Whether on lorries or by rail, Duktus pipes are on
their way to their destinations, the installation
sites, all over Europe. Advantage is taken of this
short time spent above ground to show people
that what they are looking at is not just any old
ductile iron pipe but a Duktus pipe.
From 1989 on, the pipes were marked on the
outer circumference at Duktus in Wetzlar by
means of a stamping block. What happened was
that the pipes rolled along a rollway and in so
doing rolled over the block, which was wetted
with stamping ink and was about 3-5 millimetres
above the top edge of the rollway. A disadvantage of this marking arrangement was the limited
flexibility to allow markings to be varied. There
had to be a corresponding stamping block for
each marking that was needed. Also, given the
size of the characters needed, no more than a
maximum of two markings could be accommodated on one turnover block. With the exception
of drinking water and sewage pipes, the markings therefore had to be applied manually with a
stencil.
“With the new system, which has been operating
since 10 June 2010, we are now in a position to
print on the pipes any marking, in characters
varying in height from 50 to 140 millimetres, and
also company logos and the quality and test
seals awarded by the different institutions. The
system operates entirely automatically, i.e. some
of the data on the pipes is acquired automatically
and some of it is entered manually in an upstream database and is stored there. This data is
then transmitted to the control system of the
marking system. The text mask stored in the
printer control system is activated in the appropriate way and its text is printed on the surface of
the pipe by the print heads”, explains Bernd Öhlhorn, a member of the Engineering/Technical
Planning Department at Duktus in Wetzlar. Up to
a nominal size of 200 mm, two pipes are always
marked simultaneously in each cycle of the system while larger sizes are marked individually.
The printing system used consists of two 32-jet
print heads. The system is comparable to an inkjet printer – only larger in size of course. The print
heads can be displaced horizontally along systems of linear guides for movement along the
longitudinal axis of a pipe and can be displaced
vertically to adjust them to the different diameters
of pipe. There are also stepping motors for angular movement to allow them to be moved from
their position at right angles to the longitudinal
axis of the pipes to any desired angular position.
This enables the height of the characters to be
varied. An additional flushing system stops the
jets from becoming clogged if the system is shut
down for any length of time. The ink used for the
characters is a pigmented ink which is white in
colour. This ensures that the markings are clearly
legible on all the colours used for the pipe coatings.
“We planned the system with the Beschriftungstechnik Frank Gärtner company. We were very
happy with the way the commissioning went. We
managed to get the whole system running, i.e.
printing, within 15 days without any problems
worth mentioning”, says Bernd Öhlhorn.
The fully automatic system marks Duktus pipes of all nominal sizes and coloured coatings
The print heads of the new pipe marking system
Freshly marked Duktus sewer pipes
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 27
Maintenance – repair, upkeep and servicing
There round the clock so that everything runs smoothly
In foundries, the maintenance departments have
their “busy period” when operations are shut
down for a while. This generally happens for
three to four weeks between December and January. Then, during the “winter inspection” when
the smelting plant, casting machines and machining systems are shut down, the men of the
maintenance department prepare for the return
of the rest of the company’s workforce. Following
precisely defined plans, everything is brought up
to scratch so that, when the deadline comes, all
the machines and systems will run like clockwork
at a moment’s notice.
“Last winter, which was very cold and long in
Germany, we had to contend with below-zero
temperatures, and sometimes extreme ones, in
the factory buildings”, we are told by Oliver
Strecker and Markus Engel, the two foremen in
charge of the 25-strong team working in the fitters’ workshop at Wetzlar. “There were frosty days
when the thermometer dropped to 16 or 17 degrees below zero. That was a real challenge for
us. Warm clothing helps, but only to a limited
degree, because when we are doing precise bits
of work we do not move our bodies enough to
compensate for the freezing cold. We, including
the 10-man team at the electricians’ workshop
headed by electrical foreman Marcus Schmidt,
are a team which has now been rejuvenated.
The “old hands”, such as Friedel Wolf who has
already worked for 40 years mainly in our maintenance department, have not only assisted us
with their wide knowledge of the subject and with
their experience but have also motivated us to
“hang in there” under deep-freeze conditions.
“In the Tyrol the winter was not so severe”, reports Helmut Gollreiter, head of maintenance at
Duktus in Hall. “It was not so much the temperatures we had to contend with. It was more a matter of coping with some extra tasks due to the
then imminent commissioning of the new centrifugal pipe casting foundry.”
