After the cancellation of many industry events due to the pandemic, we are all the more pleased that the trade fair can take place again this year from May 24 to 26 in Cologne and that we can talk to our customers live on site about new products and our further development in the area of sustainability.
In the spirit of the circular economy, wheel manufacturer RONAL GROUP has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Canadian company Eccomelt, which produces secondary aluminum from post-consumer wheels. By signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the RONAL GROUP secures preferential supply of Eccomelt’s post-consumer material, which has an extremely low carbon footprint.
What many don’t know: The RONAL GROUP offers not only aluminum wheels for cars, buses and trucks, but also for campers, caravans and vans, ranking among the world’s largest manufacturers in this area.
The RONAL GROUP supplies its wheels to almost all important automobile manufacturers in the world. We highly value customer satisfaction, quality and reliability. Again and again we are awarded and appreciated for our services by OEMs. In recent months, we have been honored with the following important awards, among others:
The RONAL GROUP is one of the partners who equip Four Motors – Germany’s first sustainable racing team – with their products and accompany them on their way to sustainable motorsport. The climate-neutral RONAL R70-blue wheels have already been tested several times by the crew on the most demanding racetrack in the world, the Nürburgring Nordschleife, under maximum load.
On August 28 and 29, four races took place on the 4,212 km long Czech track in Most as part of the FIA Truck European Truck Racing Championship (ETRC). André Kursim, driver for the “Don’t Touch Racing” team, emerged victorious from one of these competitions. His racing truck is equipped with high-performance SPEEDLINE TRUCK forged aluminum wheels.
We already reported on the construction of our new tool making shop in Härkingen in September 2020. At the end of the year, the machines were transported from the old hall to the new one; at the end of January 2021, the offices in the new building were ready. The design of the outdoor area is also progressing steadily. At the same time, the demolition of the old tool shop is in full swing. We talked to two responsible colleagues about all these changes.
This year, the RONAL GROUP will once again sponsor the “Don’t Touch Racing” truck racing team of team manager Sven Walter and driver André Kursim by equipping the race truck with high-performance SPEEDLINE TRUCK forged aluminum wheels. After a long compulsory break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drivers can finally get back into gear at the FIA Truck European Truck Racing Championship (ETRC).
Human capital is definitely the most important thing for the RONAL GROUP. One of our main concerns as a company is the well-being of our workers and their families. An example of this is the new benefit that was implemented at RONAL Querétaro, called the Employee Assistance Program (PAE).
PLANBLUE is our path towards being a sustainable company. But we aren’t just focusing on reducing CO2 and waste, using energy from renewable sources, and developing sustainable products. For us, it’s also crucial for our employees to understand the importance of this issue and to act as “sustainability ambassadors”. Leading by example, our colleague Martin recently purchased the new electric VW ID.3 including our carbon-neutral RONAL R70-blue wheels.
Unusual times call for unusual measures: After a majority of trade fairs were unable to take place last year, the RONAL GROUP has found a new way to stay in touch with its customers and partners. Ronal opened its virtual doors at the first ever RONAL VIRTUAL DAYS from March 3-12, 2021, presenting its new products for spring.
On January 14, 2019, we broke ground for our new tool-making hall in Härkingen, Switzerland. Actual construction began shortly thereafter in February, with the work now coming along nicely. Get a look at this major project at our headquarter location here.
The health and safety of our employees is of vital importance to us. That is why we have set ourselves the goal of minimizing the risk of workplace accidents at our 13 RONAL GROUP production sites. If an employee is ill, unwell or injured, the medical department at each plant is there to look after our colleague. But what happens in the event of an unforeseen incident, like the one at our plant in Spain at the beginning of the year?
For us, our PLANBLUE sustainability concept means taking care not only of the environment but also of society – on both a large and small scale. To avoid the use of paper cups, we at RONAL AG in Härkingen (Switzerland) introduced PLANBLUE coffee cups some time ago. Now, we wanted to provide employees with matching glasses – and not just any glasses with PLANBLUE printed on them.
Each year in the summer, the RONAL GROUP offers young people trainee positions in various technical and commercial professions. Suruthy, 19, is currently wrapping up her training as a management assistant, spending her final few days in the Marketing department at RONAL AG in Härkingen. In this interview, she tells us what she liked about her traineeship and which challenges she faced in the last few months in these extraordinary circumstances.
