Herrenknecht AG

What they do

Herrenknecht designs and builds the machines that dig tunnels. Its range runs from small pipe-jacking and microtunnelling systems used for utility lines to shield machines many metres across that bore metro, rail and road tunnels beneath cities and mountains. The company also sinks vertical shafts and supplies the service crews, spare parts and engineering support that keep a machine advancing once it is underground.

Martin Herrenknecht founded the business in 1977. It later became a stock corporation but remains, in its own words, a family-owned company, run from the small town of Schwanau on the Upper Rhine.

Why it matters

Tunnels are among the most expensive and risky things a society builds, and the machine at the face largely decides whether a project keeps to schedule. Each Herrenknecht machine is configured for its ground, whether soft clay below a water table or hard granite, which makes the firm closer to a project partner than a catalogue supplier.

The company describes itself as the global market leader in mechanised tunnelling. Its machines have worked on transport and utility schemes across Europe, Asia and the Americas, and newer methods for laying power cables underground link its work directly to the expansion of electricity grids.

Products to know

• EPB Shield: earth pressure balance machines for soft, cohesive ground, typical of urban metro work.
• Mixshield: slurry-supported shields for mixed and water-bearing ground, built in very large diameters.
• Gripper TBM and Single Shield TBM: machines for hard rock in mountain and hydropower tunnels.
• Direct Pipe and E-Power Pipe: trenchless methods for pipelines and buried power cables.
• Vertical Shaft Sinking Machine: mechanised sinking of deep shafts.

The German angle

Herrenknecht is a textbook example of the Baden-Württemberg Mittelstand: founder-led, privately held and located far from any big city, yet supplying projects worldwide. Its home sits in the Ortenau district between the Black Forest and the French border, a region with a dense base of machine builders and suppliers.

The company calls itself a hidden champion, a term coined in Germany for firms that dominate specialist niches while remaining little known to the public. Its model, heavy engineering done in-house in Germany and assembled close to the job site abroad, shows how German machinery firms export capability as much as hardware.