Though specialist maintenance mechanics have
sometimes specialised in particular systems such
as crane systems or the casting machines and
have acquired detailed knowledge relating to
them, the maintenance departments at Hall and
Wetzlar do not generally operate with any specialist divisions. The mixture which it has of partial specialisation but the ability to go into action
anywhere is one of the strengths of the team.
“Basically, all the people are able to be used in a
flexible way”, says Klaus Emrich, who as the
Technical Works Manager also performs the combined function of the head of maintenance at
Duktus in Wetzlar.
“During this year’s winter inspection, which ended on 11th of January with a smooth restart of
production, we not only repaired the frost damage such as burst pipes and frozen pumps
which constantly happens, but also brought,
amongst others, casting machine 4 up to scratch.
Pipes of nominal size up to 1000 millimetres are
centrifugally cast on this machine. The whole of
the wiring and the control system for the drive to
the chill mould were replaced. Casting machine
2 was given a basic mechanical overhaul and the
pipe annealing furnace and other important systems were put into good running order. The core
production centre was overhauled and some
robots and the control system were replaced.”
“The shift patterns which exist in the factories to
meet the demands of the order book mean that
we not only have to ensure all-round availability
for the production resources by undertaking preventative maintenance but also have to have the
appropriate spare parts ready to hand to ensure
that unpredictable emergency repairs are made
as quickly as possible and there are no protracted downtimes.”, explains Oliver Strecker.
The maintenance teams thus bear a crucial responsibility for the ability to produce and supply
and, in the final analysis, have an effect which
should not be underestimated on quality.
To keep breakdowns on the machines to as low a
level as possible, scheduled maintenance is carried out in both factories at weekly intervals. Major repairs which would result in production being
shut down are, if possible, put off until the weekend. Good maintenance means not just reacting
but also looking ahead and making plans to find
and cure possible reasons for faults before they
do any damage.
“The experience we have had in this regard at
Hall with the new CareOffice maintenance software has already been good. By giving greater
transparency and allowing more precise advance
planning of preventative maintenance, the software is helping to achieve a further reduction in
faults. When the technical conditions at Wetzlar
have been suitably adapted, which will be done
over the next few months, it can be used efficiently there as well”, says Gollreiter.
Friedel Wolf, with the maintenance department at Wetzlar for 40
years
Robert Mair does repair work at Duktus in Hall
Oliver Strecker (on the left) and Friedel Wolf at the Duktus core production centre in Wetzlar
PAGE 28 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Fairs and exhibitions
Come and see us at IFAT ENTSORGA in Munich
Duktus was there!
IFAT ENTSORGA – The World’s
Leading Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Waste and Raw Materials Management
ECWATECH in Moscow
1 to 4 June 2010
From 13 to 17 September 2010, Munich will be
the international meeting point for the environmental industry. Duktus will be taking the stage
on a newly designed 300 square metre stand
and will be using this international event to provide a wide trade audience with a convincing
demonstration of what it can do for them and
what the new brand name means for them.
“In the design of the stand, we have quite consciously looked at our long history as a manufacturer of pipes. There is a picture gallery where we
show the key moments of the former companies,
Buderus Gussrohrtechnik and Tiroler Röhrenund Metallwerke, and lead the visitors through
the process of ‘growing together’ to its culmination in our new shared identity under the name
Duktus. When the doors of the Fair open in September, our new brand name will already be a
byword in the water and sewage industries but
by including our life story in the design of the
stand what we want to do is to again make it
clear to our visitors that we, Duktus, can look
back on a long and successful history as a company”, explains Duktus sales director Ulrich
Päßler.
The exhibits will be giving an insight into the future for Duktus. The focus will be on the use of
ductile drinking water and sewage pipes for
trenchless laying techniques. Some of these techniques are steadily growing in importance and
are now being used and are also gaining respect
in southern and eastern Europe.
In this regard, visitors’ interest will be particularly
focused on the BLS®-/VRS®-T joint and the ZMU
pipes. A small foretaste of IFAT ENTSORGA, the
major event, was provided by the WATENVI Fair
in Brno (see the next page).
Duktus is looking
forward to seeing you!
