SCHÜTZ - From Steel Tank Producer to World IBC Market Leader

The name "SCHÜTZ" is a synonym for "success story" today – the success story of a company that once devoted its efforts exclusively to the production of steel storage tanks for fuel oil and is now a highly diversified global player. SCHÜTZ has long since earned itself a worldwide reputation as a major processor of plastics and for its great metallurgical expertise.

The company employs over 2,500 people at 21 international sites.

The three SCHÜTZ divisions, Industrial Packaging, Energy Systems and Industry Services, have repeatedly set trend-setting standards with an array of patents, products and production technologies as well as an uncompromising commitment to quality and environmental protection.

The family company, which has its headquarters in Selters, is generally held to be a major trendsetter and innovator and occupies, in some cases undisputed, top slots in its various fields. Thanks to its constant focus on customer needs, SCHÜTZ has also become an indispensable partner and problem-solver for customers and markets alike.

SCHÜTZ INDUSTRIAL PACKAGING - THE FUTURE'S TECHNOLOGY. TODAY.

The main focus of the company's activities lies clearly with the Industrial Packaging Division and its extensive portfolio of products and services related to transport containers (IBCs) and also plastic and steel drums.

In 1976, SCHÜTZ invented and introduced a brand-new packaging standard, the Intermediate Bulk Container (IBC). Since then, the IBC has advanced to become an indispensable standard among transport packaging systems. In this area, SCHÜTZ is the unchallenged world market leader today.

The company has a presence in all of the major industrial regions around the world and offers a range of standard products and services targeted specifically at satisfying the needs of customers that operate in the international arena.

Take the SCHÜTZ TICKET SERVICE, for example: the producer-run service system, which is probably the only one of its kind, guarantees free worldwide collection and ecological reconditioning of used containers.

Thanks to the new products that regularly emerge from its development department, SCHÜTZ industrial packaging enjoys a great tradition as an important innovator for the market – in particularly also for the chemical industry.

One of the division's more recent successes is Security Layer Technology – a multilayer blow-moulding extrusion process in which different functional materials are extruded simultaneously. This innovative technology makes it possible to produce plastic containers of up to six different layers.

SCHÜTZ Industrial Packaging applies this method not only to the production of IBC but also to plastic tight-head drums with a conductive or antistatic outer layer, which are suitable for use in hazardous areas, zones 1 + 2. What's more, the products can be equipped with a permeation and oxygen barrier (EVOH), to date the only one of its kind for plastic bulk containers. The barrier reduces to a minimum leakage or penetration of oxygen, gases, aromatic substances and flavourings.

The technology targets the substitution of stainless steel containers and promises new prospects for IBC applications - for example, in the transport and storage of foods / food raw materials or chemicals (pesticides). The transport packagings are especially suited to all products used in hazardous areas or which need to be protected from UV radiation and light and/or from oxygen or gas leakage.

Before the end of 2006, SCHÜTZ will be introducing a new IBC specially designed to hold urea solution in compliance with DIN 70070 (AdBlue). It will be used as a standard solution for the transport, storage and discharge of urea solution in the utility vehicle sector.

All in all, SCHÜTZ has an extensive portfolio of different IBC models to satisfy virtually every need.

An equally broad selection of plastic and steel drums completes the range of products SCHÜTZ industrial packaging offers its customers.

The new tight-head ECODRUM F1-EX, also produced using Security Layer Technology, is currently attracting lively market interest. Whereas conventional drums designed for use in hazardous areas conduct the electrostatic charges of their filling goods via a specially connected conductive lance, in the SCHÜTZ ECODRUM F1-EX, that job is done by the conductive contact strip already built into the drum body. The result: tremendous handling benefits, especially with reconditioned drums since it is no longer necessary to check connections and lances separately. Even after reconditioning, the drum is still ready for use without the need for any extra equipment.