Production areas
The variety of materials we use is unparalleled! From 5 mm strip steel to soft plastic seals, we process materials and combine them into functionally integrated assemblies!
We do not limit ourselves to one class of materials but combine metals and plastics to create innovative composite products. Our customers come mainly from the automotive industry and from the medical engineering and household technology sectors. Together, they have a high demand for efficiency and quality. We also produce components for locking systems and building technology. With us you get everything from a single source: The metal inserts are prepared in our own stamping workshop and then receive a plastic component during injection molding. Tools for stamping and injection molding are also manufactured in-house!
The result is highly resilient metal-plastic hybrid products and an integration of functions that often make further components superfluous.
Our precision plastic products are used primarily in the electronics, locking technology, and powertrain sectors. Our international customers appreciate our high level of precision and our fully or partially automated production processes. Optimum throughput times, efficient processes, flexible assembly of components, and modern machinery ensure first-class products and the highest quality.
We are certified according to IATF 16949, ISO 9001, and 50001.
As a competent technology partner and thanks to our many years of experience in the automotive industry, we produce high-precision and technically sophisticated injection molded parts in the white goods sector. We are familiar with the high temperatures and chemical and mechanical stresses, so we can also provide advice on materials, design, and cost optimisation.
As part of an international group, we offer ideal conditions to serve the household appliances market efficiently. With uniform processes, we guarantee high quality, flexibility, and short delivery times worldwide.
We also offer efficient manufacturing processes for the production of functionally integrated components for industrial applications and window and locking systems.
We would also be happy to assess any potential that may still be lying dormant in your applications!
For medical plastic molded parts, we primarily use engineering plastic granulates to meet the high demands on quality, hygiene, resilience, and appearance. Casings and screens, for example, must withstand, radiation exposure from MRI and X-ray machines as well as contact with disinfectants and medicines. We also utilize many technological possibilities for the integration of functional elements from additional plastic components and metal.
Only a few suppliers have mastered hot gas welding, in which the joining zone is plasticized using radiant heat and a stream of hot shielding gas. A free design of the weld seam and its course with three-dimensional weld seams can only be realized in hot gas welding. Furthermore, hot gas welding does not produce any particles or thermal damage to the material. The high-strength connection without mechanical stress on the workpieces also means that no unwanted deformations occur. It is even possible to weld internal ribs in order to reduce the load of tensile and shear forces on the weld seam and significantly increase the strength of pressure vessels. The hot gas welding process is generally suitable for all thermoplastics. Even plastics that are considered difficult to weld, such as PBT, POM, PPO and PPS, are securely joined together.
Of course, we also use other welding processes such as laser, ultrasonic and vibration welding for a wide range of different products.
Product optimisations, cost savings, weight reductions, functional integrations and more…
Many topics come up repeatedly in discussions with customers across all sectors. We can therefore draw on a wealth of experience and, building upon this, work together with you to optimize components. With our high level of vertical integration, we have a correspondingly wide range of options for material combinations, automation, tool designs, and much more.
Since our company was founded in 1924, we have continuously developed our know-how so that today we are specialists in metal-plastic connections. We do not stand still but seize new opportunities. That is why we have been part of the OKE Group since the end of 2017, using their international orientation within the company network.
With OKE, we have been exploiting the Groups’ many synergies, such as the interaction of technologies, special-purpose machine engineering, and logistical advantages. In addition, central administrative units are based in the holding company.
Metal-plastic hybrids are popular across industries. For example, around 60 per cent of all stamped metal parts are now directly or indirectly joined with plastic. And there are good reasons for that! Taking into account value-adding ideas or following a detailed value potential analysis, intelligent metal-plastic hybrids are created from which our customers benefit:
The best thing about us is our many great colleagues. We spend a lot of time at the workplace and attach a great deal of importance to positive interaction, a motivating working atmosphere, and making sure everyone is appreciated. Schröder is a member of the OKE Group and is a medium-sized family business. For our employees, this means flat structures and quick decisions, coupled with the opportunities of a globally positioned company.
In 2024, we celebrated our 100th anniversary. Strictly speaking, however, there was already a forge before 1924, which was founded by Wilhelm Schröder. Stove and window knobs, bed hooks, and all kinds of other everyday items were created under his leadership. A world war, economic crises, the history of industrialization, and globalization lie behind us.
