Founded in 1962 in Ruhla, Germany, ruhlamat is a privately owned, highly sophisticated manufacturer of state-of-the art automated equipment. Specializing in customized automation, gluing technologies, assembling and connecting of small devices such as watches and medical equipment, ruhlamat is a leader in the manufacturing of automated equipment in today's fast growing technology sector. Ruhlamat has developed special problem solutions and technologies to meet the high requirements for fully automatic large-scale serial production equipment. ruhlamat customers range from government agencies around the world to hi-tech companies all over Europe, America and Asia. Ruhlamat provides automated equipment to some of the largest smart-card manufacturers in the industry. Their customers also include some of the most reputable and high-profile automotive companies in the world. ruhlamat started its business by manufacturing customized automation equipment for the watch manufacturing industry. Established as independent production company of Uhrenwerke Ruhla "Automation" Development, ruhlamat initial specialty was developing specialized equipment for clock production. By 1974, ruhlamat had established the first fully automatic watch assembly plant in Germany. ruhlamat Headquarters, Marksuhl, Germany The Company's headquarters was moved to Marksuhl, Germany in October 1992, where a modular assembly system for chip card production was developed. Since then, ruhlamat success and growth has prompted the company to open branches in North America and Asia. ruhlamat total office and production area at the Marksuhl headquarters exceeds approximately 25,000 m2 and has over 160 highly skilled and dedicated staff. To guarantee the highest quality and precision of components and parts used by ruhlamat in the production of specialized equipment, all components and parts are produced in-house whenever possible. ruhlamat, Asia Ltd. ruhlamat opened a subsidiary in Suzhou, China in December 1998 with 2 employees. Today there are approximately 130 employees that contribute to the production and distribution of ruhlamat standard smart card production equipment. This location builds semi-automated and automation equipment for the Chinese market exclusively and also produces the "Vario System" aluminum extrusion profiles and accessories, which is designed for world-wide distribution. ruhlamat North America Ltd. was founded in July 2000 to support the sales and service of the ruhlamat equipment for the North American market. With the growing need for legal documents and ID cards resulting from the increased demand for security in today's ever-changing environment, smart cards are fast becoming a valuable and useful commodity.