Family Business Celebrates
175th Anniversary
German sawing machine and storage system manufacturer, KASTO Maschinenbau,
whose UK subsidiary is in Milton Keynes, is this year celebrating its 175th anniversary.
With headquarters in Achern, Baden-Württemberg, the firm has evolved from a one-man
business into a globally successful company that remains in the hands of the family that
founded it.
In 1844 carpenter Karl Stolzer, from whom the
company name is derived, started a machine
shop in Achern to manufacture water wheels,
paper and machinery for mills. He later built
sawmills. Invention of the KASTO hacksaw in
1947 marked a significant step forward and in
the 1960s circular saws were introduced.
At the beginning of the 1970s, KASTO launched
its first automatic bar storage and retrieval system
featuring two integrated circular saws supplied
automatically by a gantry crane. It was the precursor
of the storage and sawing centres that KASTO
started manufacturing in the early 1980s and the
company is still the sole provider of such systems
today.
With the assistance of numerous subsidiaries around
the globe, KASTO has sold more than 140,000
bandsaws, circular saws and hacksaws as well as
16 TUBE NEWS June 2019
2,200 storage systems for long stock such as bar and
tube and for sheet metal.
For more than 30 years, Armin Stolzer has headed
the family business as the fifth generation managing
director. Other senior management positions
are held by his wife, Ruth Stolzer and four family
members of the sixth generation. KASTO develops
its own software systems, provides solutions for
networking, automation and robotic handling, and
focusses on forward-looking technologies such as
augmented reality and artificial intelligence.
One of the oldest family owned and run companies in
Europe, KASTO is using this anniversary year, which
officially began on 7th May 2019, as an opportunity
to offer an in-depth look into its history and will
publish further texts and photos.