SIG Group AG is a Swiss multinational corporation in the

packaging industry {{set category, first= industries (branches of an economy), alternative=industries, topic=Industry (economics) For other meanings of "industries", see :Industries. ...

. Originally founded 1853 as a railway car producer named ''Schweizerische Waggonfabrik'' ("Swiss Wagon Factory"), it was renamed SIG (''Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft'',

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

for Swiss Industrial Company; in French, as ''Société Industrielle Suisse''; and, in Italian, as ''Societá Industriale Svizzera'') a decade later, after it had won a contract for the production of firearms by the Swiss government. The SIG Group shares are listed on SIX Swiss Exchange and are a component of the SMI MID index. The industrial site at the headquarters in

Neuhausen am Rheinfall Neuhausen am Rheinfall (sometimes abbrv. as Neuhausen a. Rhf., called Neuhausen until 1938) is a town and a municipality in the canton of Schaffhausen in Switzerland. The town is close to the Rhine Falls, a tourist attraction and mainland Europe' ...

is located directly on the

Rhine Falls , photo = File:SBB RABe 514 DTZ Rheinfall.jpg , photo_width = 280 , photo_caption = Rhine Falls with Rheinfall Bridge and Laufen Castle , location = On the border between the cantons of Schaffhausen and Zürich next to Schaffhausen, i ...

. Built at this location in 1853 for the use of

hydroelectric power Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...

, the site was transferred to the SIG Charitable Foundation in 2011.

History

Packaging (1906 - today)

1906 - 1950

In order to address the volatility of the railway vehicle and firearms businesses, SIG started to produce packaging machinery starting from 1906 as a third main business area. The machines were produced at SIG in Neuhausen on behalf of the patentee of a "folding box" die-fold system, a co-founder of SAPAL (Société Anonyme des Plieuses Automatiques). Most of SIG's earlier packaging equipment efforts were focused on small dry food items such as chocolates and candy. The first packaging machines were delivered to Swiss chocolate manufacturers. In 1921, SIG started to construct its own packaging machines.

1950 - 2000

1956 SIG launched its first continuous flow wrapping machine. 1964 the business unit moved to Beringen where it had built a new factory. By 1981, it was producing 60 models of packaging machines. In 1989, through the acquisition of PKL from

Linnich Linnich is a town in the district of Düren in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the River Rur (Roer river), approx. 10 km north-west of Jülich. Economy Linnich is the home of SIG Combibloc, the specialist fo ...

, Germany, SIG entered the field of aseptic carton liquid packaging, later known as SIG Combibloc.

2000 - today

In 2000, SIG started to focus on food and beverage packaging technology. Management directed revenues from the sales of SIG Sauer and Rocktools to acquire global businesses, including ''Krupp Kunstofftechnik'' (Corpoplast / Blowtec / Kautex brands) and HAMBA in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

; Ryka Blow Molds in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

; and a substantial portion of the Italian conglomerate SASIB. The food-related (dry) businesses were organized under the SIG Pack division, while the beverage-related (wet) businesses formed SIG Beverages. Aseptic liquid packaging remained separate under SIG Combibloc. The former SASIB wet businesses Simonazzi, Alfa and Meyer / Mojonnier were sold to

Tetra Laval Tetra Laval is a Swiss-domiciled multinational corporation of Swedish origin, with headquarters in Pully, Switzerland. The Tetra Laval Group provides packaging, processing and distribution products for a range of foodstuffs, including liquids, fru ...

in 2005, while HAMBA, Kautex and Blowtec were sold separately to private investor groups. The food packaging businesses were sold to Robert Bosch Verpackungstechnik in 2004. The former SASIB dry unit Stewart Systems (bakery products) was sold to UCA Group in 2004. Laser-guided vehicle manufacturer 80, part of the 1999 SASIB acquisition, was sold back to its original Italian owners in 2004. By 2006, Sigpack Systems had an export ratio of 97% of its products. The slimmed-down SIG Beverages unit, manufacturer of

PET bottle Although PET is used in several applications, (principally textile fibres for apparel and upholstery, bottles and other rigid packaging, flexible packaging and electrical and electronic goods), as of 2022 only bottles are collected at a substa ...

blow-molding machinery, was sold off to the German company

Salzgitter AG Salzgitter AG is a German company, one of the largest steel producers in Europe with an annual output of around seven million tonnes. With over 100 subsidiaries and associated companies, the Group is structured in five divisions – Steel, Tr ...

