From local welding production to global supplier for the carpet and textile industries
1942 CAMPEN is founded in Aarhus, Denmark’s second largest city, under the name P. CAMPEN Maskinfabrik A/S by factory owner Mr Peer Campen. The production consisted of welding tongs. Since then the products varied from toy cars, milking machines, washing machines to dental chairs.
1961 The present production of machines for the carpet and textile industries starts. Mr Campen has great success with his complete lines for foam backing of tufted carpets and impregnation of needle felt carpets. Subsequently, the same technology is applied for back coating of artificial grass carpets. In connection with the complete backing lines the well-known CAMPEN foam mixer is developed, which has been upgraded to a fully automatic and computer-controlled version.
1979 The company Eltex in Viborg is acquired – a manufacturer of lace winding and inspection machines for textiles. As textile production is refined and developed further over the years and the various technical textile and nonwoven product groups mould together, the demands for these machines also change. Therefore, CAMPEN’s current production for this product area includes more sophisticated and high-volume machines for technical textiles and nonwovens with extensive know-how within the inspection, slitting and winding technologies as a basis.
1980s During the mid 1980s, the fiber glass industry expands heavily – at first the production of fiber glass wall-coverings. As CAMPEN has manufactured some lines for textile wall-coverings already, there is an obvious opportunity to start producing lines for the new type of products also. Consequently, complete impregnating lines for fiber glass are developed and produced, and a natural demand for a converting machine arises among the customers. To start with, a traditional inspection machine is used, but as further capacity is required, CAMPEN’s so-called “roll robot” (automatic winder) for fully automatic conversion of fiber glass rolls is added to the product range.
At the end of the 1980s, CAMPEN enters into a strategic cooperation with the French company Béné, who manufactures machines for wrapping of textile rolls in plastic film. CAMPEN further develops these packaging machines so that they can be combined with the fully automatic converting machines, and a quite larger type – compared to the original type from Béné – creates the basis for the very plastic film saving packaging machine produced today and applied in the carpet industry as well as for big geotextile rolls.
1988 – 1990s Mr Campen passes away in 1988, and the firm continues as a privately owned company until the mid 1990s when CAMPEN formed part of the German Küsters group of companies.
2001 CAMPEN is acquired by the Danish VARO group of companies and is now located in Hornslet in the same buildings as VARO on Sletten 8. The company is operating worldwide as an independent subsidiary with great success, and the organization with “all companies under the same roof”, where staff functions such as finance, production, purchasing and assembling are shared between more business units, has proven to be ideal for a contract manufacturer like CAMPEN.
Today In spite of the global financial crisis and varying turnovers, CAMPEN has achieved constant and positive results during the past years. Consequently, the company appears as a trustworthy, robust and competent partner towards its customers.