industry industrial engineering and manufacturing founded 1946 as ger tebauanstalt balzers headquarters balzers liechtenstein key people bernd fischer head of business unit products surface technologies revenue 511 million chf 2013 1 number of employees 3278 2013 website www.oerlikon.com balzers oerlikon balzers is a part of the oc oerlikon group a swiss technology conglomerate and a supplier of pvd coatings . the oc oerlikon group consists of companies in the following industries textile drive systems vacuum technologies solar coating and advanced technologies . the coatings produced by oerlikon balzers aim to improve the performance and service life of for example metallic precision components by reducing friction and supplying additional hardness . history edit with the support of prince franz josef ii and swiss industrialist emil georg b hrle professor max auw rter founded ger tebauanstalt balzers . the objective was to make the then largely unknown and little researched vacuum thin film technology usable on an industrial scale . since no systems and equipment for the production of thin film coatings were available at the time the company developed and produced them in house . the first popular applications were sun protection and anti reflection coatings for ophthalmic lenses anti reflection coatings for camera lenses optical filters and reflectors and thin films for electronic applications . in 1976 the company became a member of the oerlikon group then oerlikon b hrle holding ag . in 1983 the first coating center was opened outside of liechtenstein in italy . one year later the step to america was taken and in 1987 the first center in the asian region took on its operation in japan . in june 2014 the oc oerlikon group acquired sulzer metco from the swiss sulzer ag which has since then been operating under the name oerlikon metco . the thin film business of oerlikon metco is integrated into oerlikon balzers since 2015 . together the two companies form the surface solutions segment of the oerlikon group . in early 2015 oerlikon balzers operated over 100 coating centers in more than 30 countries and reported sales of chf 511 million swiss francs generated by more than 3 500 employees . liechtenstein oerlikon balzers continues to use liechtenstein as its headquarters and is currently located in balzers where over 700 people are employed . other business units of oc edit drive system oerlikon leybold vacuum oerlikon solar advanced technologies references edit annual report 2011 pdf . oerlikon . retrieved 2012 06 23 . retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title oerlikon balzers & oldid 707992429 categories companies established in 1946companies of liechtenstein1946 establishments in liechtenstein navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages deutschfran aisitalianonederlands edit links this page was last modified on 2 march 2016 at 23 57 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view