in March 2008. This sale encompassed the subsidiaries Corpoplast, Asbofill, Plasmax and Moldtec. In 2007, SIG Holding AG was acquired by Rank Group Limited, the private investment company of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

businessman

Graeme Hart Graeme Richard Hart (born 1955) is a New Zealand billionaire businessman and the country's wealthiest person.ONEX Corporation. Today, SIG Group focuses on aseptic packaging. In 2016, the company introduced Combibloc RS Composite, a composite structural inner layer which increases system stability and reduces the carbon footprint of carton packs. In 2017, SIG introduced the first individual

QR code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...

s with digital sourcing transparency, tailored for dairy product consumers. In April 2022, the company was renamed from SIG Combibloc Group AG to SIG Group AG. In the same year, SIG finalised the acquisition of Scholle IPN, an American producer of flexible food and beverages packaging including spouted pouches and

bag-in-box A bag-in-box or BiB is a container for the storage and transportation of liquids. It consists of a strong bladder (or plastic bag), usually made of several layers of metallised film or other plastics, seated inside a corrugated fiberboard box. ...

solutions originally developed by William R. Scholle. Also in 2022, SIG acquired the Asia business of US competitor Pactiv Evergreen with its production facilities for fresh products, especially fresh milk in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

and

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...

Railways, Vehicles (1853 – 1995)

The ''schweizerische Waggonfabrik''Hermann Alexander von Berlepsch, ''Schweizerkunde: Land, Volk und Staat'', Schwetschke, 1864
p. 512
("Swiss

Wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

Factory") was founded in 1853 by

Friedrich Peyer im Hof Johann Friedrich Peyer im Hof (18 June 1817, in Schaffhausen – 18 May 1900) was a Swiss politician member of the Swiss National Council during 1857–1875 (President 1859/1860). Alongside Alfred Escher, he is one of the main pioneers of rail ...

, Heinrich Moser, and Johann Conrad Neher. From 1854, it produced railway cars for the emerging Swiss railway companies. Friedrich Peyer was one of the directors of the Swiss Northeastern Railway, also founded in 1853. Their factory in

was originally powered by the nearby

and employed 150 workers,SIG-Geschichte
, ''Baublatt'', 21 September 2017. which by the mid-1860s increased to 500 workers. In the late 1970s, SIG was the designer and builder of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport a ...

, the CLRV L1. The remaining 190 L2 vehicles, along with 52 articulated variants, were made by

Thunder Bay Thunder Bay is a city in and the seat of Thunder Bay District, Ontario, Canada. It is the most populous municipality in Northwestern Ontario and the second most populous (after Greater Sudbury) municipality in Northern Ontario; its population i ...

, Ontario-based

Urban Transportation Development Corporation The Urban Transportation Development Corporation Ltd. (UTDC) was a Crown corporation owned by the Government of Ontario, Canada. It was established in the 1970s as a way to enter what was then expected to be a burgeoning market in advanced l ...

(UTDC), now a subsidiary of Bombardier Transportation. In the early 1980s, SIG was the designer and builder of the

Utrecht sneltram External links * Bestuur Regio Utrechtis the public transportation authority in the Utrecht region Regiotram Utrechtmanages tram system assets U-OVis the website for public transport in Utrecht Qbuzzoperates trams and buses on behalf of Bestuu ...

trams. 27 were ordered and delivered in 1983. Their scheduled replacements ran from 2017 to 2020. The tilting system of the SBB RABDe 500 was developed by SIG. The railway branch of SIG was sold in 1995 to Fiat Ferroviaria. File:Sbb rabde500.jpg, SBB RABDe 500 File:CLRV TTC Streetcar No 4004 (8063115473).jpg, SIG-built CLRV L1 4004 in Toronto File:TEE Northlander in Zwolle.JPG, SBB RAm TEE I train set in ONR

Northlander The ''Northlander'' was a passenger train operated by the Ontario Northland Railway in Ontario, Canada. The ''Northlander'' operated six days per week year-round in both directions and connected Cochrane with Toronto. The train typically consi ...

service File:Bieler Tram Ce 2 2 Nr. 5.jpg , SIG-built tramway Ce 2/2 in Biel-Bienne

Firearms (1859 – 2000)

SIG started to produce the Prélaz-Burnand in 1859. It was invented by gunsmith Jean-Louis Joseph Prélaz and forestry inspector Colonel Ėdouard Burnand (father of Swiss painter Eugène Burnand). In 1860, the rifle won a competition held by the Swiss Federal Ministry of Defence, resulting in a contract to produce 30,000 pieces. This rifle was adapted as the M1863. Upon receiving the contract to produce rifles, the company name was changed to reflect its new emphasis on machined production, becoming ''Schweizerische'' ''Industrie'' ''Gesellschaft'' (SIG); in English, Swiss Industrial Company; and, in French, ''Société Industrielle Suisse''. SIG produced the Mondragón Rifle between 1908 and 1910. The