An eventful time in which Wilhelm Schröder continued to develop – and often reinvented itself. We carry this idea of development and transformation to our customers and are open to new technologies, processes, markets, and challenges!
Gustav Schröder es regarded by us as the founder of the current site. The simple forge becomes a small production company. With automatic bed hook machines, an eccentric press, six machines for the production of tacks (rivets and nails for shoes) and a few small auxiliary machines, the path to industrial production begins.
Bankhaus Otto Geck declares bankruptcy – Gustav Schröder has to prove his entrepreneurial spirit in his very first business year. And he actually succeeds in making a fresh start.
The workforce grows, additional machines are purchased, and production facilities and the product range are expanded.
German troops invade Poland. With the outbreak of the war, the production of shoe nails and heel plates sees a rapid increase due to the demand for boot manufacturing for the soldiers.
Machines and the entire warehouse are destroyed by shelling, and the buildings are reduced to their foundations. Gustav Schröder estimates the damage to be around 300,000 marks.
Despite all the depression, reconstruction begins. However, enormous efforts are required before the factory building is rebuilt in its shell by the end of 1945.
Production is resumed. However, as the company has already been rebuilt by 1947, there is no entitlement to compensation payments.
The currency reform puts the brakes on Gustav Schröder once again, as the Deutschmark devalues savings enormously. Due to the adjustment of wages with rising prices, purchasing power also decreases.
The stable new currency and a great deal of entrepreneurial spirit bring an economic upturn. Our bed fittings are exported to Nigeria in their millions, and after the difficult years, we celebrate our 25th anniversary.
The manufacture of shoe fittings is discontinued, and the stamping workshop is expanded. In addition to production facilities such as automatic stamping machines and presses, we also promote our “well-trained personnel”.
Our need for space increases and a two-storey extension is built. Gustav Schröder is nicknamed “Schoppen (a small liquid measurement) Gustav”, as from now on he expands bit by bit.
Plastic becomes THE material for industrial mass production. Gustav Schröder once again demonstrates his entrepreneurial spirit and enters the plastics production business in 1955, and the automotive industry places its first orders with us.
The first automatic stamping presses are purchased – and the eccentric presses are phased out in the following years. This enables a significantly more efficient production process.
Generational change: Klaus Wilhelm Schröder joins the company on 1 April and manages the company until March 1999. First, together with Manfred Ahlhaus, and from 1985, with his nephew Dirk Ahlhaus. Dirk Ahlhaus remains with the company until 2007.
Even after the era of “Schoppen Gustav”, construction work continues. A hall for stamping operations was opened in 1981, followed by a stamping and logistics building in 1997. In 2014, we expanded our production areas by 4,000 square meters.
The development of plastics applications, technologies, and interdisciplinary cooperation are important to us. That is why we are a founding member of the Lüdenscheid Plastics Institute, a network with over 400 members today.
Toolmaking is outsourced and the subsidiary schnitt+form is founded. In the same year, we officially meet the DIN ISO 9001 standard, followed by VDA 6.1 and QS 9000.
With the first automation steps, we begin using assembly technology. A fully automated rotary table system for mechanical dishwasher components is one of the first applications.
Flooding is a recurring event in our company history. This year, we narrowly escape disaster. In order to be better prepared for the future, we participate in the development of a flood protection concept.
Kai Okulla takes over Dirk Ahlhaus’ company shares, followed nine years later by those of Knut Schröder.
In the midst of the global financial and economic crisis, we set up a new plastics production facility with additional injection molding machines of 200 and 550 tons for the partial production of hybrid parts made of metal and plastic.
The year is marked by a major remodelling project: an additional 4,000 square meters and the restructuring of all work areas increase our efficiency. New offices and social areas are also created.
The international OKE Group becomes the sole owner of Wilhelm Schröder GmbH.
Health management is introduced. Fitness rooms and injury prevention and exercise programmes are gradually created for all employees.
We invest extensively in renewable energies with the construction of a large photovoltaic system.
Employees
Locations worldwide
Sole proprietorship
million euros turnover
Injection molding machines
Extrusion lines
Mechanical engineering
Quality of processes and products
