History: Company history

Right from the start

Technological innovation and visionary action – this has been the company’s guiding principle since it was founded in 1937 by brothers Max and Ernst Heynen, when it initially concentrated on the manufacture of trowels. After the turmoil of the war, they built up the production of quality tools, which they also successfully sold as on-board equipment to the prospering automotive industry.

Quality generates trust and so the first metalworking orders for the young company came from the automotive industry. The company’s activities grew in breadth and, with its extensive expertise in drop forging, the first orders for automotive drive technology components were acquired.

With visionary foresight, the first closed-die forging hammer was installed in the Bavarian Forest in 1961, driving forward the intensification of closed-die forging at HEYCO-WERK SÜD in Tittling.

The first plastic injection molding machines were introduced to inject plastic handles onto screwdrivers. However, plastic components were increasingly finding their way into the automotive industry and it was thanks to Ernst Peter Heynen’s forward-looking, strategic decision that HEYCO took the pioneering step of entering the growing market for automotive plastic components in 1980. This business area has developed strongly since then, so that today sophisticated plastic components are manufactured at several locations worldwide.

Another opportunity was seized when the IML (in-mold labeling) division was established at the Remscheid site at the turn of the millennium. Foil-decorated 3D plastic parts are produced here, which are mainly used in vehicle interiors, but also in the non-automotive sector. Supported by the increasing integration of functions in automotive components and growing requirements for passive occupant safety, electronic functions are also being integrated today.