SABA
Company profile[edit]
The roots of the company go back to a clock factory founded by Joseph Benedikt Schwer in Triberg in 1835. In 1864 the son of the founder joined the factory, which from 1865 traded as August Schwer Söhne Metallwaren-Fabrik and developed well. When Herrman Schwer, Joseph Schwer's grandson, took over the factory in 1905, it employed 20 people.
In 1923, the company began manufacturing parts for radio equipment, such as coils and variable capacitors. The company was now called Schwarzwälder Apparate-Bau-Anstalt. Success came quickly, and a transformer production facility was established. From 1926, the company offered radio kits, before it began to manufacture complete devices itself in 1927. Technically outstanding devices such as the award-winning S35 of 1930, developed by Eugen Leutholt, ensured business success. By 1935, SABA was second only to Telefunken among German radio manufacturers, with a market share of ten percent in Germany. During World War II, the company switched to armaments and expanded its production facilities. On April 19, 1945, two direct hits by bombs completely destroyed the factory buildings, which had been built only a short time before. The administration building, however, remained intact, only the roof was destroyed.
Towards the end of 1945, SABA was able to produce toys (a crane), tablet tubes for the pharmaceutical industry and other more insignificant products.
From 1946, a contingent enabled the production of telephones for the post office. The first completely newly constructed post-war telephone, the W46, was made by SABA. However, this desk telephone was not built in large numbers. From the 1950s onwards, SABA, together with other German telephone manufacturing companies, also produced the W48, the standard telephone of the Deutsche Bundespost for many years.
It was not until 1947 that production of radios could begin again. In 1949, the company was converted into a limited liability company. Since the heirs were still too young, the stepfather took over the business. Radio sales initially returned to their pre-war success. Then SABA started producing refrigerators and almost missed the television boom. It was not until 1957 that the not very successful refrigerator production was stopped and the Brunner-Schwer brothers took over SABA. The first television produced in series by SABA was the Schauinsland W II. This was followed by an expansion of the factory. In addition to television sets, production of tape recorders and mobile radios began. With the introduction of PAL colour television, the first colour television set was also delivered by SABA in 1967.
Towards the end of the 1960s, SABA invested in several major projects: Tape recorders for satellites and sound studios, devices for the elimination of sleep disorders, and many more. These high-priced devices - together with other bad decisions - brought SABA into financial difficulties at the end of the 1960s.
SABA's innovative new products included wireless remote control, which used ultrasound to set certain functions on the device. Other developments included the picture-in-picture process and a service and diagnosis system to increase the reliability of the components. The design of the devices won numerous awards. The company's social policy also made it a sought-after employer in Villingen-Schwenningen, which also employed foreign workers from Italy or Yugoslavia in many positions.
The 1970s brought the decline. In 1978 SABA bought the 2000 series from Sanyo, in 1979 the hi-fi equipment production was completely abandoned, and in 1980 the company was sold to the French Thomson group. By 2005, only the SABA name existed, held by Thomson multimedia Sales Germany GmbH.
After the takeover by Thomson in 1981 and the integration of the Telefunken factories in 1986, there was in some cases enormous overcapacity, which caused redundancies and job losses. Hoped-for synergy effects failed to materialize. A challenge for the engineers was certainly the fusion of SECAM and PAL, i.e. the French and German systems into a uniform device concept (multi-standard tuner).
In the late 1980s, production was moved to less expensive foreign countries, not only for cost reasons, but also because of the specialization in research and development, which tended to disadvantage generalists and managers. An example from this time (the turnaround years 1989/1990) is the BTX system.
In 1986, a new environment emerged in the trade of licenses and patents in the international field. The name of the company changed frequently: SEWEK, DEWEK, EWD, TTG, DTB and finally TTE. Only one development department of the company remained in Villingen-Schwenningen. In 1988, the former head of SABA-Werke Hermann Brunner-Schwer died, and in 2004 Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, head of MPS-Records, suffered a fatal accident.
With the insolvency of TTE Germany, the Chinese-French joint venture between TCL and Thomson, many jobs in television development at the Villingen-Schwenningen site were lost again in 2008.
Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/SABA