Tech Smarts – global Trumpf firm opens cutting-edge factory
- Today Online
- 12 hours ago
- 10 min read
Updated: 4 minutes ago
• World leader Trumpf debuts state-of-the-art smart factory in Farmington
By Bruce Deckert
Editor-in-Chief
Today Online and Today Magazine
TRUMPF has opened a sparkling and spanking-new $40 million smart factory at its global headquarters in Connecticut's Farmington Valley. Located in Farmington, a historic New England town, Trumpf Inc. is an international leader in machine tools and cutting-edge laser technology.
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The company makes state-of-the-art machines that empower manufacturers to produce metal components for a wide range of products and industries — aircraft, agriculture, cars, construction, consumer electronics, energy infrastructure, fitness equipment, medical stents, satellites, semiconductors, shipbuilding and more.
The smart factory has added 55,800 square feet of production space for Trumpf Inc. to efficiently cut, bend and weld thousands of different parts for its high-tech machines.
“The new facility is a clear reflection of our commitment to our U.S. customers and our deep appreciation for their business,” said Trumpf Group owner and CEO Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller at the smart factory grand-opening ceremony on Tuesday, May 20.
“I am pleased to see this $40 million investment in Connecticut come to fruition, but this is just the beginning — Trumpf will continue to stand for such dedication to innovation, technology and growth in North America in the years to come.”
The company produces all of its metal laser-cutting machines in Farmington, along with related automation devices for the North American market. The smart factory offers advanced industrial capabilities via high-tech manufacturing equipment to produce sheet-metal parts for its American-made machine tools. Recently, a new production line was added to make tube laser-cutting machines.
"This cutting-edge facility is ushering in the next generation of manufacturing," said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont at the ceremony. "Trumpf’s investments in local manufacturing and skilled worker training are forward-thinking efforts that bolster the reputation of Connecticut and Trumpf as a leader in innovation and technology."
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The state has given the company a $2.5 million grant via the Strategic Supply Chain Initiative announced in January. Lamont said Trumpf is the first recipient of funding through this $25 million state program that provides grants to help supply-chain companies in Connecticut's core industries escalate production.
“The future demands smarter, more connected and more competitive manufacturing,” said Trumpf Inc. president and CEO Lutz Labisch at the ceremony. “The smart factory reaffirms our partnerships with manufacturers to meet their growing needs to streamline and accelerate production."
A subsidiary of the privately held Trumpf Group, Trumpf Inc. launched in 1969 in Farmington and has satellite U.S. locations in California, Michigan, New Jersey and Illinois, the site of another smart factory — plus additional North American facilities in Canada and Mexico. The parent company Trumpf Group is headquartered in Ditzingen, Germany.
With more than 70 subsidiaries, the Trumpf Group is represented across Europe, North America, South America and Asia. Production facilities are located in Austria, China, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Switzerland and the United States.
"It was here, in 1969, that my father laid the foundations of a success story — right here in Farmington, in the year of Neil Armstrong and Tom Seaver," said Leibinger-Kammüller in her eloquent grand-opening speech.
Her father, Berthold Leibinger, began an apprenticeship in 1950 at his godfather Christian Trumpf's company in Germany, according to the Trumpf website. While the firm's saga is indeed a business success story, it is also of course a family story.
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TRUMPF FAMILY TREE
Berthold Leibinger married his sweetheart Doris in November 1957, and this husband-and-wife team welcomed three children to their family: two daughters and a son. In 1958, Berthold and Doris traveled to the United States, where he worked as a development engineer at the Cincinnati Milling Machine Company in Wilmington, Ohio. Their oldest daughter (Nicola) was born in Ohio in December 1959.
In 1961 Berthold became the manager of the Trumpf design department and the family returned to Germany. Another daughter (Regine) was born in September 1963 and a son (Peter) arrived in April 1967.
Berthold took the role of Trumpf's technical managing director in 1966. In 1969 he founded Trumpf America Inc. (now Trumpf Inc.) in Farmington — in a rented building with three employees, according to a CBIA news report.
This American initiative was Trumpf's second subsidiary outside Germany — the first was established in Switzerland in 1963. Berthold became the Trumpf president and chair of the managing board in 1978.
"Six years ago, in 2019, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Trumpf North America," said Leibinger-Kammüller at the smart-factory debut ceremony. "Today, we’re represented at eight locations in the United States. ... The U.S. is now the Trumpf Group's most important foreign market."