Hall A1, stand 331/528
“We have already had some applications from
groups of visitors to whom we shall be extending
our customary good service when we welcome
them to the stand in Munich”, reports Elvira
Sames-Dickopf of the Duktus Marketing Department at Wetzlar. Duktus has set its course for the
future. It is not alone; the IFAT has done the
same. As part of the co-operation with the Federal Association of the Germany Disposal, Water
and Raw Materials Industries (the BDE), the
event is being given a new subtitle and will now
be known as IFAT ENTSORGA The World’s Leading Trade Fair for Water, Sewage, Waste and Raw
Materials Management. “With the new sub-title, it
becomes clear at a glance that IFAT ENTSORGA
is, in global terms, the most important platform
for obtaining information, exchanging views and
doing business in the field of water, sewage,
waste and raw materials management”, explains
Eugen Egetenmeir, chief executive of the organisers Messe München. “Also, what the new ‘raw
materials management‘ part of the name makes
clear is the wider purview that IFAT ENTSORGA
now has, which goes beyond the areas of water
and sewage which were already comprehensively represented.” IFAT ENTSORGA can chalk up
some impressive growth in the area of “water
extraction / water and sewage treatment”. Compared with IFAT 2008, this area will have another
complete hall devoted to it.
The new design: The Duktus stand at IFAT ENTSORGA had already passed its test at the Wantenvi Fair in Brno
Ecwatech is the most important exhibition for the
water industry in the whole of the Russian-speaking area. It is held every two years.
This year’s event at the Crocus Expo Exhibition
Center broke all records. Over an area of 14,000
square metres, there were 742 exhibitors from 28
countries. 11,680 trade visitors took advantage of
the opportunity to learn about the latest trends in
water and sewage management. Compared with
the events held in previous years the proportion
of foreign visitors more than doubled.
Duktus was there under its new name and on a
stand of its own. In line with the theme of the
“No-dig” exhibition which took place at the same
time as Ecwatech at the same Center, the main
focus of the presentation was on the restrained
joints together with the ZMU coating.
“There was definitely a great deal of interest
shown in trenchless laying techniques. Techniques such as relining and horizontal directional
drilling have already very largely proved their
worth but burst lining is still one of the innovations which is capable of further development.
Here, cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg are
among those pioneering the use of this technique”, reports Andreas Weiler, head of sales for
the CIS and south-eastern Europe at Duktus in
Hall, who gave a talk on the stand of the Russian
Water Association about the advantages of the
BLS®-/VRS®-T joint for trenchless laying.
“Moscow is being submerged in a chaos of traffic and the inner-city conditions are making
trenchless laying techniques essential”, says
Weiler.
In conversations with visitors it was possible to
learn how laying is done in Russia but also to
make some facts clear, such as the importance of
the right external protection for pipes if a system
Andreas Weiler on the construction site in Moscow
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 29
The Watenvi Fair in Brno
25 to 27 May 2010
Left to right: Viktor Gauk, a financial controller at Duktus S.A.,
Sanja Schreitel, assistant to the head of sales at Hall, and Andreas Weiler, head of sales for the CIS and south-eastern Europe
at Duktus in Hall
is going to be safe and sustainably so. Detailed
discussions were also held with some potential
partners. The head of sales was given some help
with local language from Viktor Gauk, a financial
controller at Duktus S.A.
“It is not just celebrating the negotiations with a
drink together that is tremendously important in
Russia but also understanding one’s opposite
number in the negotiations”, is how Weiler sums
it up.
Inspecting a construction site in Moscow
During the stay in Moscow for the Fair, there was
an opportunity to view a current construction site
on which Duktus pipes are being used. As part
of the work of constructing a shopping centre on
Dorozhnaya Steet, a steel pipeline is being replaced by DN 900 ductile iron pipes.
The OOO PKF MAKON company placed the
contract with ZAO 405 UNR. The construction
work is being carried out by the OAO MOSKAPSTROY company.
The International Water Management and Ecological Fair in Brno is one of the largest eco-fairs
held anywhere in central and eastern Europe
and the main subjects it covers are water management, waste disposal and waste recycling
and all the aspects of environmental protection.
The Fair is a combination of two events which
supplement one another – the International Water Mains and Sewerage Exhibition VODOVODYKANALIZACE (VOD-KA) and the International
Environmental Fair ENVIBRNO.
This year there were 283 exhibitors from 14
countries showing their goods and services to an
international audience of professionals. Most of
the foreign exhibitors came from highly developed west European industrialised countries.
The majority of the foreign visitors on the other
hand had travelled in from the post-Soviet or Middle Eastern countries, from the Balkans or from
North Africa, areas which are still waiting for crucial investments to be made in the water industry,
in the infrastructure for water and waste management and in environmental protection.
In a similar way to what happened last year,
some 9,000 visitors from 30 countries and four
continents made it clear how important Brno is
as a meeting point for the industry.
