GERMANY – Holzma, a specialist in precision panel cutting, was founded in Gechingen in 1966 by Erwin Jenkner. In 1967 Jenkner, with the help of just two employees, built the first horizontal saw with a saw unit running under the table. 

The model served mainly to cut solid wood. It was already equipped with a hydraulic drive unit, but still lacked a pressure beam and a scoring saw.

When a growing demand for saws capable of cutting melamine-laminated chipboard became apparent, Detlef Jenkner, son of the company founder and who was then studying mechanical engineering, took on the design work for the new development.

Then, in 1970, the first panel saw with pressure beam and electronically controlled lateral fence rolled out of the company. From then on, Holzma equipped all saws with a scoring unit that was adjustable horizontally and vertically from the outside.

The company grew rapidly and in 1971 Holzma moved from Gechingen to its new headquarters in Holzbronn. At the new location, eight employees produced panel saws for the world market on an initial area of 1500 m². Today Holzma, part of the Homag Group since 1987, today boasts a production area of around 30,000 m² and 420 employees in Holzbronn. In addition to this, there are the skilled employees at other production bases, for example in Barcelona, Shanghai, Sao Paulo and Bangalore.

For 50 years, the mechanical engineering company Holzma has embodied top quality and high precision in panel cutting. Successive technical advances have driven the rapid growth of the company and only in the last ten years more than 65 patents have been granted to Holzma. “We are Panel Dividing” summarizes five decades of Holzma and is also the motto of the anniversary celebrations.