Milestone celebration in Bietigheim-Bissingen - Dürr celebrates 1,000th painting robot

11/20/2003

Dürr Systems GmbH, a company of the Dürr Technology Group, held a ceremony today at its Bietigheim- Bissingen site to mark the delivery of the 1,000th Dürr Ecopaint painting robot. About 450 employees and guests from the political and business communities attended. As the guest of honor, Dr. Annette Schavan, Minister for Youth, Education and Sport in Baden-Württemberg, gave a speech. A robot demonstration rounded out the event.

The Ecopaint painting robot was developed at the Dürr Technology Center in Bietigheim-Bissingen and is a high-tech product for painting automobiles and vehicle trim in large-scale production. It can be applied for painting the exterior as well as the interior of car bodies, allows color changes within seconds, and due to reduced paint usage, achieves a high level of efficiency and environmental compatibility. After its market launch in 1999, it has very quickly developed into the best selling painting robot worldwide.

"The success of our robot is based on high painting quality, flexibility and efficiency. This product has contributed considerably to our worldwide market leadership in painting systems. At the Technology Center, we will continue to work on innovations in addition to further development of the robot which will increase our competitiveness and that of our customers," emphasized Dr. Reinhold Grau, the member of Dürr AG's Board of Management responsible for the Paint Systems business unit.

Dürr Systems GmbH offers environmentally sound and technologically leading solutions for automatic paint application in automobile manufacturing. The company has about 550 employees at its Bietigheim- Bissingen site and is part of the Paint Systems business unit, the largest in the Dürr Technology Group. Dürr is one of the world's leading suppliers of production systems and manufacturing support services for automobile manufacturers and suppliers. In 2002, Dürr achieved sales of almost EUR 2.1 billion and operating earnings (EBITDA) of EUR 89.1 million with about 13,000 employees.

Photos of the event in Bietigheim-Bissingen may be obtained by contacting our Public & Investor Relations department:Tel.: +49 (0)711 136-1168E-mail: corpcom@durr.com