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Creative. Visionary. Innovative

Our intelligent seating and interior solutions for public transport in urban, regional, and long-distance travel by bus or rail guarantee passengers both safety and comfort. With technical know-how, extensive experience, innovativeness and creativity, we fulfil the wishes and requirements of our customers and face the challenges associated with the extremely dynamic mobility market. The high level of modularity of our products allows us almost limitless options for this. Key words here are maximum privacy and comfort for the passenger, the digitalization of seats and their linking to the means of transport itself as well as reducing the weight of the seats further to cut CO2 emissions.

Our mission Seating Experience+

As a leading provider and visionary designer of complete seating systems for the mobility of the future, our goal in this extremely dynamic commercial field is not only to play a leading role globally, but also to act as a key, highly professional partner to our customers in the future. Our Seating Experience+ mission means always being one step ahead. With our seats, seating systems and interior solutions for public transport we not only make every journey as safe and comfortable as possible for the customer, we also offer innovative functions and options that satisfy the highest individual demands of passengers in addition to meeting the ever-increasing requirements of environmental protection and economy. 
This allows us to provide answers today to the mobility questions of tomorrow: with our holistic solutions and innovations that not only enhance passenger seats but also interlink them to the mode of transport as a whole, combining functionalities and thereby rendering the entire form of transport more attractive.

Our values

Finances

We measure our company success by a sustainable increase in profitability and healthy growth.

Co-operation with suppliers

Our suppliers are our partners and we work with them to establish lasting, trusting business relationships.

Customer satisfaction

We believe that successful collaboration is based on a close proximity to our customers: understanding their needs and the desire to always provide the best possible solution.

Environment

We are contributing to the protection of the environment through development and application of innovative materials and products and environmentally friendly production techniques.

Reliable delivery dates

We are committed to providing our customers with punctual, reliable and comprehensive products and services. The same also applies to our internal processes.

Safety

Our seats exceed the safety standards that apply to train and bus seats. These standards include conformity with the requirements of the German and international Road Traffic Law.

Continuous improvement

We safeguard the success of our company through continuous improvement processes across all sectors.

Employees

Our members of staff are our greatest capital. We are continuously investing in their training and qualifications and encourage their individual personal development.

Quality

Product quality at Kiel means modern design, high-quality materials, the use of the latest technologies, adherence to environmental regulations and legal norms, such as those from the German and international Road Traffic Law, and the fulfilment of the highest safety standards. We are constantly improving our products. We have implemented a comprehensive quality management system for this purpose. In addition to regular audits of internal processes, products and suppliers, this also includes special problem-solving methods, the accurate documentation of all processes and their improvement, and the implementation of an internal suggestion scheme, which employees are heavily involved in.

Sustainability

We make sustainable use of resources by developing and utilizing innovative materials and products and, where possible, using environmentally friendly processes in our manufacturing operations. Our seats are consciously designed as a modular system. This allows us to flexibly address the requirements of customers as well as the individual markets, and to supply custom solutions. Naturally, our products also meet the statutory environmental requirements, are repairable and can be dissembled into their basic elements at the end of their lifetime, making them easy to recycle.
In addition, we pay attention to achieving as low a weight as possible for all of our products. This has a positive effect on energy consumption and therefore economy and the environment.

Production

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Insight into our production

We are able to cover the entire production chain for passenger seats and complete seating systems for local, regional, intercity and long-distance transport. The main stages of production are metalworking, including welding and bending, painting, upholstering and finally assembly. We use a laser plant with automatic material feed and removal for our production with two-shift operation. We use SAP to support the planning and management of all capacities within the Kiel Group. This allows us to achieve operative excellence, process security and a low production time across our entire production line, and to remain flexible, including when producing low quantities of a particular product.

The history of Kiel Group

We have been producing passenger seats for buses and trains for 75 years. We are proud of our history and we feel duty-bound to continue this tradition.

  • 1945 - 

    Company founded by Franz Kiel

  • 1948 - 

    Franz Kiel and Friedrich Krüger, co-owners of the company, establish new company headquarters in Nördlingen

  • 1950 - 

    The first rigid seat frame is produced

  • 1955 - 

    Production of adjustable passenger seats, the so-called “greyhound seats”

  • 1960 - 

    Start of armrest production for coaches

  • 1965 - 

    Powder-coating plant and wet coating established

  • 1975 - 

    Production begins on orders for the Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railway)

  • 1981 - 

    Production begins on orders for the Deutsche Bundesbahn (German Federal Railway)

  • 1989 - 

    Production expanded and a new office building built in Nördlingen (Bavaria)

  • 1996 - 

    Kiel Oto Koltuk subsidiary founded in Bursa, Turkey

  • 1997 - 

    Kiel Polska Sp. z o. o. subsidiary founded in Nowy Tomysl, Poland

  • 2000 - 

    Franz Kiel B.V. founded in the Netherlands

  • 2001 - 

    Kiel France s.a. r. l. founded in France
    Sales activities in Scandinavia, Greece and Israel

  • 2002 - 

    Kiel takes over the production of train seats for a Norwegian company

  • 2003 - 

    Production site built in Turkey
    Sales activities expanded to include Hungary, Slovenia and the countries of the former Yugoslavia
    Licence agreement for the production of bus seats in India

  • 2005 - 

    Introduction of the computer system SAP

  • 2007 - 

    Kiel Seating Ltd founded in Northampton, Great Britain

  • 2008 - 

    The first MATCH train seat for regional transport is supplied

  • 2009 - 

    Kiel N.A. L.L.C. founded in North America

  • 2010 - 

    FKT Koltuk A.Ş. becomes Kiel’s new cooperation partner in Turkey

  • 2011 - 

    The KFK OOO joint venture is founded in Russia

  • 2012 - 

    Construction of a new production hall for train seat production in Nördlingen

  • 2014 - 

    Development and delivery of the COMFORTLINE seat for high-speed trains

  • 2016 - 

    Takeover of Emar Kiel in Spain

  • 2017 - 

    Kiel Mazedonien DOOEL founded

  • 2018 - 

    Development and delivery of the AVANCE X seat for coaches

  • 2019 - 

    The Jiangsu ARSALE KIEL Seat Co., Ltd. joint venture is founded in China

  • 2020 - 

    KSU N.A. LCC. founded in North America

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