Internationalisation

The first moves towards internationalization of the company were made back at the start of the eighties, but have ground to a halt. Initially, exports were initiated through agencies in the various countries, but Wilfried Ensinger quickly comes to realize that this type of co-operative arrangement fails to live up to the needs of either the product or the customers. Joint ventures in Switzerland and the USA fail to take off.

It is only by setting up decentralized production in countries with demand that Ensinger is able to achieve a sustainable solution to the problem of exchange rate risk. This realization moves Wilfried Ensinger to launch another attempt to find a suitable location in the USA in the mid eighties. By taking the bold step of launching an independent company, Ensinger Inc., with its own newly appointed workforce in Washington/Pennsylvania, the foundation stone is laid for what has now become the Group’s biggest subsidiary.
Over the following years, Ensinger Inc. systematically expands its market position. Today, the workforce at the producing locations in New Jersey, Texas, Connecticut, Delaware and the US Headquarters close to the industrial centre of Pittsburgh numbers several hundred.

Ensinger Limited is founded in record time by Wilfried Ensinger and John Speirs in Llantrisant in South Wales. The rapid pace of growth continues in the UK market both as a result of organic expansion and also company acquisitions. In 1994, the company acquires specialist machine shop TRIG Engineering based in Bridgwater.
The company headquarters is now located in Tonyrefail. Today, Europe’s biggest Ensinger subsidiary operates sites in the country’s major economic strongholds with a total workforce numbering over 200.

As a result of the search for a suitable sales support centre in Northern Germany, Ensinger purchases a site in Anröchte. A new administrative headquarters is opened in Nufringen. Following the success of Ensinger Ltd., the Sales Division pushes for additional independent locations abroad: 1989 sees the establishment of Ensinger France S.A.R.L., followed a year later by Ensinger Italia. Over the next decade, a series of other branches is founded in Europe, South America and Asia.
The decentral organization of the company group has created the ethos of a “corporation run by entrepreneurs”, permitting regional differences in customer and market demands to be met with new products and structures. 

In the Cham location, a new casting plant is constructed for polyamide mouldings, and in 1994 Ensinger also extends its production portfolio with additional casting plants for semi-finished products. Just under ten years later, the production sectors PA 6G and Nyrim are merged to create the “Cast Nylon” Division.

At the Austrian location of Lenzing, the subsidiary Ensinger Sintimid produces semi-finished and finished compression moulded parts from polyimides which are suitable for ultra-high temperature applications. Because these high-performance plastics cannot be processed by melting, the method used in their manufacture is sintering.

> New generation (1997 - )