A team from Elta Fans has spent three days in Germany as guests of Ziehl-Abegg as part of the new strategic alliance between the two businesses which will see a number of fans within the Elta range powered by Ziehl-Abegg motors and impellers.
A statement from Elta Fans said: 'The new alliance is an important development for both companies, drawing on an existing relationship between the Ball family, owners of Elta and the Ziehl family, owners of Ziehl-Abegg, which goes back over quarter of a century.'

The 17-strong team from Elta met senior representatives of Ziehl-Abegg during their stay, including CEO Peter Fenkel; vice president sales (Ventilation Division) Thomas Brommer; area sales manager Gebhard Schafer; UK MD Les Fish and UK sales executive Phil Gretton.

The visit started with a tour of Ziehl's factory in Bieringen, a small village in the Rottenburg am Neckar region of Germany, used principally for the manufacture of aluminium die-cast axial fans. This was followed by a visit to the nearby manufacturing facility in Wurzburgerstrasse where the EC electric motors are produced and then on to the factory in Waldenburg in which radial fans, process fans and cross-flow fans are manufactured.

David Ball, vice chairman of the Elta Group, said: 'It brought back some very fond memories for me as I spent many of my formative years as a young man in the area, as my father Ray Ball spent a great deal of time with Ziehl-Abegg over the years.

'It was an excellent opportunity for the team to see how Ziehl-Abegg operates and to witness first-hand the quality of the manufacturing for which Ziehl are renowned. Like Elta, Ziehl-Abegg is very much a family business, the owners being Uwe Ziehl, grandson of the founder Emil Ziehl, and Uwe Ziehl's two children, the great granddaughter and great grandson of the founder Emil Ziehl.

'We look forward to working closely with Ziehl in the coming months to ensure that we, and more importantly our customers, are well placed to meet the challenges of the new European legislation on energy and climate change.'

Joining David on the visit was David Osgerby, MD of Elta Fans, along with various employees from the Elta Group and Elta Fans - including technical, marketing, operations and sales - to ensure that all functional areas of the Elta business that will be involved in the new range of products were represented.

To mark the visit, during the tour of the Bieringen factory everyone signed a FE2owlet impeller, a key component in a new range of fans. This impeller will be mounted in the reception of the Elta Fans Building Services Office in the West Midlands.