January 26, 2010 The Air We Breathe

Volume 13 | Issue 1

Modern industry comes with as much challenge as it does opportunity. Brazil’s pioneer in filtration systems, Bernauer, confronts the challen

Bernauer, Brazil’s leading air filtration manufacturer, takes air quality seriously. With headquarters in Brazil’s industrial capital of Sao Paulo and almost 80 years of experience in the field, the company is well-versed in modern air quality standards and needs. The company’s extensive product line maintains a focus on industrial fans, filters, and particle collection systems. With applications that are extensive and comprehensive, Bernauer produces solutions for every industry from food and beverage, to textiles, cement, steel mills and automotive.

A FAMILY LEGACY
Bernauer was launched as a family business by Wilhelm Bernauer, a German tinsmith, in 1930, and remains a family business to this day. “Today, Bernauer is proud to say that the third generation of Bernauers is leading the company, and the fourth generation is already working its way up the ladder,” said Rodolfo Bernauer, the company’s current president. Today, the company is active in almost every industrial practice that utilizes air movement equipment such as fans, bag-filters, and complete collection solutions for exhaust and dust.

In the 1930s, with Bernauer’s first industrial complex in Brazil, it began producing the country’s first fans, cyclones, and filters. In the 1940s, production expanded to include heaters and gas generators. The company’s headquarters moved to Vila Prudente, only to move again in the following decade as increases in production demanded more space. At this time, Bernauer began to produce turbo-blowers along with new lines of fans, and the company’s first line of automatic bag filters.

In 1962, with the loss of Bernauer’s first president, the company’s management was handed down to Kurt Bernauer. Much progress was made under his leadership, including the forging of a new contract with the German manufacturer Keller Lufftechtnik GMBH and Beth GMBH. The company’s headquarters were greatly expanded, and had reached a size twice that of its former capacity. Production expanded to new ventures such as hot gas systems for furnace exhaust, and the company began to export its products overseas, a large and ambitious undertaking. At the same time, Bernauer began the lengthy process of computerizing its systems.

By the 1980s the 50-year-old company had produced 80,000 fans. To complement this achievement, Bernauer began to supply the cement industries with charcoal and mineral coal processing systems, replacing the use of oil. The decade also saw the loss of Bernauer’s second president, and the company was handed over to Klaus Carlos Bernauer.

By the 1990s, the company began to enter into new partnerships and signed contracts to manufacture oil mist and emulsion filters and workstations. It signed a contract with TLT Turbo GMBH in order to manufacture large-size fans. In addition, the company began to increase its focus on exports. In 1997, Bernauer was handed over to its current president, Rodolfo Kurt Bernauer, and under his leadership Bernauer obtained ISO 9001 certification.

Bernauer has continued to implement large and strategic changes throughout the last decade. With a view to the future, the company has focused on becoming more competitive in both the domestic as well as international markets, including Argentina, Chile, Peru and Venezuela. Bernauer began to channel resources towards creating environmentally sustainable practices and products. In 2005, the company proudly celebrated its 75-year anniversary, showing no signs of slowing down in the years to come.

80 YEARS LATER
Today, Bernauer’s production line is still located in Sao Lucas, a former industrial area which developed into a residential area on the eastern side of Sao Paulo, Brazil’s ever-growing industrial capital. The entire administration and engineering department moved in December, 2008 to São Judas, a commercial area on São Paulo’s southern side, more conveniently located close to the airport and subway lines. With an area of 25,000 square meters, and a constructed area of 11,000 square meters, the company’s growing complex is an impressive undertaking. Originally constructed in the 1950s, the complex has grown alongside the company in the past 60 years. However, a big move is on the horizon. “In August of 2010, our whole production/manufacturing line will move to Sao Paulo’s Capivari’s industrial district, located 130 km west of São Paulo. This is a great center for the Brazil’s manufacturing world,” says Bernauer.

The current production area has three hangars, totaling 8,000 square meters that are equipped with a variety of cutting-edge machinery, including a separate area for equipment inspection, measurement, gauging and testing, a painting hangar, one large platform scale with a capacity of 30 tons, and a large storage and dispatching area where finished products are loaded for transport.

Changes in location run alongside changes in the field. “The Brazilian machinery industry faces big problems with competition,” says Berhanuer. “This is due in large part to a political system that taxes investments to factories. This practice, along with an unfavorable exchange rate of the real, reduces the competitiveness of the domestic industry against foreign competition.

THE BERNAUER DIFFERENCE
“We are not only a fan and filter manufacturer,” says Bernauer. “What sets us apart is our goal and ability to produce complete solutions along with our engineering expertise, and it is in this function that we excel and stand apart.” The Bernauer team takes on a pro-active approach, visiting its clients’ factories to determine the level and type of dust generated there, as well as the air’s movement inside the factory, and takes this knowledge back to its own factory to find the best product and process for each client in a tailor-made solution.

To ensure optimal air quality and movement is to ensure the health of a company’s team, and to improve any company’s business potential. Bernauer commits itself to continuously seeking improvement in the quality of service to its diverse clientele, and places a strong emphasis on training and development of its suppliers, and the building of trust among its extensive team. The company has found that this translates to a healthy, happy and productive workforce.

A PHILOSOPHY OF CARE
Bernauer is out on a mission to develop products, provide services and manufacture the best and most-cutting edge technology and equipment on the market. “We aim to exceed our clients’ every expectation,” says Bernauer. By the year 2010, Bernauer aims to cement its position of leadership in the domestic industrial fan, bag-filter, and exhaust collection systems.

“By the phrase ‘Taking Care of the Air You Breathe,’ we stress that our company’s main objective is to find the best solutions for our clients in terms of removing, reducing, and controlling particles produced by industry,” says Bernauer. “We always have health and well-being of the workforce in mind.”

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