History

1974
The pro-beam company was founded by Dietrich Freiherr von Dobeneck (born in 1938) in Munich. At that time, the company had one employee and two second-hand electron beam machines – one for welding and the other one for drilling.

1984
The first laser systems were bought. Initially, plants and processes for both beam technologies were developed for own needs. Only contract manufacturing was offered.

1993
The first load lock shuttle machine S1 was put into operation.

1994
Acquisition of the thin-film technology from Siemens Solar and retrofitting of the plants for the production of diamond-like carbon films (diadur®).

1998
The pro-beam company was reorganized into "pro-beam AG & Co. KGaA" and ETN "Elektronenstrahltechnik Nord" was integrated in the corporation as a branch office in Braunschweig. The electron beam activities of the "Sulzer AG" were taken over and integrated in a new subsidiary at the Winterthur location in Switzerland.

2002
With the "pro-beam Anlagen GmbH" (since 2007 under the name "pro-beam systems GmbH") at the Chemnitz location pro-beam was able to position itself in the electron beam technology market as a machine supplier.
At the same location, a further pro-beam AG & Co. KGaA production facility for contract manufacturing was established.

2003
The production facility in Burg was founded and the construction of an electron beam large chamber system was started having a size of more than 600 m³ for the processing of large-volume components with large cross-sections by using electron beam welding.

2004
"pro-beam Verfahrenstechnik GmbH" was founded in Halle/Saale as a centre for process development using the electron beam technology – in cooperation with SLV Halle as minority shareholder.

2005
"pro-beam electron beam technology Ltd." was founded in Suzhou, China, with the objective to offer contract manufacturing in the field of electron beam technology in China as well.

2007
pro-beam acquired the majority share of "JRW technology & engineering" in Mainz, which is renamed as "pro-beam cells".

2008
Due to the high demand of electron beam (EB) welding of large-size components, the Burg location is expanded and a further large-chamber system is put into operation. 

2009
A new subsidiary in Hanau was founded as another production facility of the pro-beam AG & Co. KGaA in order to serve the Central German market with services in respect to electron beam material processing.

After more than 35 years of continuous growth, pro-beam is not considered a small-sized enterprise any longer but a medium-sized enterprise. The pro-beam group employs nearly 300 persons at seven domestic and two foreign locations. It operates 32 EB welding machines, five EB perforation systems, five laser and five PACVD (Plasma Activated Chemical Vapour Deposition) coating systems.
The EB systems have a beam power ranging from 1 to 60kW and chamber sizes from 0.05 to 630 m³.
The Nd:YAG and carbon dioxide lasers in Braunschweig have a performance range of 150 W to 12 kW. The PACVD systems with chamber sizes of 50 liters to 1m³ are driven by RF generators (13,56MHz) having a performance range of 1.2 to 5.5 kW.
The pro-beam company executes customer orders up to seven days a week and partially by working in three shifts. Thus, pro-beam is the worlds largest electron beam contract manufacturer and the only company having decades of experience in the possible application areas including welding, drilling, cutting and finishing of surfaces by hardening, remelting and alloying as well as deposition welding by using laser and electron beam technologies.
pro-beam offers both individual items and large series. Particularly advantageous is our experience in many contract manufacturing applications. In the last ten years, on the basis of this experience pro-beam has developed electron beam systems that are ready to go into serial production. These systems were tested in the own job shop.

pro-beam possesses a universal load lock shuttel system technology with the best beam quality and excellent beam control equipment. This technology is successfully applied in own job shop production, in the high-end areas of automotive mass production, in rail engineering or aerospace industry.
Since its foundation pro-beam has developed and successfully implemented many individual solutions for companies active in the fields of metal-processing industry, automotive industry and mechanical engineering, power plant and medical engineering.
At present, more than 50 engineers of the pro-beam group in cooperation with several external institutes and companies are working on the development of further systems and processes in order to open up new fields for electron beam applications, e.g. rapid manufacturing or microprocessing.

The objective is to expand the technological top position of EB welding, EB drilling and EB surface treatment technologies as well as the leading position as machine supplier and at the same time to consolidate the market leadership of the group.
pro-beam participates in the relevant workgroups of DVS (Deutscher Verband für Schweißen und verwandte Verfahren e.V. – German association for welding and related processes), IIW (International Institute for Welding) and DIN (German Standards Organization).