Products and expertise for more sustainability and a green future: a new group member is helping boost BUTTING’s green credentials. Since 1 July 2021, Schwanner, based in Burgkirchen in Bavaria, joined the BUTTING family as a specialist in vacuum-insulated pipes, essential for hydrogen transport. In an interview, Managing Director Marcel Bartels explains how customers will benefit from this collaboration.
What were the reasons for integrating SCHWANNER into the BUTTING Group?
MB: In addition to the subject-specific interests, there are many other similarities between BUTTING and SCHWANNER: Both have been family businesses for many decades, cultivating a similar philosophy. Product quality and customer satisfaction have always been at the top of both companies’ priorities, along with assuming responsibility for employees, fellow human beings and the environment.
Do you see any other crossovers?
MB: One important thing they have in common is their love of innovation. Both companies have grown by working with customers and other market players to identify needs and jointly develop innovative product solutions, such as the vacuum-insulated pipe, developed from the collaboration with Linde, and later the valves necessary for an overall functioning system. BUTTING’s slogan “Progress from Tradition” also applies to SCHWANNER.
What do you see as the benefit to customers?
MB: At the BUTTING Group, we have gained a new market segment with the vacuum-insulated pipe. In the future, we will be able to offer our customers a solution for cryogenic media – from construction and design to production and assembly to commissioning and maintenance. With the pipe from Knesebeck, prototyping and engineering at SCHWANNER and series production in Knesebeck, we are mapping the entire process. We can deliver a complete package to the customers, which is a decisive advantage.
How do customers from other industries participate?
MB: There is comparable expertise within both BUTTING and SCHWANNER, which we will expand in the future to enable our customers to take advantage of. It’s easiest to explain this with an example: the group already uses other sites throughout Germany to take on short-term, on-site maintenance tasks for the paper and pulp industry. The location in Burgkirchen allows us to perform maintenance in Bavaria too. We are strengthening our network and expanding our capacity!
Have you seen developments in the first few months?
MB: In recent months, SCHWANNER has increased its share of global projects in vacuum-insulated pipes for transfer lines. We have also seen a positive trend in orders for projects from the commercial vehicle industry and civil aviation. This highlights how an acquisition can open up numerous opportunities—not only for BUTTING as a pipe supplier but also for our plant construction and production of customer-specific components. This is a valuable contribution to our sustainability and customers, especially since the whole world is talking about hydrogen as an energy source, and liquid hydrogen flows best through vacuum-insulated pipelines.