by Patrick Lüscher
After visiting Brugg Cables in Switzerland on February 15, it was really interesting to visit the company’s production sites in China and thus in a different perspective.
At first, we were received by Urs Schnell, the CEO of the Brugg Group and Brugg Cable Systems. He introduced us to the Brugg Group in general and their engagement in China. They employ 2000 people in 20 countries and approximately 180 of them in China. The next presentation was about Brugg Ropes. Amongst other products they produce ropes for elevators, and as 60% of the world’s elevator market is in China, the main factory lies in Suzhou. The Rope division of Brugg has 37 employees in Suzhou and produces over 12’000km of cables per year. One of the buildings, which Brugg Ropes equipped with their products, is the very famous Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai. The next part was a presentation about Brugg Cables China. Their 90 employees produce and test accessory for high voltage cables.
After all those presentations, we got the chance to have a look at the production sites. We got a tour through the cable factory and visited the high voltage accessory production and testing. Then we went back to the presentation room and got a short introduction to the Suhner Group. They are the biggest shareholder of the Brugg Group and work together very closely. In the next part, we got an insight to the new generation of lifting cables produced at Brugg. The Gen2-cables are coated with plastic (TPU) to receive a smaller bending radius and therefore save energy. Another improvement are belts, which are much lighter than cables and allow the elevators to cover a longer route in one step.
The last part of the visit was another tour through the factory. At Suhner we visited parts of the Transmission division, where they produce flexible shafts. Next, we got the opportunity to see how the belts are made. To finish the whole day, we had dinner in a great restaurant by the lake together with Urs Schnell and three other managing directors.
