In 2026, Baumer hhs celebrates an important milestone: forty years of activity in the field of industrial adhesive application. Four decades during which the company has accompanied the evolution of the packaging industry and many other industrial sectors, transforming highly specialised expertise into a comprehensive technology portfolio capable of integrating adhesive application, process monitoring and quality control.
The anniversary was celebrated on June 12 in Krefeld, Germany, the company’s headquarters.
The event was attended not only by the entire Baumer hhs team, which numbers more than 350 employees worldwide, but also by the company’s founders. “I am particularly honoured to welcome Ms Helmy Sasse, Mr Fritz Kurandt and his wife Dagmar”, said Oliver Vietze, CEO and President of the Baumer Group (Frauenfeld, Switzerland). The Group acquired System Kurandt GmbH, a sensor manufacturer based in Berlin, in 1998, followed three years later by hhs GmbH. Both companies supplied adhesive application and quality control solutions to various industrial sectors. Within the Baumer Group, the two companies were merged in 2003 to form Baumer hhs. Kurandt and Sasse transferred their businesses to the Baumer Group to support future growth. “As a member of the Baumer Group, Baumer hhs benefits from the infrastructure provided by this strong group of companies, while its extensive technical support strengthens our ability to innovate”, said Percy Dengler, Managing Director of Baumer hhs.
Partnership, precision and a pioneering spirit are the values that guide Baumer hhs in supporting customers and OEM partners worldwide. The company has a global presence, with subsidiaries in France, Great Britain, India, Italy, China, Mexico, Spain and the United States, as well as a sales and service network spanning more than 120 countries.
The history of Baumer hhs
Over time, adhesive application has become an increasingly precise, controlled and integrated process. The history of Baumer hhs tells the story of this transformation through application systems, quality control, automation and technologies aimed at reducing consumption.
The history of Baumer hhs began in Germany in 1986, when Hans Henning Sasse founded hhs Leimauftrags-Systeme GmbH in Ratingen to meet the need for reliable, accurate and repeatable adhesive application within increasingly fast and automated production processes. In the following years, hhs progressively developed its own expertise and technologies. The company’s growth led to its relocation to Krefeld in 1999, which is now one of the company’s main production and technology hubs. It was during this period of growth and specialisation that hhs joined the Baumer Group in 2001. The combination of hhs’s specialised expertise and Baumer’s technological and international know-how created the conditions for a new phase of development. The company gradually adopted the name Baumer hhs and consolidated its identity as the Group’s centre of competence for solutions dedicated to adhesive application and bonding quality control.
For Baumer hhs, being part of the Group does not, however, mean abandoning its original specialisation. On the contrary, the company now develops solutions capable of managing the entire bonding process, from adhesive deposition through to quality verification, because production lines are operating at ever-higher speeds and require increasingly high levels of precision, reliability and control. Baumer hhs has developed solutions combining application systems, nozzles, valves, control electronics and quality monitoring technologies. The focus has progressively shifted from simply depositing adhesive to intelligently managing the process, with the aim of ensuring that every single application takes place at the right point, with the right amount and according to the defined parameters.
In 2014, Baumer hhs opened a new headquarters, and in 2019 a new plant was established in Berlin. In 2023, continued business growth led to the expansion of the Krefeld facilities with a second production plant.
How the concept of adhesive application has changed
If in 1986, the main challenge was to develop systems capable of applying glue accurately and reliably, today’s industrial requirements are much broader. Machines must be faster, more flexible and connected; format changes must be quick; adhesive consumption must be optimised; quality must be verified in real time; and production must become increasingly transparent and traceable. Added to this are issues such as sustainability, waste reduction and more efficient use of resources.
Technologies for the folding carton industry
In the folding carton sector, Baumer hhs offers solutions for gluing flaps and folds, automatic-bottom closures and more complex applications. Application heads, available for both cold glue and hot melt adhesives, play a central role. Electromagnetic technology enables precise control of valve opening and closing, even at the high speeds of modern production lines.
Another particularly important field is corrugated board. The CorrBox Solution is an advanced modular system designed for precise adhesive application and quality control in the production of corrugated boxes.
Application precision, however, is only one part of the process. In modern folding carton production, it is equally important to verify that the adhesive has actually been applied at the correct location and in the required quantity. For this reason, Baumer hhs has developed monitoring and inspection systems that allow adhesive application to be monitored during production. Optical sensors such as the GDX 1000 can continuously check for the presence of adhesive and identify areas where glue is missing, while camera-based systems such as Xcam can simultaneously verify adhesive application and other product features, helping to prevent non-conforming packages from continuing along the production line. Process management is also handled through control and interface systems such as Xtend³, which allow applications to be configured and monitored, recipes to be managed, and the various production and quality-control functions to be integrated. In this way, the gluing system is no longer simply a machine peripheral, but becomes an integral part of line automation.
Sustainability also starts with adhesive
Baumer hhs’s approach is based on a seemingly simple principle: use only the amount of adhesive actually required to guarantee bonding quality and strength. The precision of modern application heads makes it possible to reduce consumption through dot or intermittent application, avoiding the deposition of adhesive where it is not needed. The benefit is not limited to the cost of the glue: every reduction in consumption also means less raw material used, less energy required to produce and transport it, and ultimately less material to manage.
Sustainability also concerns machine operation. A particularly significant example is the transition from traditional disc systems to contactless application solutions for gluing the longitudinal seams of folding cartons. Another example is provided by solutions for securing palletised loads. Baumer hhs has developed a technology that uses non-slip adhesives as an alternative to films used to stabilise products during transport. This makes it possible to reduce the consumption of plastic film while also facilitating logistics operations and the subsequent recycling of paper and cardboard packaging.
The SUGRA project, an acronym for “Sustainable Gluing with Renewable Adhesives”, led by Baumer hhs, is dedicated to developing bonding solutions based on renewable raw materials. If the substrate is made from a renewable and recyclable raw material, the adhesive used to assemble it must also be considered as part of the product’s overall environmental balance. SUGRA focuses in particular on the development and optimisation of starch-based bio-based adhesives, with the aim of making them suitable for the requirements of modern high-speed packaging production.
Baumer hhs is also working on the interaction between the new adhesive and the application system, with the aim of achieving a reliable industrial process, because the future of adhesive application depends not only on the adhesive used, but on the ability to integrate chemistry, application technology, control and automation into a single process.
Combining production efficiency and sustainability is the future of the folding carton industry. The challenge is not simply to produce faster, but to produce better, using fewer resources, reducing waste while maintaining high quality standards. In this scenario, adhesive application technology plays a fundamental role: it is an element capable of directly influencing the productivity, quality, costs and sustainability of the entire process.
Baumer hhs exports 75% of its products to customers around the world. “We have always taken a holistic approach to solution development. This allows us to perfectly adapt all the components of our complete systems to their respective applications. Our customers can integrate these systems into their production lines immediately: this approach provides a solid foundation for the continued growth of our company”, said Dengler, looking to the future.
