The History of MAN

Historical steam engine with large flywheels in a factory hall.

MAN – the three letters stand for one of the world’s leading vendors of commercial vehicles, large diesel engines and special gear systems. Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft acquired a majority share in the parent company MAN SE at the head of the capital goods concern, with its workforce of over 54,000 people worldwide, in a gradual process culminating on November 9, 2011. MAN has been an independently operating brand of the Volkswagen Group since that time. Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft had held a strategic minority share of 15.06 percent in MAN AG since October 3, 2006. The control and profit transfer agreement approved at the shareholders’ meeting of MAN SE on June 6, 2013 and implemented by entry in the Register of Companies on July 16, 2013 also aided the creation of an integrated commercial vehicles unit. MAN is now one of the three commercial vehicles brands of the Volkswagen Group which since September 1, 2012 have been co-ordinated by Group parent Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft’s Management Board Commercial Vehicles function. Like the other brands, MAN runs its vehicle business operations independently. The Volkswagen Group’s integrated commercial vehicles strategy seeks to utilise synergies from the closer co-operation between Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, MAN and Scania under the umbrella of parent company Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft.

The three-letter MAN name originates from its former name “Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg”. Today the MAN Group comprises four large business units. The largest of them is MAN Truck & Bus, based in Munich. In 2012 its truck and bus products and transport solutions generated 15.7 billion euro, representing 55.1 percent of the MAN Group’s total sales. Sales of large diesel engines and turbo machines by the MAN Diesel & Turbo unit accounted for 23.9 percent of the total. MAN Latin America consolidates all the Group’s commercial vehicle operations in Central and South America, and generated 18.1 percent of total Group sales in 2012. Renk AG, in which MAN SE holds a 76 percent share, generated 2.9 percent of total sales with its heavy-duty gear systems.

Most of the MAN Group’s sales are generated by the production and sale of diesel engines and commercial vehicles. Efficient drive and energy systems are the core brand values to which MAN has adhered throughout its more than 250- year history. It was the invention of the diesel engine, with its wide-ranging application variants, along with the continual development of ever more economical engines which enabled the MAN brand to establish itself and prosper. That long and illustrious history was reason enough for the company to mark its 250th anniversary in 2008 not only by looking back to the beginnings of the business in the 18th century, but also by celebrating two of its major milestones: the development of the diesel engine by Rudolf Diesel at the Maschinenfabrik Augsburg, including his design of the first prototype to run under its own power on August 10, 1893; and the manufacture of the first truck featuring direct diesel fuel injection in 1923.

The name MAN was actually only first introduced in 1986, following the merger of M.A.N. AG into the Gutehoffnungshütte Aktienverein mining and engineering corporation to create the newly named MAN Aktiengesellschaft – eliminating the three dots of the abbreviation. The history of the brand, with its numerous innovations, changes of ownership, acquisitions and disposals, and its move from mining, iron and steel into engineering and the manufacture of commercial vehicles, is a history of specialisation and continual change.

A historical drawing or etching depicts an industrial scene with a factory situated near a body of water. In the foreground, trees, bushes, and a bridge with a walking figure are visible. The factory buildings feature tall chimneys emitting smoke, along with some residential or auxiliary buildings. The landscape appears rural, with rolling hills in the background and a calm body of water reflecting the structures. — ST. ANTONY IRONWORKS

Bau der Müngsten Stahlbrücke — STEAM ENGINE

The crisis in the textile industry, the resultant decline in orders and the tougher competition on the steam engine market meant that by the mid-1860s the business in Augsburg was increasingly seeking out new business fields. Company director Heinrich von Buz was a keen innovator. At the World’s Fair in Vienna in 1873 the company exhibited the first rotary printing machine for newspapers, and in the same year built the first refrigerating machines for breweries, based on a development by Carl von Linde. The key innovation by Maschinenfabrik Augsburg was the development of the diesel engine. Based on Rudolf Diesel’s design, documented in patent number 67207 dated February 28, 1892, Maschinenfabrik Augsburg built a functioning engine featuring self-ignition which Diesel himself, after many setbacks to the development process, presented to the Association of German Engineers in Kassel on June 16, 1897. The MAN factory in Augsburg is thus considered to be the birthplace of the diesel engine.

