Profactor Armaturen GmbH is a manufacturing and trading group with production facilities, warehouses, and sales offices working with PROFACTOR branded engineering plumbing.
This brand with an interesting history originated in Florence on the Elbe – the figurative name for the medieval city of Dresden in German literature. When it was still part of the GDR (German Democratic Republic), a group of East German craftsmen decided to unite and create a small cooperative of artisans (Produktionsgenossenschaft des Handwerks). The young technical specialist Gustav Reisch became the leader. The company began developing and producing professional engineering plumbing according to Western standards of the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) – German Institute for Standardization, founded in 1917.
The new products immediately attracted the attention of East German consumers; demand for PROFACTOR plumbing grew, and word-of-mouth quickly spread the news about this "Western product" not only in Dresden but beyond. PROFACTOR products clearly outperformed similar East German goods produced by state-owned enterprises (Volkseigener Betrieb) and state-participated companies (Betrieb mit staatlicher Beteiligung).
After German reunification (Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) in 1990, when the GDR and West Berlin joined the FRG, many craftsmen left Dresden and moved to Munich, where they again united in a cooperative for plumbing production. However, competition in West Germany proved tougher than in the GDR. Developing the cooperative was difficult; for a long time, PROFACTOR products were produced in small batches and sold only on the domestic market.
In the early 2000s, the cooperative's activities intensified, and the company expanded. PROFACTOR plumbing found its niche in the German market and appealed to consumers in Austria, and a few years later, branded products began to be exported to Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
In 2015, the company underwent rebranding and was renamed Profactor Armaturen GmbH.
DIN standards remain fundamental for Profactor Armaturen GmbH, ensuring impeccable product quality. For example, East German craftsmen used CW617N brass for faucet bodies and CW614N alloy for balls and stems in ball valves from the very beginning. These alloys are still used by Profactor Armaturen GmbH today. The PROFACTOR brand production line follows more than twenty DIN standards, on which specialists base new developments and improve plumbing products.
In 2016, PROFACTOR Armaturen GmbH was awarded a diploma for developing and introducing new types of products with high technical and operational characteristics. The award was given at the international exhibition “KlimaAquaTex.”