“The great interest shown by professionals confirmed the decision we made to show with a new
team and on a new stand. For the stand we considered it a sort of dress rehearsal for IFAT
ENTSORGA which will be taking place in September”, comments Petr Kopal, CEO of Duktus
litinove systemy s.r.o.
“The key message we were conveying with what
we were showing was the superior suitability of
ductile iron pipes for trenchless laying techniques. The trade public were very positive about
the lucid presentation and comprehensive information we were able to provide for them in our
new brochures. The stand design passed its test
splendidly. We received a great deal of praise
and even, occasionally, enthusiastic agreement
with the aims and thinking behind it”, says Kopal.
His comrades-in-arms on Duktus’s Czech team
at the Fair, Martin Karas and Milan Hodina, had
this to add: “Especially on the second day of the
Fair there was no let up in the pressure we were
under to satisfy the demand for information there
was from customers and from many other people
with an interest, particularly from eastern European countries.”
In short: a successful appearance by Duktus!
A successful presentation of ductile iron pipes and fittings at the
Watenvi Fair
DN 900 ductile iron pipes being laid on Dorozhnaya Steet in
Moscow
A BLS®-/VRS®-T ductile iron pipe with a cement mortar coating for trenchless laying
PAGE 30 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Fairs and exhibitions
Duktus was there!
120th Annual Congress of the
ÖVGW (Gas and Water Congress
and Trade Fair) including the Annual General Meeting
19 and 20 May 2010
The Gas and Water Congress organised by the
ÖVGW was held on 19 and 20 May 2010 at the
Messe Wels exhibition company’s New Exhibition
Centre in Wels. The target groups for this event
were mainly professionals in positions of responsibility in water supply companies and network
operating companies, representatives of authorities, and firms of planning engineers and engineering consultants. Large numbers of up-to-date
papers dealing with the fields of natural gas and
drinking water provided the 700 or so attendees
from home and abroad with an excellent platform
for exchanging views and discussing questions
relating to all aspects of the Austrian supply industry. There was also a large – uniquely large in
Austria - trade fair at which the latest technical
products used in gas and water supply were
shown. Duktus saw this as a good opportunity
not only for presenting and positioning their
products but also introducing the new name of
the company this year.
The 200 square metre stand, which was shared
with the Hawle, ewt and Krammer companies,
provided a splendid setting for this. The reactions
shown by visitors were all positive. All the Duktus
employees present went enthusiastically to work
for the two days in presenting and explaining
Duktus’s ductile iron pipe system to the professional audience.
SAM in Grenoble
25 to 27 April 2010
Information for professionals and
training in Leipzig
8 April 2010
Together with Interalpin, the SAM, the World Exhibition of Sustainable Development in the Mountains, which takes place every two years in Grenoble, is the most important trade exhibition for
ski resorts in Europe. From the 25th to the 27th of
April, Grenoble became an international meeting
point for the industry.
On 8 April 2010, Duktus organised an event providing information for professionals and training
on the subject of “Ductile iron pipes in water supply” at the Haus der Kommunalen Wasserversorgung in Leipzig. The guests were employees of
the Bau + Service Leipzig company, of Kommunale Wasserwerke Leipzig, and planning engineers from some of the local firms of engineering
consultants. In the theoretical part of the event,
Wolfgang Rink, head of Applications Engineering
at Duktus in Wetzlar, presented, amongst other
things, the product range, the types of coating
and the BLS®-/VRS®-T types of joint and restraining system. Videos of reference applications were
shown to give a graphic picture of different practical applications, such as for example the trenchless laying operation by the horizontal direction
drilling technique which was carried out in Valencia in Spain. This was an operation where DN 900
ductile iron pipes with BLS®-/VRS®-T joints and a
cement mortar coating were used to give an installed length of 500 metres. A special part of the
event was devoted to an explanation of the K- and
C-classes. A lively debate and question and answer
session made it clear what an immense interest is
being taken in the current discussion relating to DINEN 545 and its publication. Subjects of particular
interest were the re-arrangement of the wall-thickness classes and the wording of the new texts for
invitations to tender. Wolfgang Rink pointed out that
– assuming the new DIN-EN 545 were accepted
internationally – there would first be a transitional
period of one year following publication. The second part of the event was rounded off by a practical
demonstration of techniques. Georgis Moudroupidis
of Duktus Applications Engineering Wetzlar showed
the connection and disconnection of the BLS®-/
VRS®-T joints and the handling of ZMU pipes.
