Herborner Pumpentechnik is one of the oldest pump manufacturers in Germany, and is still family-owned. It was founded by Johann Heinrich Hoffmann in 1874. Today, the company has 145 employees who develop and manufacture pumps for clean water, wastewater, and industrial technology.
An inventive spirit throughout the generations
The company’s pioneering spirit was shaped by its founder. Early on, Johann Heinrich Hoffmann used a mechanical production method to manufacture agricultural pumps, such as liquid manure pumps and beet cutters. Shortly after that, in 1877, he set up his own foundry. Ever since, the varied product line has been based on the principle of offering customers the best possible quality.
In the 1950s, Dr. Wolfdietrich Bindemann, the founder’s great-grandson with a doctor’s degree in mechanical engineering, shaped Herborner’s pump development. He not only developed a modular pump system, but also introduced a centered, pressure-side outflow on the pump housing. Herborner Pumpentechnik was one of the first manufacturers to consistently use this construction technique, thereby edging out the tangential pressure-side connection in the European market. In addition to new hydraulics, Dr. Bindemann also developed the open single-channel impeller for wastewater pumps, which is still the safest and most robust solution for transporting raw wastewater today.
Innovations create market leadership
During all these innovations, adapting to customers’ needs was a constant focus in addition to quality. This was shown very clearly in what was probably one of the most important developments, from the company’s perspective, in the late 1960s: Rainer Habicht, then working for the company as a design engineer, developed a swimming-pool circulation pump with an integrated hair and fiber filter. He combined the pump and the filter, which at the time were installed separately in swimming pools, into a compact unit. The Unibad pump was born, and it guaranteed Herborner Pumpentechnik’s breakthrough as a market leader for swimming-pool technology. Today, more than 70 percent of all public swimming pools in Central Europe use pumps from Herborn. Water parks worldwide are now being equipped with the latest generation of these pumps – the “herborner” series – which focuses on energy and resource efficiency and features rust-proof quality thanks to an innovative coating.
Just like Hoffmann, the company founder, the current “company leaders” – Wolfram Kuhn (the Managing Director and great-great-grandson of the company founder), Susanne Jung (Sales Management/Marketing), and Sascha Korupp (Technical Manager) – are committed to developing and manufacturing need-based and customer-oriented pumps. In addition to swimming-pool and ship pumps, the customer-focused product line also includes specialty pumps for industrial applications, plant construction, and municipal supply and waste management.
