AUGST BECK'S PRODUCT PORTFOLIO primarily includes reamers, countersinks and boring tools, making it an ideal addition to the MAPAL range.
From competitor to part of the MAPAL Group: August Beck
1906–2025
Before the traditional reamer manufacturer August Beck can be acquired by a large Swedish group, Dr Dieter Kress integrates it into the MAPAL Group. In doing so, he not only secures technical expertise. He also successfully utilises the opportunity to expand the MAPAL product range to include fixed, multi-bladed fine machining tools.
RESCUE OF A COMPANY
August Beck, formerly an apprentice at Gottlieb Daimler together with Robert Bosch, opened a mechanical workshop in Ebingen in the Swabian Jura in 1906, initially specialising in repairs for the local textile industry. Later, the company developed its own woodworking tools and machines before specialising in precision tools, including reamers for metalworking. Reaming and countersinking tools made of solid carbide or tipped with carbide as well as multi-bevelled step tools, which BECK manufactures from the mid-1950s onwards, prove to be growth accelerators. Over the next decades, BECK develops into a leading company for fine machining tools in Europe - and becomes a direct competitor of MAPAL with the market launch of a single-edge reamer with carbide insert in 1981.
However, since the death of its founder, BECK has had a widely ramified and complicated shareholder structure, which is one of the reasons why it gets into financial difficulties at the turn of the millennium. The Swedish world market leader for precision tools, wants to buy the company. When MAPAL boss Dr Dieter Kress learns about this, he acts quickly and decisively: In order to prevent the conglomerate from acquiring the expertise for the reamers, he buys August Beck GmbH & Co KG at the beginning of 2004 after intensive negotiations with representatives of the owner families. Like the other subsidiaries MAPAL WWS and MILLER, it remains largely independent.
Following cutbacks caused by the economic and financial crisis in 2008, BECK focuses on the production of solid multi-bladed reamers and countersinks, modernises its machinery and successfully introduces innovations such as the unequally split countersink to the market. Today BECK is the competence centre for multi-bladed reamers within the MAPAL Group.
THE REAMER MANUFACTURER AUGUST BECK in Winterlingen, located in the Swabian Alb region of Germany, has a long tradition. In 2004, 98 years after its founding, it became part of the MAPAL Group.
IN 2006, to mark the 100th anniversary of August Beck, managing director Gerd Icks stands in front of a portrait of the company's founder.
AUGST BECK'S PRODUCT PORTFOLIO primarily includes reamers, countersinks and boring tools, making it an ideal addition to the MAPAL range.
THE REAMER MANUFACTURER AUGUST BECK in Winterlingen, located in the Swabian Alb region of Germany, has a long tradition. In 2004, 98 years after its founding, it became part of the MAPAL Group.
IN 2006, to mark the 100th anniversary of August Beck, managing director Gerd Icks stands in front of a portrait of the company's founder.
AUGST BECK'S PRODUCT PORTFOLIO primarily includes reamers, countersinks and boring tools, making it an ideal addition to the MAPAL range.