Left to right: Silke Hackl (Sales Manager Western Europe), Stefan
Sterr (head of Snow Sales) and Bernard Jeffrault (the Duktus
representative for France)
Duktus was attending for the second time running and showed its extensive range of technology for snow making. Now more than ever, artificial snow is vital to the economic viability of ski
resorts throughout the world. “It went well”, was
the unanimous verdict of the Duktus team at the
exhibition, who wore t-shirts printed with the new
name as a way of introducing it in Grenoble.
13,500 trade visitors and around 530 exhibitors
from all over the world made this year’s SAM the
most successful since its inception.
The Messe Wels company’s New Exhibition Centre
13,500 trade visitors from all over the world visited the 2010 SAM
Duktus showed at the 120th ÖVGW Annual Congress under its
new name
We are Duktus. Presentation of the new name at the SAM in
Grenoble
Wolfgang Rink, head of Applications Engineering at Duktus in
Wetzlar, presenting the product range
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 31
The Duktus Family Day at Hall
An eventful week came to an end on 17 April with Hall’s first Family Day
When the giant inflatable climbing mountain arrived on the Duktus factory grounds in Hall at 8
in the morning on 17 April, the first rays of sunlight were already beginning to show themselves.
The organisers could not have wished for anything better. Everything was right, starting with
the weather and moving on through the general
atmosphere and, of course, the timing. The first
Family Day in Hall was a worthy conclusion to the
week in which both the new company name and
brand name had been introduced and the new
centrifugal pipe casting foundry had been formally commissioned.
“It was a hectic week”, says Andrea Gatt from the
Purchasing Department. “We had our hands full
to get everything done. That’s why we were all
the happier to see more than 450 employees and
pensioners and their families accepting the invitation from the executive management and, by
being in such a good mood, making our first
Family Day in Hall a real success.”
On the morning of the event it was possible to
make a close-up inspection of the machinery
while it was working, and there were a number of
information points providing a detailed explanation of the exact technical processes, beginning
with the individual materials used and continuing
right through to the final coating of the pipes and
fittings. It was the up-to-date industrial processes
that made a particularly strong impression on the
family members and many employees proudly
took the opportunity of showing the modern stations at which they worked. Then there was a
friendly get-together where a lively exchange of
experiences took place in a very pleasant atmosphere and people had a good laugh together
over many an amusing incident from the past.
There was plenty to do too for the children and
young people, who took “Practice makes perfect” as their motto and showed great enthusiasm in clambering up the climbing mountain and
showing what they could do on the skills course.
The organisers had of course provided plenty of
food and drink because there is nothing like
works inspections and climbing matches to give
one an appetite.
Kids and adults had a lot of fun taking the chance to show off their sporting skills
More than 450 working employees and pensioners took advantage of the opportunity of taking a tour through the works with their families and having a friendly get-together
PAGE 32 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Welcome to Duktus!
Our new members of staff
Ousama Sabra
Since 2 August 2009, Ousama Sabra, born
1978, has been adding his support to the Duktus Pipe Systems team in Dubai. On completing
his studies as a mechanical engineer at Beirut
Arab University in 2001, Sabra did his year of
military service as a naval officer in Lebanon.
Following this, he first worked for ZUBLIN in
Beirut and then moved to Aqualine Systems,
the representatives of Uponor & CUNO Filtration in Kuwait. After that he worked as a sales
manager and field sales engineer for the Steel & Metal and Offshore Oil and
Gas division of HILTI Qatar.
At Duktus in Dubai, Sabra, who was born in Lebanon, is responsible for the
development of untapped markets in the MENA (Middle East and North
Africa) region. The mechanical engineer, who at a later date will be playing
his part in the development of a new sales team, has put the focus on
trenchless application technology in the different markets. Ousama Sabra is
married and has twin sons aged two and in his spare time he is a keen
sportsman. He also enjoys reading, preferring books on political subjects.
Patricia Spilka
Patricia Spilka, born 1985, has been an
executive assistant at Duktus in Wetzlar
since 1 April 2010. She took over in this
post from Melanie Schwarz, who is on
maternity leave. Having passed her vocational school-leaving exam, Patricia
Spilka, who was born in Racibórz in
Poland, began her training as a clerical
officer in 2005 at Duktus in Wetzlar. On
successfully completing her training,
she was transferred to the Human Resources Department as a specialist office worker. Early in 2010 she moved
to a software company in Wetzlar as an assistant to the sales staff. As well
as the usual secretarial work, her duties will also include seeing to insurance and contractual matters and organising business trips, meetings and
events. Patricia Spilka, who has now become very much at home in the
job, enjoys going shopping in her spare time and practising the fitness
exercises known as Tae Bo, which combine elements of various Asiatic
martial arts with aerobics.
