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Million Investment in innovative technique / Festivities with numerous guests. 
On September 29, 2005 HOFFMANN MINERAL had welcomed at the Central Office Building in Neuburg around 180 guests to celebrate the inauguration of its new Powder Technology building - representatives from politics, from the industry, from local authorities and banks, as well as customers, business partners and company employees. After a construction period of 18 months, a production building with a future oriented infrastructure is now available for the business area 'Toll Manufacturing'. Following the official opening by company owner Manfred Hoffmann jr., Landrat Dr. Richard Kessler, the administrator of the Neuburg district and the Deputy Mayor of the town of Neuburg, Heinz Enghuber, addressed those present. In the following, Product Manager Dr. Alexander Risch was to review in particular the development of the service of tailor-made custom filler production.
The chemical upgrading during recent years of fillers such as zinc oxide, calcium carbonate, mica, talc, wollastonite, clays and calcined clays has further expanded the trend towards «multimineral» usefulness. Basically, the production unit makes use of two mixing concepts for powder raw materials. One is simply the homogenous mixing of such powders even in markedly different proportions. Along the other line, the properties of different powder raw materials are modified by the addition of various additives or treatment agents. Quite often these are added in liquid form, but at the end of the process there will still result a powder material. If necessary, the process may require to be carried out at elevated temperature, and such highly specialized production units are not viable or profitable for many customers. In addition, a tremendous amount of know-how is constantly offered by HOFFMANN MINERAL's Research and Development efforts, in order to find or develop exactly the optimum treatment material that leads to properties as defined by the customer.
All such considerations have lead to attribute very good chances of future growth to the area of Toll Manufacturing. The so far successful development was rightly confirmed by figures. While in 1997 the production amounted to 900 tons, today the output approaches 3000 tons for this year. It was this positive development that called for increased production capacity, and in the end for a new building. The new production units offer highly modern technology with an efficient material flow from raw material intake down to finished product warehousing. In total, HOFFMANN MINERAL has invested about 4 million Euro into the new unit. This investment will help, along with motivated personnel and the existing innovation power, to develop new markets and this way create a base in the long term to build Toll Manufacturing into a second «standing leg» of the HOFFMANN MINERAL company.
We are very happy with this truck, and we thought you might take an interest in this happening and share our delight. At our 100-years ceremony in 2003, we have already celebrated siliceous earth with a splendid musical. Now we can rightly claim that we have also won the modern art phenomenon of "Graffiti" for our purposes. In case you order your siliceous earth in bulk, you will evidently be able to see our "eye-catcher" silo truck in your plant. But there is no reason for disappointment if your factory layout does not allow for bulk deliveries at this present time; maybe in the course of this year there will be other possibilities to present to you this interesting vehicle - just keep looking forward to the surprise!
HOFFMANN MINERAL - our new web presentation (01.09.2001) we are very pleased to inform you herewith that on 1st September, 2001
we kicked the completely revised internet web presentation in the world
wide web for your use. We present all information of our products, our
company and the various application fields with an obviously improved
usability. In particular we have implemented at the user-specific design of our new web presentation the following novelties:
We are looking forward to your feedback!
HOFFMANN MINERAL – We supply material for good ideas! HOFFMANN MINERAL is a manufacturer of high quality, functional fillers. Our products, Sillitin, Sillikolloid and Aktisil, are based on Neuburg Siliceous Earth and are distributed on a worldwide scale. Mineralogical Neuburg Siliceous Earth is a natural combination of quartz and kaolinite. HOFFMANN MINERAL presents new possibilities for the use of Neuburg Siliceous Earth in extrusions and also shows the positive properties of the products in radiator hoses according to VW TL 523 61. Raw materials must be available worldwide! To manage this commercial
challenge HOFFMANN MINERAL has built up a global net of agencies in more
than 30 countries. The direct contact to the customer is of basic importance
as well as the fast exchange of information. Therefore HOFFMANN MINERAL
came to the decision to manage this with help of the unlimited potentialities
provided by the World Wide Web (www.hoffmann-mineral.com).
“Memory, Responsibility and Future“ (19.04.2000) The Hoffmann Group supports the contribution for the future (“Zukunftsfond”) on behalf of the persons compelled to forced labor. The Hoffmann Group participates on a large scale to the initiative to form the foundation “Memory, responsibility and future” with an amount of about 142,000 Deutsche Mark. At the request of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, HOFFMANN, as well as many other companies, supports the contribution for the future (“Zukunftsfond”), which embodies a gesture of reconciliation towards the persons who were compelled to forced labor in Germany. It is presumed that, even at HOFFMANN’s, forced labor was in use during the second world war at the silica firm. The few witnesses from that period to whom it was still possible to ask the question, can make no statement as to the number of prisoners of war or persons compelled to forced labor. Manfred Hoffmann senior himself served as a soldier during the war and later, he was not in his country because of an injury. There is no company archive from that time anymore, since the whole company premises, including the tenements, were commandeered after the war by the American occupying forces and transformed into quarters and a military base. Concerning the decision on a participation, the exact number of persons compelled to forced labor is for the Hoffmann Group of no importance. Indeed, what is important for the firm management as a German industrial company, is to accept its responsibility and to support the so-called “contribution for the future” (“Zukunftsfond”) in order to relieve the collective injustice perpetrated in Germany. HOFFMANN has assessed their contribution according the recommendations of the foundation to be one thousandth of their yearly worldwide turnover.
