Every company needs innovation and must live from a certain tradition. We strive to have more of these than others. When our great-grandfather Carl Benscheidt founded Fagus almost 100 years ago he was far ahead of his time. His method of human resource management was exemplary.

„Our wealth is not our machines, nor a bank account,
but the knowledge, skill and the commitment of our staff.“

Carl Benscheidt designed his new factory with a perfect production flow and was courageous enough to engage a young architect Walter Gropius in order to improve “the envelope” of the planned factory building despite this youngster having only visions and being without references at that time. Today’s world-renowned appearance of the company is now a symbol of the innovation that has been continuously practiced since then.

Fagus innovations were numerous but an important one was to improve the shoe last machines used at that time; so that even their competitors became interested in buying them. That was the beginning of the Fagus wood-working machinery division.

My brother Gerd and I took over the management when our uncle – who was the third generation of the family in this position – fell ill. The companies GreCon Plant Engineering and GreCon Electronics which we had already founded were then integrated into the traditional Fagus company. Even after 100 years the company is still family-owned. My nephew Kai Greten has meanwhile become managing director as representative of the fifth generation.

The business idea of GreCon Electronics was to supply to the worldwide wood-based panels industry - which was rapidly developing - all the measuring and regulating systems required for precise and cost-economic production.

In addition, we developed fire prevention systems – their basis were spark extinguishing systems which guarantee nowadays a safe and uninterrupted production in many industries outside wood-based panels as well – even in case of sparks.
Some measuring systems also succeeded in getting a foot into other industries, such as x-ray based scanners and weight per unit area gauges, thickness gauges and moisture meters.

In 1998, the GreCon Machinery Division merged with Dimter (a company belonging to WEINIG AG) - their competitor at that time. The new joint venture has become worldwide the biggest manufacturer of finger jointing lines and optimizing cut-off saws.

We are proud that we have succeeded in restoring the complete historic factory and we would like to express our thanks to all who assisted us in doing so. This work, completed over 20 years, was realized so well so that the Fagus factory is the only German contribution to be considered for the honor of World Cultural Heritage status for 2011.

Are you already our customer? Then we hope to intensify our co-operation. If not – we will be happy to become your supplier! We took the tradition of our fathers – that is to be innovative – as the principle for our daily work.