This year's 75th HärtereiKongress 2019 in Cologne fully met our expectations, but was also affected by current global economic and political uncertainties. A time in which it is all the more important to conduct an intensive and above all personal dialogue with our customers, partners and companies in the industry. Our stand presence at a new location was very well received by the visitors and demonstrated the continuing importance of the event for our company group.

We are very proud about this year's winner of the Karl-Wilhelm-Burgdorf-Prize, Dr.-Ing. Volker Heuer from ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH. His numerous publications and work on the subject of low-pressure carburizing technology and high-pressure gas quenching as well as the practical implementation within the framework of the development of corresponding modern plants make Dr. Heuer a worthy prize winner.

The Karl Wilhelm Burgdorf Prize, named after our company founder and donated for the first time in 2007 by his successor Dipl.-Kfm. Hannes Burgdorf is awarded to AWT members who have put scientific discoveries into practice in an extraordinary way and who have given impulses to materials technology and heat treatment. The prize which has meanwhile been taken over by our company BURGDORF GmbH & Co. KG is endowed with 5,000 euros and is handed over by the chairman of the AWT at a ceremony during the HärtereiKongress in Cologne.

This year's award winner is Dr. Volker Heuer, ALD Vacuum Technologies GmbH.

Overview of the previous award winners / Award certificate

In March 70 years ago Karl-Wilhelm Burgdorf founded our company in the post-war period. The progress of the owner-managed medium-sized company is still based on the pioneering spirit of its founder. BURGDORF was carefully and purposefully developed into a specialist company for steel hardening and heat treatment technology of the highest quality. The underlying corporate philosophy, which we have also manifested in our corporate guidelines, but also our entire team, which lives and implements these guiding principles on a daily basis, are the guarantors of our success today. 

Our companies BURGDORF, OSMIROL and NUSSLLE were successfully certified according to ISO 14001:2015. This certificate confirms to our companies that we deal intensively and effectively with the subject of the environment. We thus document that we are actively engaged in measures to conserve resources and avoid environmental pollution and are pursuing concrete goals in the process.

This year, we will donate a total amount of Euro 13.800,- to social institutions in Stuttgart as the children´s hospital “Olgäle” and the “Youth Research Centre” in Nagold, caring about the needs an education of children and young people who need our help and support.

We were again awarded the Innovation Certificate by the Arbeitsgememeinschaft für Wärmebehandlung und Werkstofftechnik e.V. (AWT) for our active participation in research projects of the AWT in the "Expert Committees" and "Project Monitoring Committees".

We are proud to be honoured by AWT as an innovative partner. For us, it is a great motivation to be involved in further developments in the field of heat treatment and materials technology and to bring in new impulses.

AWT Innovation Certificate 2018

Meet us at Europe's largest event for the heat treatment industry: From 16 to 18 October 2018 we will be presenting our products and services in Hall 4, Stand C-080 / D-089 at Cologne Fair. Exchange ideas with our experts!

On personal invitation we took part in the excellently organized celebration of Aichelin. We also had the honour of writing a guest contribution as a partner of the Aichelin Group in the high-quality and bound edition of the commemorative publication. This is based on the decades-long connection between the two company groups and the business relationship characterized by high personal esteem. The first documented meeting between our company founder Karl-Wilhelm Burgdorf and the former Aichelin owner Heinz Berger dates from March 24, 1950.

Further information

In his function as a board member of AWT e.V. and coordinator of the expert committees, Rainer Braun most recently presented the currently 18 active expert committees in the HTM editorial, issue 03/ 2018. The expert committees are the „innovation engine“ of the AWT, they initiate and accompany research and development projects in their field of activity, they offer member companies the opportunity to become part of the knowledge network through active cooperation, but above all to participate in the innovations.
In order to exchange knowledge between the expert committees, a workshop of all expert committee leaders is held annually in the presence of other members of the AWT board. Cohesion is thus strengthened, the requirements of technological change are taken up in a targeted manner and adopted in the technical committees.

Further information

As an alternative to the annual customer gifts, 2017 the bonGROUP donated €12,500 in December 2017 to the Stuttgart institution "Im Schlupfwinkel" for children without a home (€7,500) and to the Young Research Centre in Nagold (€5,000).