Nadine Guem
Since March 2010, Nadine Guem,
born 1989, has been an assistant to
the sales manager for Austria at Duktus in Hall. She took over in this post
from Julia Berkmann, who is on maternity leave (see our report on the
baby in News in brief on page 35).
Having passed her school-leaving
exam from general secondary school
in 2005, Nadine Guem, who was born
in the village of Rum, began her training as a clerical officer at Duktus in Hall, which she successfully completed
in 2008. Following this, she won her spurs as an account manager in the
Domestic Sales department. In her new job as an assistant she will be
faced with the challenge of providing comprehensive support for the sales
manager. As well as this, she will also be acting as an expediter for products. Nadine Guem’s favourite pastime is reading but she also enjoys listening to music and occasionally she will swing onto the saddle for a ride on
her bike.
Marc Winheim
Since 1 June 2010, Marc Winheim,
born 1985, has been adding his
strength to the Applications Engineering Division of Duktus in Wetzlar. After
training as industrial mechanic specialising in machinery and systems, a
course he successfully completed in
2006, he was an employee of the hydraulics department of the HUBTEX company by 2007. Winheim, who was
born in Fulda, then took a further training course from 2008 to 2009 at the
State College for Technicians in Weilburg, at the end of which he qualified
as a state-certified technician in mechanical engineering. Following this he
attended Weilburg Technical College for two years studying mechanical
engineering. In his new field of activity as an applications engineer with
Duktus, the graduate in mechanical engineering and business management will be concerned mainly with advising clients and overseeing installation sites. As well as this he will also be running courses on product engineering and safety and will be responsible for guiding groups of visitors
around the works. Marc Winheim‘s hobbies are cycling and cooking.
wishes them well as they start their new jobs!
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 33
Exchange of employees Quality is important
Growing together for everyone’s benefit
An Integrated Management System at Duktus
Exchange of employees under the motto “Growing together” – left to right: Sasa Andrejic, a machine
operator from Hall and Reno Lehnhausen, a foreman in the foundry at Wetzlar
The quality of its products and services is a crucial criterion determining
Duktus’s future viability. Constant improvements are a stated aim of all employees.
To establish a solid and visible foundation for this across the whole company as part of the “Growing together” initiative, an overall Integrated Management System has been created. In the form of an “Integrated Management
Manual” this system was approved in the course of the change-of-name.
The initial certification of the Quality Management System based on EN ISO
9000 et seq. took place back in 1992. Ongoing development of the QM
system has continued up to the present and is continuing still and the system undergoes regular audits by a certifying body. In every case a renewal
has been obtained for the period of validity of the certificates.
Over the course of time, management systems have also been established
for environmental protection, safety at work and risk assessment.
There were many things that the management systems at the Hall and
Wetzlar sites had in common and, as a result, they have been linked together in the Integrated Management System, which has been distributed as
the “Integrated Management Manual”.
The portal’s introduction includes a brief description of the company, its
history, the corporate mission statement and the corporate policy.
The “Integrated Management Manual” is a synthesis of the processes and
methods which are used by Duktus in the areas mentioned above. The individual business processes and the technical and organisational constraints
are documented in detail in up-to-date software for visual display and are
available at all times to employees on the net. What the “Integrated Management Manual” is intended to do is to help to guarantee and steadily
improve the high product quality, safety at work, environmental performance and reduction of risks that are expected by our customers, employees
and local residents and by other interested parties.
In 2009, a series of advanced training courses for managers took place
under the motto “Growing together” (we reported on them in inform 3/2009
and 1/2010). The scope of these activities has now been expanded and an
employee exchange scheme has been started in which the people taking
part will be mainly foremen and shift foreman.
The aim of this scheme is to encourage a vigorous exchange of experiences between colleagues from Hall and Wetzlar to enable the strengths of the
two sites to be exploited to even greater mutual benefit. As a start, in midApril 2010 five employees from Hall spent a few days in Wetzlar in the corresponding departments, and a short time later four employees from different
production departments in Wetzlar visited their colleagues in Hall. The response of the people involved was absolutely positive. A demonstrable result of the experiences learned from this and the knowledge gained is a
larger number of STOP sign suggestions from the employees taking part.
