When Quiet Performance Becomes a Global Standard
Interview with Christoph Boog, Managing Director
SOFT CLOSE has become so common in furniture and appliances that many consumers barely notice it – until it’s missing. For Zimmer GmbH Daempfungssysteme in Rheinau, Southern Germany, that shift from premium add-on to market standard has defined an entire growth story: rapid scaling, strong international demand, and, more recently, a strategic transformation. Managing Director Christoph Boog explains how Zimmer mastered high-volume production through in-house automation.
European Business: Mr. Boog, how did Zimmer’s damping systems business begin?
Christoph Boog: I joined the group in 1999 as a development engineer, originally working on industrial shock absorbers for mechanical engineering. Very early on, we saw demand for much smaller and more cost-effective dampers – but we didn’t yet have a connection to the furniture fittings industry. Through a collaboration with an Austrian global player, the idea emerged to integrate damping into drawer systems. It started as ‘just another customer project,’ but it quickly became something bigger: within the first year, we delivered more than one million dampers. That meant we had to develop and scale production at the same time – moving from small-batch manufacturing to volumes of 100,000 units per month. What began as a promising project, in the following years evolved into an extraordinary success story. Step by step, the company expanded its capabilities, continuously pushing technological and manufacturing boundaries. Today, our state-of-the-art, highly automated production facilities are able to manufacture more than 120 million units per year – a scale that once seemed unimaginable.
European Business: When did it become a standalone company?
Christoph Boog: Around 2001/2002 it was clear this was a full-time mission. Together with the shareholders, Martin and Günther Zimmer, we decided that splitting resources between departments wouldn’t work. In April 2004, we founded Zimmer GmbH Daempfungssysteme and fully focused on damping solutions for the furniture industry – at that time mainly kitchens. Demand was extremely high; in the early years, volumes grew by at least 100% annually. That kind of vertical take-off is rare.
European Business: Automation seems central to your model. What makes Zimmer’s approach distinctive?
Christoph Boog: Zimmer as a group has grown with automation and has been in the market for more than 45 years. That shaped our ambition: we build our production systems ourselves. In my team alone, around ten colleagues focus exclusively on automation, and we develop and build our machines in-house. This is one reason we can keep production local and still remain competitive – automation reduces manual effort and helps offset labor-cost differences.
European Business: What does that strategic repositioning look like?
Christoph Boog: We are moving closer to the end product – without trying to compete in overcrowded segments. For example, we’re not entering standard kitchen drawer systems again, and we’re not going into conventional furniture hinges where the market already offers excellent, high-volume solutions. Instead, we are focusing on areas where performance, integration, and customization matter – like sliding-door systems. We developed our own fitting and will expand it further. We are also entering the hinge market in a targeted way – starting with ‘object hinges’ for office doors and industrial buildings, where strong soft-close solutions are still limited.
European Business: Where do you see your competitive advantage in these niches?
Christoph Boog: We offer everything from a single source: SOFT CLOSE never works in isolation – it has to match the fitting. There is no universal standard fitting, so products must be tuned and optimized to customers demand. Another strength is flexibility: because we build our own equipment, we can configure production to deliver customer-specific solutions economically – even in ‘small’ industrial quantities like 10,000 units. Many competitors can redesign the mechanics, but then struggle to source precisely tuned dampers at that scale. In Asia, suppliers may respond once you order two million units – but for 10,000 plus engineering support and fine-tuning, it’s a different story. Speed matters too: our main competition is in Asia, and they are fast – so we need to be fast as well.
European Business: Beyond products, what topics matter most for Zimmer’s future?
Christoph Boog: Sustainability has been relevant for a long time – especially because our customers are close to end consumers and expect proof, not just statements. We work on measurable approaches, and our activities are backed by external assessments such as EcoVadis. Our production already runs on 100% CO2-neutral electricity, generated largely by our own photovoltaic systems – in other words, a significant share of the energy we use is produced right on our rooftops. At the same time, we are transforming our mobility: most of our fleet has been converted to electric vehicles, with a clear and ambitious goal of reaching 100% electrification. Beyond these visible milestones many smaller, carefully considered measures are continuously driving us to minimize our ecological footprint. Digitalization and AI are another long-term focus: By leveraging this, we streamline and accelerate processes, enabling our teams to dedicate more time to technical innovation and customer-oriented solutions. In doing so, we create the foundation for a company that remains robust, agile, and sustainably successful in the long term. And finally, culture matters. Zimmer is a family-owned group, where personal responsibility, openness, and transparency are at the heart of our culture. The next generation is already involved, bringing fresh ideas and new perspectives.