While Reichenbach and Buz were re-orienting the output of the Sander textile works, the Klett machine works in Nuremberg was just beginning production. Starting in 1841, businessman Johann Friedrich Klett and three partners initially focused on making iron products for the expanding railways. The factory first started manufacturing steam engines, before in 1850 moving into wagon-building and the construction of iron structures. For a large-scale project to construct a bridge over the Rhine in Gustavsburg in 1860, the company established a works on-site, which was developed into a full-scale branch production plant for moveable bridge components.

In 1873, the Nuremberg-based Klett machine works was converted into a stock corporation and renamed Maschinenbau-Actien-Gesellschaft Nürnberg. The branch in Gustavsburg became Süddeutsche Brückenbau AG. The decline in orders as a result of the crisis in the early years of the German Reich brought tough times to the works, and starting in 1873 the stock corporation made more than half of its workforce of 3,612 people redundant. The difficult situation was exacerbated by the excessive focus on wagon-building, the strengthening of competition in iron construction, and the outmoded refusal to seek additional capital for longterm investment.

Erster Dieselmotor — FIRST DIESEL ENGINE

It was only the 1898 merger with Maschinenfabrik Augsburg to create the “Vereinigte Maschinenfabrik Augsburg und Maschinenbaugesellschaft Nürnberg AG” which delivered the essential capital increase, and at the same time marked the start of business in innovative diesel engines, which were seen as replacements for the now outdated steam engine technology – though at first primarily for stationary applications. The first power plant run on a MAN large diesel engine from Augsburg was opened in Kiev in 1904. The merger of the two machine works in Nuremberg and Augsburg, though largely still organised on a decentralised basis, created the biggest industrial concern in Bavaria. Its name was first shortened to “Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg AG” (M.A.N.) at the annual general meeting held on December 7, 1908.

A historic flatbed truck is parked on an unpaved lot in front of a brick building. The engine compartment is open, revealing the motor and mechanical components. The truck features large spoked wheels and a fabric roof over the driver’s cab. The license plate reads “II Z 2049.” In the background, additional vehicles, logs, and workshop buildings can be seen. — STEAM ENGINE

Zweitakt-Großdieselmotor — THE MOST POWERFUL DIESEL TRUCK IN THE WORLD

A historic MAN diesel truck with the inscription "Strongest DIESEL truck in the world" stands on an unpaved, wet road. The three-axle truck, boasting 150 horsepower, is from the early development era of diesel engines for commercial vehicles. The front of the vehicle bears the label "MAN DIESEL" and references the "Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nürnberg." In the background, barren trees and industrial buildings are visible. — THE MOST POWERFUL DIESEL TRUCK IN THE WORLD

RAILBUS PRODUCTION

M.A.N. was looking to grow, and to that end in 1955 acquired the site of the former BMW motor works in Allach near Munich, which had been confiscated and quickly cleared by the US Forces in 1945. By targeted investments, production capacity was increased five times over, so in the same year, 1955, truck production was consolidated in Munich, while diesel engine making remained in Nuremberg. This enabled the truck business to grow further. The Type 400, a 4.5 tonne 115 hp truck launched in 1955, was the first new model to be developed in full by M.A.N. The central-ball fuel injection method was characterised by quiet engine running and greatly reduced fuel consumption, and from 1963 onwards was refined into the high-performance central-ball technique for heavy-duty trucks. This provided the company with an innovative edge. The 6-cylinder diesel engine featuring central-ball fuel injection remained the benchmark for fuel-saving commercial vehicle engines for decades, and was licensed by M.A.N. to 15 companies worldwide. In 1955, Deggendorfer Werft und Eisenbau GmbH (DWE), an inland ship building specialist which had been part of the GHH Group since 1924, began making pressure-tube reactors for the chemical and petrochemical industries. Today DWE, whose products in that sector are world market leaders, is a part of MAN Diesel & Turbo.