Today, about 1700 employees work for Trumpf Inc.’s North American subsidiaries, according to a company spokesperson, including 500 or so at the headquarters in Farmington. Worldwide, the Trumpf Group has over 19,000 employees.
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Meanwhile, the company's financial numbers for the 2023-24 fiscal year (in U.S. dollars) are as follows: Trumpf Inc. had an order intake of $860 million and sales revenue of $990 million, while the Trumpf Group had an order intake of $4.92 billion and sales revenue of $5.58 billion.
The Trumpf company story began when Christian Trumpf and two business partners purchased the mechanical workshops of Stuttgart-based Julius Geiger GmbH in 1923. Initially, the new ownership retained the Julius Geiger name. The German company produced flexible shafts for tools connected to the dental and printing industries. In 1937, "Trumpf & Co." was added to the firm's name.
Over the years, as new industries developed and technology advanced, the company transformed into the Trumpf Group — by virtually any standard, a world leader in machine tools and industrial electronics and practical laser imagination.
Why did Berthold Leibinger choose Farmington as the home for Trumpf Inc.? The answer is rooted in his family history and the appeal of this historic Connecticut town.
"I first came to Farmington when I was 17," said Leibinger-Kammüller at the grand opening. "Together with my younger sister and my brother ... our parents took a trip to New York in July 1976."
The family made the transatlantic journey on the Queen Elizabeth II, a renowned British passenger ship. They arrived "in the harbor of New York City at five o'clock in the morning, seeing the Statue of Liberty," noted Leibinger-Kammüller, "and it was no ordinary morning — it was no ordinary Fourth of July ... it was the day of the United States bicentennial."
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To get to Farmington, the Leibinger family took a train — "just like those folks who moved to the American West back in the 19th century."
Fast-forward nearly 50 years: "Now we have a smart factory, together with a digitally connected Industry 4.0 production system, right here at our headquarters in Farmington, the town my father fell in love with, and where everything began for us in the U.S. — our American dream, if you like."
After four decades of providing leadership for the Trumpf Group, Berthold Leibinger handed the management baton in 2005 to his daughter Nicola, who became president and chairwoman of the managing board, with his son Peter as vice chairman. His younger daughter Regine is a co-founder and manager of the Berlin-based architectural firm Barkow Leibinger.
Berthold concurrently became the head of Trumpf's supervisory board, serving in that capacity until 2012. He died in October 2018 at 87 years old in Stuttgart — the German city where Christian Trumpf initiated the company's remarkable trajectory over a century ago.
In her smart-factory speech, Leibinger-Kammüller highlighted the importance of an enduring partnership between Germany, Europe and the United States based on "the Western ideal of freedom — which we urgently have to defend today." She described Trumpf Inc. as a "deeply American company with German roots” and emphasized the "special connection between our industries that goes so far beyond just technology."
"In the 20th century," she said, "the U.S. gave its sons and daughters for European freedom and prosperity — from World War I to D-Day in Normandy, and from the Berlin Airlift to Ronald Reagan’s famous speech at the Berlin Wall."
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"Now we have a smart factory ... right here at our headquarters in Farmington, the town my father fell in love with" — Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller
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HOMETOWN HEART
Farmington town manager Kathleen Blonski addressed the significance of the new Trumpf development in the town, state and beyond.
"The smart factory is a wonderful example of their ongoing commitment to being a leader in advanced manufacturing in Connecticut," she told Today Online. "Locally, Trumpf is one of our largest employers and a major contributor to our tax base. They are not only creating high-paying jobs but also giving a significant boost to our local economy."
Farmington is home to over 2000 registered businesses and has a population of about 27,000 residents. The town hall in Farmington is approximately 13 miles west of the city hall in Hartford, Connecticut's capital.
"At the state level, Trumpf’s recent expansion strengthens Connecticut’s manufacturing sector, while on a national scale, their manufacturing operations help bolster America’s domestic capabilities," Blonski said. "Trumpf’s leadership, vision and continued investment benefit everyone."
Farmington Town Council chair Joseph Capodiferro sounds a similar theme: "I am so excited to see Trumpf complete the next generation of technology right here in our backyard — their confidence in our town to continue to grow and expand over the years is a true complement to our community."
