ZF Sachs AG, also known as Fichtel & Sachs, was founded in Schweinfurt in 1895 and was a well-known German family business. At its last point as an independent company, the company name was Fichtel & Sachs AG.
In 1997, the automotive supplier was taken over by Mannesmann and renamed Mannesmann Sachs AG. As of 2001, Sachs belonged to ZF Friedrichshafen as a subsidiary company ZF Sachs AG. In 2011, ZF Sachs, like other Group subsidiaries, was legally merged with ZF Friedrichshafen AG and the independent business units integrated into the ZF divisions. Sachs has since become a brand of ZF Friedrichshafen AG. The head office for development, production and sales of products of the brand Sachs remained in Schweinfurt. The Schweinfurt plant is today (2017) the largest location of the automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen.
Today, Fichtel & Sachs is a German manufacturer of automotive parts, producing powertrain and suspension components. In the past the company also having produced ball bearings, motorcycle engines, bicycle parts and – via its subsidiary Sachs Motorcycles – motorcycles, mopeds, motorised bicycles and all-terrain vehicles (ATVs).
History
Ernst Sachs era
Early beginnings
In 1894, Ernst Sachs made his first design attempts for bicycle hubs, with the first patent on November 23 on bicycle ball bearings with sliding ball tread. On August 1, 1895, Ernst Sachs (technical director) and Karl Fichtel (commercial management) founded Schweinfurt Precision Ball Bearing factories (Fichtel & Sachs as oHG) with a founding capital sum of 15,000 Deutsche marks. First ball bearings and bicycle hubs were made. In 1896, Schweinfurt Precision Ball Bearing factories already employed 70 workers, who produced about 50 to 70 hubs daily.
World-famous inventions
1889: Bicycle freewheel by Ernst Sachs. 1903: Backpedal brake by Ernst Sachs. 1903: Torpedo freewheel hub: bicycle component with integrated freewheel and coaster brake, by Ernst Sachs.
The bicycle gear was not invented by Fichtel & Sachs, but developed over decades. This developed the conventional, modern bike, with its basic components from Fichtel & Sachs.
Birth of globalisation
After the invention of the torpedo freewheel hub in 1903, Ernst Sachs was the first to have the idea to not patent the whole product, but worldwide to patent only one component, without which no one could build a modern bike. This led to product piracy in China at the time, with confoundingly similar falsifications of the torpedo freewheel hub. After the invention of the well-known torpedo freewheel hub, which preceded eight years of construction work and was already so mature that it has barely changed over many decades, the company grew rapidly. By 1905, they were employing 1,800 employees and had a production of 382,000 torpedo hubs.
Rapid growth
Sachs's father-in-law, Wilhelm Höpflinger, received a patent for the first usable ball cage still used today in the ball bearing industry. Fichtel & Sachs was one of the world's leading companies for rolling bearings, where Sachs registered more than 100 patents, and bicycle hubs before the First World War. A further development boost brought the conversion of multiple of the factories to armaments during the war, when the number of employees rose from 5000 to 8000.
In 1911, Karl Fichtel died and in 1912, in order to counter the high customs duties, Sachs acquired a factory in Černýš (Tschirnitz) on the river Ohře (Eger) in Bohemia. Somewhat later, a subsidiary factory was built in the United States. During the four years of the war, the number of Fichtel & Sachs employees increased from 3,000 to around 8,000. In addition to hubs and ball bearings of all kinds, armour products were manufactured in Schweinfurt. Today's main plant (North Plant), between Hauptbahnhof and Ernst-Sachs-Straße, is based on a weapons and projectile factory, which Fichtel & Sachs built here first, in what is now the eastern plant area.
In 1919, the first works council was elected at Fichtel and Sachs, one year before the Works Councils Act () was implemented nationwide.
In the inflation year 1923, the transformation into a public company took place. A holding company of the company, the Sachs GmbH, was founded in the same year in Munich. At the turn of the year 1927/1928, the number of employees rose to a provisional high of 9,026. The hub production accounted for 67% of the total production, the remainder fell on rolling bearings. Sachs founded a company pension, the Ernst-Sachs-Hilfe.