SIG P210 The SIG P210 (Swiss Army designation Pistole 49, the civilian model was known as SP47/8 prior to 1957) is a locked breech self loading, semi-automatic pistol designed and manufactured in Neuhausen am Rheinfall (Canton of Schaffhausen, Switzerl ...

pistol was developed in 1937 based on the French Modèle 1935, and was adopted by the Swiss military in 1949 as the "''Pistole 49''". This pistol's frame design incorporates external rails which fit closely with the slide, thus eliminating play in the mechanism during firing. The P210 was noted for its accuracy. The Petter-Browning patent was a refinement—and

John Moses Browning John Moses Browning (January 23, 1855 – November 26, 1926) was an American firearm designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms many of which are still in use around the world. He ...

's last design—of the Browning Hi-Power (P35). In 1975, the Swiss military replaced the P210 with the P220, dubbed the "''Pistole 75''", which was the first product of a partnership with J.P. Sauer & Sohn. In a 1984 bidding contest to provide more than 300,000 sidearms to the US military, the

SIG Sauer P226 Sig used as a name may refer to: *Sig (given name) *Sig, Algeria, a city on the banks of the Sig River *Sig Alert, an alert for traffic congestion in California, named after Loyd Sigmon *Sig River, a river of Algeria also known as Mekerra sig (lo ...

was defeated by

Beretta Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta (; "Pietro Beretta Weapon Factory") is a privately held Italian firearms manufacturing company operating in several countries. Its firearms are used worldwide for a variety of civilian, law enforcement, and milita ...

92FS The Beretta 92 (also Beretta 96 and Beretta 98) is a series of semi-automatic pistols designed and manufactured by Beretta of Italy. The Beretta 92 was designed in 1975, and production began in 1976. Many variants in several different calibers co ...

which was awarded the contract for the M9 pistol. The

SIG SG 510 The Sturmgewehr 57 is a selective fire battle rifle designed by Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (now SAN Swiss Arms) of Switzerland. It uses a roller-delayed blowback system similar to the H&K G3 and CETME rifles. The AM 55 entered service ...

, or Sturmgewehr 57, battle rifle was produced by SIG from 1957 to 1983. Its appearance was vaguely similar to the German MG34 light machine-gun, due to its ventilated barrel jacket. It employed roller-delayed blowback, as used on the

CETME CETME () is a Spanish government design and development establishment. While being involved in many projects CETME was mostly known for its small arms research and development. The CETME Model 58 and CETME Model L are its most notable project ...

/ HK rifles. The only

general purpose machine gun A general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) is an air-cooled, usually belt-fed machine gun that can be adapted flexibly to various tactical roles for light and medium machine guns. A GPMG typically features a quick-change barrel design calibered f ...

produced by SIG was the SIG 710-3, which is based on the MG42. Due to Swiss restrictions on the export of military weapons, SIG entered into a relationship with the German company J.P. Sauer & Sohn, in order to give SIG access to the global firearms market. During the 1970s, SIG purchased both Hämmerli and J.P. Sauer & Sohn, resulting in the formation of SIG Sauer. In January 1985, SIGARMS was established in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, where its handgun models P220 and P230 were imported into the US from its sister company in Europe. In 2007, SIGARMS changed its name to SIG Sauer. SIG Arm's division was purchased in 2000 by L & O Holding, and is now known as SIG SAUER AG.

Business areas and locations

SIG manufactures aseptic carton packs, bag-in-box packaging and spouted pouches for beverages and food. It also produces, operates and maintains packaging machines. The ownership of the SIG site, located directly on the

, was transferred to the SIG Charitable Foundation in 2011. In addition to the conversion of the site (residential, commercial, retail, gastronomy), it is still home to the company's headquarters and a production facility with 200 employees. The SIG Group has 95 subsidiaries in 40 countries.

External links

References

{{Authority control Rolling stock manufacturers of Switzerland Tram manufacturers Packaging companies of Switzerland Firearm manufacturers of Switzerland Companies based in the canton of Schaffhausen Neuhausen am Rheinfall Onex Corporation 2007 mergers and acquisitions 2014 mergers and acquisitions Swiss brands Electric vehicle manufacturers of Switzerland Companies listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange SIG Sauer Manufacturing companies established in 1853 Swiss companies established in 1853 Packaging machinery Multinational companies headquartered in Switzerland