Success requires passion, trust, appreciation and respect. These are the pillars of our corporate culture, and our collaboration with “Don’t Touch Racing”. This year, we will once again sponsor the German “Don’t Touch Racing” truck race team with wheels. Right now, the races are still taking place on animated tracks in the simulator as the “ETRC Digital Racing Challenge”, but the season is officially set to kick-off in “real life” on August 29 in Most, Czech Republic.
In 2017, we launched our Bike2RONAL campaign as part of PLANBLUE, where employees from all locations could collect kilometers by commuting to work the environmentally friendly way, on inline skates, on foot, by electric automobile or using public transportation. Last September, the project was reorganized and started back up under the name RONWAY.
In the past year, the RONAL GROUP celebrated 50 years in existence with all employees at all locations around the world. The anniversary roadshow, which was named “Anniversary World Tour 2019” began at the beginning of May at our headquarters in Härkingen in Switzerland and ended in November in Nantou, Taiwan, the location of the subsidiary company Fullchamp. Our presence at trade fairs also fully reflected the anniversary year. And last but not least, on the occasion of our milestone birthday, we also issued our cult wheel RONAL R50 AERO in gold.
As in the past years, the RONAL GROUP is once again attending the Essen Motor Show, the greatest tuning spectacle of the year, from November 29 to December 8. There is lots going on at our booth in hall 7, this time expanded to include a special anniversary area!
On October 18, we celebrated the inauguration of the RONAL training workshop in Querétaro. Plant manager Stephan Jancke, our CEO Yvo Schnarrenberger and Deputy CEO Oliver Brauner cut the ribbon.
SPEEDLINE TRUCK, our truck wheel brand, is one of the leading suppliers of forged light alloy wheels for commercial vehicles, trailers and coaches in Europe. For the first time, we will attend Busworld Europe in Brussels from October 18 to 23, 2019, presenting our product range for various bus models, plus accessories in Hall 1, Stand 130e.
What began as a crazy idea at the beginning of the year came to fruition in the last weekend of August. Following the legendary 24-hour Nürburgring race with the SPEEDLINE RACING car team in June and the 24-hour “Rad am Ring” cycling race in July, the RONAL GROUP and Pirelli took part in yet another long-distance event: the ADAC GTC Bavarian 24-hour go kart race in Wackersdorf, Germany.
This year, the 16th “Rad am Ring” spectacle, now as legendary as the 24-hour car race, took place at Nürburgring. For the first time ever, we took part in collaboration with our partner Pirelli, with a total of four SPEEDLINE RACING teams.
This year, the RONAL GROUP will celebrate its 50th anniversary at the IAA car show in Frankfurt am Main. From September 12-13, we will be presenting various highlights at our stand CO2 in hall 4.1, along with an absolute sensation: the world’s first approved one-piece 3D-printed alloy wheel!
This year, the RONAL GROUP, in collaboration with partner Pirelli and around 150 volunteers, once again attended the 24-hour race in “Green Hell”, where our colleagues assumed a wide range of responsibilities.
This autumn, our second plant in Teruel, Spain, is celebrating its bicentenary. One of our colleagues suggested a special way to mark the occasion on World Environment Day, an initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme.
The RONAL GROUP is always on the lookout for talented and motivated young newcomers! We visited universities in Switzerland to promote our technical careers. In addition, we recently congratulated two trainees on successfully completing their apprenticeships!
Our Asian subsidiary Fullchamp produces around 200,000 high-quality forged wheels for the commercial vehicle sector and our SPEEDLINE TRUCK brand for us in Nantou (Taiwan) each year. We asked Yahn-Shen Tsai, managing director at Fullchamp since 2013, a few questions.
With this award, the government of the Spanish autonomous community of Aragón certifies that RONAL IBÉRICA has achieved more than 500 points in the European excellence model. For our Spanish subsidiary, this is the admission ticket to an exclusive club of only 15 companies to have been awarded this seal.
In the middle of April, our trainees at our Härkingen location in Switzerland took an annual field trip. Michelle (design engineer trainee) and Levin (management assistant trainee) summarized the eventful day in the following report.
On October 10, 2017 our second plant in Teruel (Spain) was opened with a ceremony. Now, around 18 months later, managers from various departments of the company look back to the construction and start-up period and report on how they experienced it all.