By the time the thirty-thousandth truck rolled off the production line in 1960, M.A.N. was operating more than 33 service centres and parts stores, and had over 100 contract partners in Germany. In the same year, the M.A.N. plants in Augsburg, Nuremberg, Munich, Gustavsburg and Hamburg employed a total of 32,470 people. In 1961 the M.A.N. Group generated sales of DM 1.13 billion, with DM 440 million – or almost 40 percent – attributable to the Commercial Vehicles division. M.A.N. was the strongest unit and key driver of innovation within the GHH concern.

The merger of M.A.N. into the GHH concern to create MAN Aktiengesellschaft in 1986 formalised what had long been commercial reality: MAN was the Group’s primary earner, employing three quarters of its workforce. Its share of total Group business was rising steadily, and promised further growth, which was now to be managed from the company’s headquarters in Munich instead of from Oberhausen. At the same time, the new MAN Group reduced its activities in other business fields, focusing on commercial vehicles, industrial services, printing machines, diesel engines, and machinery and plant manufacture, culminating in the creation of the Commercial Vehicles and Power Engineering divisions. A key area of focus in the manufacture of fuel-saving drive and transport solutions since the mid-1980s had been the development of electric buses and hybrid drive systems involving the recuperation of braking energy to generate driving power. It was a principle which MAN went on to integrate into the development of a number of bus models. From 1988 onwards, the brand focused on three model series in the light, medium and heavy-duty truck sectors, organising its internal structures around the German locations of Munich, Nuremberg, Penzberg, Gustavsburg and Salzgitter. In the same year, MA N began developing industrial gas turbines.

CONSTELLATION SERIES AND MAN TRUCK

MAN responded to the increasing globalisation of commercial vehicle markets with a number of acquisitions towards the end of the millennium: In 1989 it added a further Austrian manufacturer, Steyr. All activities in Austria since 2004 have been consolidated in MAN Nutzfahrzeuge Österreich AG. In 1999 Polish commercial vehicle manufacturer STAR was integrated into the Group. In the year 2000, MAN acquired the Neoplan brand from Stuttgart coach manufacturer Gottlob Auwärter, as well as the diesel engines division of British company Alstom Engines Ltd.; in 2001 followed British manufacturer ERF and Swiss company Sulzer Turbo AG.

A new series of heavy-duty trucks designated Trucknology Generation type A, or TGA for short, set new standards in the industry in 2000. Model series for long-distance transport, heavy-duty traction and construction site traffic, as well as regional and supra-regional transport services followed. MAN consolidated its technology leadership in engine and component development for commercial vehicles with the introduction of Common Rail diesel technology for trucks in 2004 and in 2005 the Hydrodrive, a selectable four-wheel drive system. The early years of the new millennium were also marked by technical and strategic advances in the large diesel engine and turbo sectors. In 2003 the company supplied a compressor string for what was at the time the world’s largest gas-to-liquid plant. In 2005 it began fitting Common Rail systems in large four-stroke diesel engines.

Following the 250th anniversary of the business in 2008, on December 15th of that year MAN acquired from Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft the Brazilian operations of Volkswagen Trucks & Buses, and now maintains the great success of that business through the Constellation series and the company’s buses under the umbrella of MAN Latin America. MAN entered the key Chinese market by establishing its own turbo-machine plant at Changzhou in 2008. This was followed in 2009 by the launch of the Sitrak brand, originating from a strategic investment by MAN in Chinese truck manufacturer Sinotruk. The MAN Latin America unit represents one of the four pillars of the business, alongside MAN Truck & Bus, special gear systems maker Renk AG and MAN Diesel & Turbo, all operating under the umbrella of the European stock corporation MAN SE established in 2009.