HOFFMANN MINERAL GmbH & Co. KG has appointed Dr. Alexander Risch to the newly created position of Technical Support Manager in Sales and Marketing. Alexander Risch was born on May 7, 1968 in Heilbronn/Neckar, Germany. After studying mineralogy, he obtained a doctorate in applied mineralogy from Erlangen University and joined HOFFMANN MINERAL GmbH & Co. KG on October 1, 1999. During his study, Alexander Risch put the main emphasis of his scientific work on properties of hydraulic binders, especially cement and concrete, and their course of hydration influenced by different admixtures. Furthermore he got a varied experience in ceramic materials. After earning his diploma he became project manager at the Department of Mineralogy in Erlangen directing a part of the BMBF-project "high temperature superconduction in power engineering". Within this project he finished his PhD thesis with the research on "mineralogical characterisation of high-Tc superconducting multifilamentary tapes". Dr. Alexander Risch will build a link between the area sales managers and the application labs of paint and varnish, polymer and mineral and also will support customers directly in co-operation with research and development.
After elaborate laboratory and pilot plant trials we can extend the shelf life guaranty for our products Aktisil VM 56 at least to two years. In our trials we proved the efficiency of Aktisil in selected applications. By that the shelf life of the surface coated Neuburg Siliceous Earth
is evidentially higher than those of the used coupling agents and coatings. |
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HOFFMANN MINERAL, founded in 1903 as a mining company for exploiting the near-by Neuburg Siliceous Earth deposits,
oriented mainly towards the own product range, i.e. for producing the AKTISIL grades, but the early production
facilities were also able to respond to a growing number of outside inquiries, which in part have grown into
requirements still existing today. The surface treatment of aluminum oxides from NABALTEC with different silanes
is just one such example reaching into the future.
But the Toll Manufacturing service of HOFFMANN MINERAL is by far not limited to the mixing and homogenizing or the
treatment and upgrading of powder materials. It is a complete package, focussing on performance with special emphasis
on customer requirements. Raw material intake, product development, sample preparation, quality assurance, production,
packaging, logistics and shipping are all integrated with the respective departments and their employees into the
objective of achieving optimum results. These can only be assured with the appropriate personnel, i.e. people who
throw in their own ideas and suggestions, or who in the production plant have developed an unmistakable sense for
situations and act and react fast on the base of solid experience. HOFFMANN MINERAL calls itself happy to have such
employees.
Part of the CD-ROMs of our web site are incorrect. Because of a technical problem some CD-ROMs of the batch 03/04
were distributed without any content. Please check the discs in your hand and ask for a new, correct copy where
required. We apologize for the trouble caused.
Graffiti and real art - do they have something in common? A seemingly justified question.
For not everyone around hasdeveloped an unconditioned appreciation as an expression of art
for the sprayed-on paintings and symbols ("tags") which in most cases illegally and
uncommissioned turn up overnight on many walls, underground trains or bridges. Only rarely
a motif or image can be understood at first sight by an unexperienced eye, and these
'daubings' still today do not meet with true acceptance by many people. One of the
underlying reasons certainly is the fact that in the 80s and 90s graffiti especially in
arge cities served as a kind of revolutionary expression of younger people from low social
classes by which they wished to call attention to the problems and injustices they
encountered. Today, talented sprayers have been able to rise above the illegal scene, as
cities and communities have started to pay tribute to this kind of alternative expression
of art, and even offer to these artists surfaces where to display their graffiti pictures.
For some time already, graffiti have developed into a cultural phenomenon!
This way, Wolfgang Asam from 
Maybe as a bulk customer you have already seen one of these trucks enter your plant site for
deliveries. We have heard from many sides that these cars are "eye-catchers", and we have
passed on this praise to Wolfgang Asam. When last year the Asam truck fleet was to be
extended by a 60 m3 bulk tractor-trailer, Mr. Asam approached us to ask whether we would
be ready to pay for a graffiti painting on this vehicle with a subject in line with Hoffmann
Mineral and our siliceous earth. Abstract multicolored graffiti or just our company logo
were out of the question, but in discussions with Daniel Man Ken-Young, we succeeded in
making the artist understand siliceous earth as a raw material taken from the soil, and he
immediately started drawing some sketches. Siliceous earth ("Kieselerde") as a word, fitted
into nature and countryside, all this in graffiti style on a curved silo truck body - such
an assignment was not easy to realize. But the result looks very impressive: after a week's
painstaking spray work a unique bulk truck emerged from the Schöne paint shop in Everswinkel
(Northrhine-Westphalia), featuring a motif in full harmony with our product. On February 18,
2004, this brand-new vehicle, freshly painted and decorated with a multitude of red
balloons, for the first time drove into our courtyard: a big "first" for our Sales and
Marketing team, and also for our top managers who cared to interrupt their meeting and to
attend the taking over ceremony.
