Now, after going into its fifth generation, the family business, employing more than 170 staff, annually produces about 125 million fasteners, weighting about 8,500 tons. More than 20% of the goods produced are exported. At present, it supplies 25 different countries. The spectrum of articles produced has also been further specialised. Fasteners are produced almost exclusively to customers'' drawings; there are no goods on stock - instead of this, the company is in many cases the developer of the elements for the customer and their supplier, as well. The production concentrates on the cold forming of wire (for example, screws and bolts) in overlengths of 100 to 600 mm with diameters of 3.0 to16.0 mm, as well as in the combined upsetting and bending process for parts. The company''s know how is specially displayed in its extrusion and upsetting process in 1 - 4 stages, thread rolling, as well as bending, flattening and punching in multistage operation dies. For this Company purpose, in addition to the multistage presses, the straightening and thread-rolling machines, the company also possesses eccentric and toggle presses. For operational steps that do not belong to the core business, such as heat and surface treatment, PRINZ uses the services of efficient sub-contractors. Looking to the future, PRINZ is working on achieving a greater production depth by means of a higher number of assembly parts. Large series production is carried out economically and employing safe production processes on interlinked machine devices, which are in part monitored by video cameras. Since 1999, the first robot machines have been in use in a special coating plant.