The history of FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik GmbH begins in 1836 with the founding of the ‘Reddighäuser Hammer’ in the district of Waldeck-Frankenberg (federal state of Hesse) by the pastor Christian Frank and the master carpenter Daniel Reitz directly to the right of the river Eder in the immediate vicinity of the village of Reddighausen. The hammer mill, originally operated with two water mills, has been producing ploughshares for the most part since the middle of the 19th century.

In the second half of the 19th century, the mechanisation of agriculture developed rapidly in Europe and America. Christian Frank has to contend with many difficulties. The lack of infrastructure (lack of railway connections) poses particular obstacles for the company's management. The Reddighäuser Hammer begins to specialise in the manufacture of spare parts and components for ploughs.

After the sale of the Reddighäuser Hammer to the Adolfshütte works in 1913, production is transformed into a modern agricultural forge whose business is not interrupted by the First World War. The founding of a public limited company in 1927 facilitates the financing of the company. The first forge for the mass production of ploughshares was installed and the company began manufacturing complete plough bodies.

Despite the shortage of raw materials, Reddighäuser Hammer began producing garden tools and agricultural equipment for farms immediately after the Second World War. At the beginning of the 1950s, the company develops into one of the leading manufacturers of spare parts and components for German agriculture under the FRANK ORIGINAL brand and even acquires competing companies in the meantime, as well as expanding its production operations several times.

Following a management buy-out, FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik GmbH is founded as an independent company in 1994. The new management completely modernises the company. In the further course of the company's recent history, there are two more changes of ownership (2006 / 2020).

With FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik as its parent company, the FRANK Group currently produces wear parts and components for the international agricultural market at four production sites in Germany and Hungary. In France and Ukraine, countries with a strong agricultural sector, FRANK ORIGINAL products are marketed by independent sales companies.

For over 100 years, spring-loaded tools for soil cultivation have been manufactured at the Torgau site.

The company was founded in 1878 in Luckenwalde by Wilhelm Stoll, which moved its headquarters to Torgau in 1906. After the Second World War, the owner initially continued the agricultural machinery programme in the location belonging to the Soviet occupation zone, but then moved his activities to Lower Saxony.

The Torgau company, together with affiliated production facilities, became VEB Landmaschinenbau Torgau (LAMATOR) and, with up to 1,500 employees, produced mainly cutting units for combine harvesters and forage harvesters from 1978 onwards, which were also sold in the West via a French subsidiary. The spring tines from Torgau were also a source of foreign currency for the GDR. In West Germany, the tines sold well through an authorised dealer. After the fall of the GDR regime, LAMATOR was about to be liquidated by the Treuhand. In 1996, the German entrepreneur Franz Greisbach, then based in Canada, bought the company, and in 2022 FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik GmbH took over LAMATOR with its 30 employees.

As a major manufacturer of spring-loaded working tools, Lamator GmbH equips well-known agricultural machinery manufacturers with accessories such as spring tines, shares and fastening elements for tillage machinery. In addition to standard parts, the product line mainly comprises customised products, which are manufactured according to customer requirements in a wide range of sizes and dimensions with the support of the company's own toolmaking department. With its wide range of products, Lamator GmbH also offers its customers a competent spare parts service.

In addition to the well-known standard spring tines, the production programme includes over 50 other types of quality tines with high durability and dimensional accuracy, including, for example, the OptiFlex product line with patented compression in the head area. The advantage of these tines is the weight saving with the same strength and better crumbling effect due to the higher oscillation frequency.

The spring tines have a wide range of applications. Large spring tines with reversible shares loosen the soil thoroughly or are used for stubble cultivation. Smaller models, on the other hand, are used to prepare a fine seedbed. Spring tines are also used as carriers for flat-cutting tools such as goosefoot or hoeing shares: a highly topical trend in mechanical weed control that allows the use of weedkillers to be reduced or avoided altogether.

www.lamator.de

At approximately 4,058,625 square kilometers, the agricultural acreage of the USA is larger than the entire acreage of the European Union. With the founding of Frank Group LLC in 2023, which is based in Ohio, USA, FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik is tapping into the US and Canadian agricultural market with the FRANK ORIGINAL brand.

For Frank Group LLC, the first half of 2024 is still dominated by the establishment of a sales organization for effective and powerful market development. The aim is to be able to respond quickly and flexibly to all key account requirements of the American specialist trade. Business will commence in the second half of the year.

Due to the success of FRANK ORIGINAL in the European sales markets and a lack of production capacity at the main site in Hatzfeld at the beginning of the 1990s, FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik GmbH decides to expand production with a site in Hungary. To this end, FRANK Hungária is founded in Ózd in 1993.

The company initially starts with labour-intensive operations for FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik. Following the sale of an Italian production company, the site in Ózd is expanded. Over the years, the company develops into the market leader in Hungary in the field of wear parts for agricultural technology. FRANK Hungária is given its own sales department in order to better develop the Eastern European markets. This intensifies the excellent business relationships with the largest Hungarian machine manufacturers and spare parts dealers in Hungary and neighbouring countries.

The site is successively expanded and modernised. New production halls are built and the machinery is optimised. Today, FRANK Hungária has a CNC-controlled plasma cutting system, three lasers, two 630 to. forging presses, several 400 to. and 160 to. eccentric presses. Three large hardening furnaces, several hardening systems and tempering furnaces round off the machine park. Colouring is carried out exclusively in the powder coating plant. CNC tool milling machines are available in the in-house tool shop. Modern robot welding systems are used for the production of assemblies. Soldering systems and robots are also available to optimise component wear. This enables us to meet the high demands and challenges in the field of floor machining.

Thanks to continuous expansion and modernisation, FRANK Hungária is no longer just an ‘extended workbench’. A high proportion of wear part production is now sold directly to original equipment manufacturers. This speaks in favour of the high quality level of production in Hungary.

The humus-rich black earth soils of Ukraine are among the best arable soils in the world, forming the largest areas of black earth in Europe; Ukraine is therefore considered the granary of Europe.

In order to open up the Eastern European markets, FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik GmbH founded the subsidiary Frank LemeksTOW in the Ukraine in 2002 with headquarters in Ternopil as its Eastern European division.

The aim of the company is to support Ukrainian agriculture with high-quality spare parts for agricultural machinery, serving both small agricultural producers and large agricultural companies. With around 22 employees, Frank Lemeks sells high-quality, wear-resistant original spare parts for agricultural and tillage equipment from the world's leading manufacturers as well as wear parts for ploughs and cultivators under the FRANK ORIGINAL brand from its own production.

Over the last two decades, FRANK Lemeks has built long-term relationships with its Ukrainian agricultural customers by providing excellent service and support. In order to be able to optimally supply the large area of Ukraine, independent regional warehouses and sales locations have been set up in the cities of Ternopil and Cherkasy and a sales representative office in Zaporizhzhya.

The FRANK Group would like to express its special thanks to its Ukrainian colleagues for their tireless efforts since February 2022.

www.frank-lemex.com.ua

With the production value of its agriculture, France is at the top of all EU countries and offers the largest sales market for agricultural technology in the EU. France's share of the EU's agricultural gross value added in 2023 was 18 per cent.

With the establishment of FRANK ORIGINAL France SAS locally in France in 2022, FRANK Walz- und Schmiedetechnik will be able to develop the market effectively and powerfully thanks to the regional proximity of the French-speaking sales organisation. This enables the company to respond quickly and flexibly to all the requirements of its French specialist trade partners in the key account.