70 Years Home of Mobility
Blickle Räder+Rollen celebrates its 70th company anniversary
Blickle Räder+Rollen is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year under the motto "70 Years Home of Mobility". But what exactly does 70 years home of mobility mean? Blickle facilitates mobility worldwide from its headquarters in Rosenfeld. The history of the wheel and castor manufacturer goes back to 1953. At that time, Wilhelm Sülzle divided his small hardware factory into three independent companies under his sons and his son-in-law Heinrich Blickle, father of today's managing director Reinhold Blickle. At that time, the newly founded company took over the production of iron wheelbarrow wheels. However, it did not stay that way for long before the company continually developed through the decades, to become the world market leader in the field of wheels and castors. Five pillars support this success: a dedicated team, a worldwide sales network, a wide product range, trusting customers and a high level of manufacturing expertise.
Home for over 900 employees in Rosenfeld
Every day, more than 900 employees come and go at the headquarters. For many of them, Blickle has become a part of home. Their goal is to reinvent the wheel together every day and to create ever new, innovative mobility solutions. Despite increasing internationalisation, Blickle employs the majority of its staff at the Rosenfeld site and places great value on quality that is "Made in Germany". However, what does "Made in Germany" actually mean? Strictly speaking, this term is only a designation of origin, but for us, "Made in Germany" means so much more. It is a promise that Blickle makes to its customers. In order to offer every customer the right solution - and at the highest quality level - the wheel and castor manufacturer combines 70 years of development and production know-how with 70 years of customer orientation. The aim is never to stand still, but to keep the world of mobility rolling.
Home for 20 international sales companies
With a total of 20 international sales companies and exports to over 120 countries, Blickle has developed into a global player and world market leader in the field of wheels and castors. More than 300 employees in the company's own sales offices around Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific as well as trading partners worldwide form a unique sales network for the products manufactured in Rosenfeld. Thanks to the state-of-the-art logistics centre at the headquarters, 8,000 wheel and castor types are immediately available from stock and another 12,000 within two to three days.
Home for 30,000 wheels and castors in the standard range
The various applications for wheels and castors are as diverse as the 30,000 products in the standard range. Whether in intralogistics, materials handling, mechanical and plant engineering, mobile equipment and apparatus of all kinds or in the medical and hygiene sector, Blickle wheels and castors meet a wide range of requirements. Blickle offers products made of various materials with load capacities of up to 100 tonnes. If there is no suitable wheel or castor in the standard range, the engineers are happy to take on any new challenge, because customised special solutions are a key strength at Blickle.
Home for 70,000 customers worldwide
Blickle is a reliable partner for more than 70,000 customers from industry and trade worldwide. The wheel and castor specialist offers its customers a comprehensive range of consulting services, be it through personal contact persons or the live chat on the website. CAD files in five different formats are also available there. This gives customers the opportunity to integrate the products into their design in advance. The newly developed online shop also makes shopping even easier, with customers also receiving their individual purchasing conditions. By implementing a new product information management system, Blickle has also created the basis for the simple provision of all electronic product data. This allows individual e-catalogues including all data, images and prices to be made available on e-procurement platforms.
Home of high manufacturing competence
For Blickle, it is essential not to rest on past successes. The focus is on the further development of existing materials, the use of state-of-the-art machines and the continuous optimisation of manufacturing processes - and all of this centrally at one location. With a very high vertical range of manufacture, we deliberately bundle competence and experience at our headquarters and thus ensure short distances. This allows us to react quickly and flexibly to customer requests and to offer international customers high product quality with short delivery times. Sales, design, development and production work hand in hand. They have access to the most modern design programmes as well as manufacturing and testing processes. One of the highlights at the headquarters in Rosenfeld is the new customer competence centre. With state-of-the-art testing facilities and one of the most modern test tracks in the world, this now offers even more opportunities to put Blickle products through their paces.
The story continues to be written
The company's course continues to be set for the future through the generational change: Dr. Sarah Blickle-Fenner and David Blickle were appointed managing directors of the Blickle Group in 2021 after working for the company for several years. While Dr. Sarah Blickle-Fenner manages the international sales and marketing organisation together with her father Reinhold Blickle, David Blickle, as a mechanical engineer, is responsible for the areas of production, purchasing and technology. Thus Blickle will remain family-run in the future. Both with the change of generations and with the two new buildings, which will be officially inaugurated in 2023, we are clearly committed to the Rosenfeld location. The construction of a new state-of-the-art polyurethane production facility with 24,000 square metres will increase production capacity in this product segment by more than 100 percent, making the Rosenfeld plant the largest wheel and castor production facility in the world. The architecturally appealing administrative extension provides space for additional workstations, a customer competence centre and the new company restaurant. All in all, Blickle is positive about the future and thanks its customers, employees and suppliers for 70 years of loyalty.