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Meanwhile, there are clear-cut parallels between Farmington, the location of the Trump Inc. headquarters, and Ditzingen, the German town of about 25,000 where the Trumpf Group is headquartered — here are some quotes from a Ditzingen website:
• "As a major regional center, Ditzingen stands for tradition and progress, urban flair and country charm. ... It is a pulsing, economically strong district ... that has not lost its rural appeal."
• "The landscape, once shaped by agriculture, has now become an attractive location for commerce, trade and medium-sized businesses — out of a cluster of smaller villages, a town has emerged combining urban culture with the attractiveness of a place that has not become too large."
• "Ditzingen’s advantageous location, its proximity to both natural areas and the capital city of Stuttgart, along with the convenient access to urban railway and express routes, have made it a desirable residential area and an economically sound industrial region."
Sound familiar? These quotes could easily be applied to the Farmington Valley and its namesake town.
By the way, Connecticut's Farmington Valley as a geographic area is distinct from the Farmington River valley, a watershed that encompasses more than 30 municipalities. The iconic river actually has two sources — a west branch in Massachusetts and an east branch in Connecticut — that converge as one waterway in New Hartford.
Today Online and Today Magazine define the Farmington Valley geographic area as the following five towns: Avon, Canton, Farmington, Granby and Simsbury.
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"In the 20th century, the U.S. gave its sons and daughters for European freedom and prosperity" — Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller
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DEEPER DIVE – REFERENCE REDUX
• Regarding Leibinger-Kammüller's reference to Tom Seaver and Neil Armstrong in conjunction with 1969, the year Trumpf North America was established:
In July 1969, American astronaut Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon via the Apollo 11 mission, according to History.com — as he took his first step, he famously said, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." In 1961, president John Kennedy had identified a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.
Meanwhile, Seaver helped lead the New York Mets to their first World Series championship in October 1969 — the ace pitcher won 25 games that season plus the National League Cy Young award for the aptly nicknamed Miracle Mets.
• Regarding the reference to the pre-Trumpf company Julius Geiger GmbH — specifically, the meaning of GmbH:
According to Investopedia.com, GmbH is an abbreviation of the German phrase “Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung” — in English, the phrase translates as “company with limited liability” and the business structure is comparable to an American limited liability company aka LLC.
• What about the similarity between the Trumpf company name and president Donald Trump and his family's real-estate enterprise?
Today Online asked Trump spokesperson Catherine Flynn if anyone has mistakenly believed the global Trumpf firm is somehow associated with Trump or his family legacy.
"Despite any linguistical similarities with famous people, the name Trumpf is well-known among those in the manufacturing world for its high quality, innovation, precision and technological leadership," she said.
"Over the past 102 years that Trumpf has been in business, the company has built up an excellent reputation and is well-known among manufacturers as an innovative leader."
Based on the research revealed in this news story about the Trumpf parent and subsidiary groups, the Trumpf and Trump names evidently evoke far more contrasts than similarities.
Yet one international commonality is crystal-clear — Trump the person is surely a world leader given his role as U.S. president, and Trumpf the company is unquestionably a global and world leader in the realm of Industry 4.0 and tech-savvy machine tools and imaginative laser innovation.
• Last but not least — the Trumpf firm and Trumpf people have won an abundance of awards — the list includes the following honors:
• Arthur Schawlow Prize in Laser Science
• German Future Prize
• Hermes Award — one of the top international industry prizes
• Stevie Award for Sales & Customer Service
— Solutions Technology Partner of the Year
• Supplier Excellence Award from Applied Materials
— Best in Class Performance
• Women in Manufacturing STEP Award
• Women in 3D Printing Innovator Award +
• Smart Factory Photos — Trumpf media website
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Today editor-in-chief Bruce Deckert is a multi-award-winning journalist who believes all people merit awards when we leverage our God-given gifts for good — he was an editor for ESPN. com and ESPN Digital Media for 17 years, and a reporter and editor at the former Imprint Newspapers group that produced weekly papers for four Valley towns and seven other towns in Greater Hartford — previously, he served as a public-relations professional at The Master's School in West Simsbury
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• 5 Farmington Valley Towns • 1 Aim — Exceptional Community Journalism
• Avon • Canton • Farmington • Granby • Simsbury
• Sources — CBIA.com • Farmington-CT.org • History.com • Trumpf press release • Trumpf spokesperson email • Trumpf website • various online media outlets
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