Innovation
from tradition

Innovation from tradition

From industrial revolution up into the Internet age – steel has been making things possible and driving technologies forward. Dillinger has co-authored the history of progress since 1685. Our innovative methods, optimised processes and ever more productive facilities have continuously pushed back the limits of the feasible. We pursue our aim of giving our customers the biggest possible lead with our groundbreaking products and services. A major portion of the around 2,000 grades of steel which we supply have, for example, been developed within the past ten years. And we are adjusting our process chain to “Industry 4.0” technologies in ever more sectors, to enable Dillinger to supply better solutions for you even faster and even more flexibly in the future.

On the road to the Steel Industry 4.0

The more complex the production processes and the longer the value chains, the greater the benefits of comprehensive networking of people, machines and products. For this reason, the “things and services” Internet offers, for the steel industry, in particular, unique potentials for boosting productivity, quality, flexibility and efficiency. We at Dillinger recognised this fact at a very early stage and have already created numerous preconditions for the implementation of future-orientated technologies, ranging from logistics, via production and quality assurance, up to and including maintenance. We are pursuing the road to the Steel Industry 4.0 consistently because, at the head of this movement, we put ourselves and our customers in the best possible position for successfully countering further rising cost- and competition pressures.

333 years of Dillinger

Dillinger is one of Europe’s oldest companies. The challenges, the processes and the technologies have changed in the course of the centuries, but we nonetheless remain true today to our fundamental aims and values. We repeatedly set new milestones with reliability, quality and equitability:

1685

1804

1809

1828

1897

1961

1975

1976

1981

1984

1985

1991

1992

1998

2013

2016

2020

2023

French nobleman Charles Henri Gaspard de Lenoncourt of Lorraine receives permission from King Louis XIV to set up an ironworks, steelworks and smelting works in the Dillingen domain – the birth of Dillinger.

Dillinger is one of the first smelting works on the continent to put a plate rolling mill into operation, enabling it to produce large steel plates with a smooth surface and uniform thickness.

The company is given the legal form of a stock corporation, making it the oldest AG in Germany.

The ironworks creates the foundation for its company social policy and for the first time pays workers support in the event of illness or accident, and provides long-serving employees a monthly pension.

In Dillingen, the continent’s first electrically operated sheet-metal rolling mill starts operating.

The world’s first continuous casting line for slabs goes into operation in Dillingen and delivers slabs with a cross-section of 1,500 x 200 mm.

The company is recognized once again in a nationwide competition for its environmental protection measures at its steel plant site and for the care of the forest around the plant.

Dillinger produces thermomechanically rolled tubular sheet metal for the first time.

ROGESA is founded as the first step towards joint production of hot metal for all of Saarland’s steel mills, followed by the founding of the Zentralkokerei Saar coking plant the following year.

Dillinger is the first company in the world to produce longitudinally profiled plates – plates whose thickness varies continuously over their length – thus opening up new markets.

With the commissioning of a 5.5 m quarto high-stand line, plates can now be rolled with a finished width of up to 5,200 mm.

Dillinger, Usinor-Sacilor and Mannesmannröhren-Werke found the joint company Europipe for the production of large-diameter pipe.

The heavy plate rolling mill GTS Industries in Dunkirk, France, becomes a subsidiary of Dillinger and is renamed Dillinger France in 2014.

The world’s first continuous casting line with 400 mm slab thickness and soft reduction goes into operation in Dillingen, an investment of DM 200 million.

Steelwind Nordenham launches production. The plant, a subsidiary of Dillinger, specializes in the production of XXL monopiles and transition pieces for offshore wind turbines.

The new CC6 vertical continuous casting line – at over EUR 400 million, it’s the largest single investment at the Dillingen site – sets standards in all dimensions and sets a new record in 2017: At 600 mm, the world’s thickest slab is cast!

For the first time in Germany, hydrogen is used in Dillingen as a reducing agent in the blast furnace in regular operation.

Dillinger, Saarstahl and their joint subsidiary ROGESA are notified in December that funding has been approved for the historic Power4Steel transformation project.