Left to right: Stefan Koldas, a furnace worker from Wetzlar, Humberto Silva-Serafim, a smelter from
Wetzlar and Thomas Heuschneider, a member of the technical staff in the smelting plant at Hall
exchanging experiences at Hall
Left to right: Andreas Gatt, a crew chief in the pipe processing department at Hall, Martin Schwarz, a
pipe cementer from Wetzlar and Wolfgang Muigg, head of pipe processing at Hall, in the pipe wrapping building in Hall
Tiers pyramid for the system documents belonging to the Integrated Management Manual
The process map
PAGE 34 | INFORM NO. 2 / 2010
Manuel and music
Girls’ Day in Wetzlar
Guitar playing is more than just a hobby
Some interesting insight into “men’s jobs”
When Manuel Schmider first
saw the light of day in 1993,
musicality did not seem to be
something that was going to
be passed on to him because
no-one in either his parents‘ or
his grandparents‘ generation
had ever been particularly
bothered about music, let
alone played an instrument. So
it was all the more remarkable
that at only four young Manuel
was already patting around
with a very rhythmic beat on
drums or other objects, inducing his parents to send him off
for the lessons known as “music for the young child”. The
experts there immediately recognised that Manuel had a
very definite ear for music and
strongly recommended suitable training to develop his talent. During his time at primary
school, Michael, who was born
in Innsbruck, then became a member of the well known Wiltener Sängerknaben, one of Europe’s oldest boys’ choirs and one of those with the
greatest tradition. As well as his vocal training he also worked very hard at
the lessons he took on the guitar. It was therefore no surprise that he then
attended The Music General School in Innsbruck and that during this time
he was already a member of a band in which he played at private celebrations. However, what is more surprising to those on the outside is how his
(professional) career then developed, because he wanted to learn something “solid”, something which had as much as possible to do with electronics. So the opportunity to train as a works electrician at Duktus in Hall was
exactly what he was looking for. Manuel is now in the second year of his
apprenticeship. He has shown his musical talent at company celebrations
and there have already been a number of times when he has picked up his
guitar and done an impromptu turn.
In the future too, Manuel Schmider is going to be devoting his spare time
mainly to music which, though it may not be his job, is still a vocation and
more than just a hobby.
On every fourth Thursday in April since 2001 it had been principally technical and engineering companies, concerns which have technical departments, and training centres, colleges and research centres throughout Germany that have been opening their doors to schoolgirls in their 5th year (1st
year of secondary school) and above. On the Girls’ Day, the girls learn
about the jobs for which training is required and the study courses in engineering and technology, IT, skilled manual work and natural sciences, fields
in which women have not, to date, been very well represented, or they meet
female role models in leading positions in business or politics. The Girls’
Day is the largest project for giving schoolgirls guidance on a job or career.
Since the campaign started, the number of events has been growing steadily and more than 1,000,000 girls have taken advantage of the campaign. In
2010, there were more than 122,000 girls exploring technology and the
natural sciences in more than 9,600 companies and organisations.
On the 22th of April, Duktus in Wetzlar opened its doors for the first time to
the girls. On this day, the girls who had applied, aged from 10 to 14, were
to be given an insight into the jobs that are done in a “man’s world”.
So, on this morning, the daughters and nieces of our employees took the
road to Duktus, where a friendly reception was waiting for them from Gabriele Auriga (Human Resources Department), Doreen Wittkamm (technical
assistant to the works manager) and the apprentice Tobias Schmidt. They
were first given some general information about Duktus and then, after
putting on strong shoes and a hard hat, it was on into the works. There the
girls learnt what the distinguishing features are of typical “men’s jobs” in the
foundry. However, on the Girls’ Day the girls were not just going to watch
while others worked but were going to “work” themselves. They got an opportunity to do this in the training workshop where, by following the instructions of the trainers and Tobias Schmidt, they were allowed to make their
own name badges. After a midday meal together, Gabriele Auriga guided
the young ladies through the administrative department, where individual
employees told them briefly about the range of tasks for which they were
responsible. It was a successful Girls’ Day and a new and positive experience for the girls and for Duktus.
Girls’ Day in Wetzlar – the girls got an idea of men’s jobs ...
