175 years of Hengstler: From workshop to global enterprise

In 1846, our founder, Johannes Hengstler, opened a workshop for gongs for clocks in Aldingen, in south-west Germany. Around two hundred years later, the small company has become a global specialist for counting and control components. Some of our products have even made industrial history.

For example, the first zero-settable counter in the world, which we developed in the 1920s: It was used for decades in tape recorders of almost all well-known manufacturers. Another great success was the counter system 400, with which we gained a leading position on the market in the 1950s: This was a plastic-based counter with plug-in system - a solution that was as powerful as it was affordable. Even back then, we produced the master moulds for plastic injection moulding ourselves and thus invented a manufacturing method that is still widely used today.

The invention of attendance recording was a milestone for us: Our slogan “Ai laik Gleitzeit” (I like flexitime) was developed in the 1970s as a synonym for more humane working conditions. Our engineers also set industry standards with the development of positively-driven safety relays in 1975 and Opto-Asic technology in the early 1990s. Today, Hengstler products are used in numerous applications worldwide - in automation technology as well as in wind turbines, commercial vehicles, ticket machines or in the medical field.