Talented musician Manuel Schmider is training as a works electrician at Duktus in Hall
... and made their own name badges in the training workshop
INFORM NO. 2 / 2010 | PAGE 35
News in brief
From all over Duktus
Lea Berkmann is the first “Duktus baby”
A question for a prize in Norway
It was on exactly 15 April 2010,
the day of the launch of the
brand name in the Salzlager
Hall, and at almost precisely
the moment when the event
began that Lea Berkmann first
saw the light of day at 6.01
p.m. in Schwaz in Tyrol. Lea is
the daughter of Robert and
Julia Berkmann and Julia was
the assistant to the sales manager at Duktus in Hall who is now on maternity leave. She was the predecessor of Nadine Guem (see the article on page
34). This new member of the human race began life weighing 2900 grams
and measuring 47 centimetres in height. This first “Duktus baby” will by
now have long outgrown these figures.
As part of its roadshow, Duktus’s Norwegian sales
and distribution partner Brødrene Dahl holds a
competition for which the prize is a barbecue.
One of the questions is this: What is Buderus’s
new name?
“Tuktus”, “Duktus” or “Bukterus”?
Have fun guessing the answer!
A special honour for stacks of pipes
Mario and Nadine Hauser got married
on the 10th of April 2010. The groom, a
mechanical engineer with Duktus in
Hall, wanted to have the storeyard for
pipes as a background motif for his
official wedding photo. Needless to say
he was given permission for the photo
shoot to take place on the factory
grounds and that was how the stacks of
pipes became an attractive backdrop in
this memento of the wedding.
Anniversaries
Duktus Tiroler Rohrsysteme GmbH
25 years with the company
Bernhard Haller, 1.9. 2010
35 years with the company
Werner Bichler, 14.7. 2010
Imprint
Published by: The executive management of Duktus Rohrsysteme Wetzlar GmbH and Duktus Tiroler
Rohrsysteme GmbH
Editors: Dietmar Fischer, Iris Reinhardt, Elvira Sames-Dickopf
Contributors to this issue: Hansjörg Aggeler, Florian Althaler, Christian Auer, Thomas Aumüller,
Splendid successes at school for the apprentices at Duktus in Hall
Some of the Duktus apprentices at Hall completed the past year of the vocational schooling part of their apprenticeships very successfully. The scholastic achievements of Jasmin Petschenig (mechanical engineering technician), Clemens Mader (mechanical engineering technician) and Patrick
Pfister (factory electrician) were rated “excellent” and Claudio Troger (mechanical engineering technician) achieved a good overall success. Our sincere congratulations to these up and coming workers of ours!
Alexander Bauer, Plasch Depeder, Klaus Emrich, Wilhelm Faulstich, Luca Frasson, Nadine Guem,
Silke Hackl, Manfred Hoffmann, Uwe Hoffmann. Max Kloger, Petr Kopal, Walter Korenjak, Ingo Krieg,
Andreas Moser, Janika Norkeit, Christoph Obkircher, Bernd Öhlhorn, Ulrich Päßler, Lutz Rau,
Thomas Schleicher, Andreas Schreitel, Sanja Schreitel, Werner Siegele, Harald Tschenett,
Stefan Sterr, Werner Volkard, Peter Waßmuth, Andreas Weiler
Design, typesetting and litho plates: K13 Medien, Wetzlar
Picture credits/sources: Except where otherwise indicated, rights in photos, drawings and other representations are held by Duktus Rohrsysteme Wetzlar GmbH and Duktus Tiroler Rohrsysteme GmbH
Printed by Druckhaus Bechstein, Wetzlar
From left: Clemens Mader, Jasmin Petschenig, Patrick Pfister, Claudio Troger
Editors’ address
inform
Sophienstraße 52-54, 35576 Wetzlar
Phone: +49(0) 64 41-49 14 90 Telefax: +49(0) 64 41- 49 14 97
E-mail: [email protected]
© Duktus Rohrsysteme Wetzlar GmbH und Duktus Tiroler Rohrsysteme GmbH
Next issue: 15 November 2010
Duktus S.A.
Duktus
Rohrsysteme Wetzlar GmbH
Duktus
Tiroler Rohrsysteme GmbH
Duktus
litinové systémy s.r.o.
Duktus
Pipe Systems FZCO
Innsbrucker Straße 51
6060 Hall in Tirol
Austria
Sophienstraße 52-54
35576 Wetzlar
Germany
Innsbrucker Straße 51
6060 Hall in Tirol
Austria
Košt’álkova 1527
266 01 Beroun
Czech Republic
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JAFZA View 18/Office No. 909
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T +43 (0) 5223 503-215
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