Since its founding in 1986, the family-owned company CemeCon, based in Würselen, Germany, has stood for consistent innovation in the coating of cutting tools. The specialist’s state-of-the-art coating technologies and coating materials make cutting tools used by customers around the world more efficient, precise, and cost-effective.
Forty years of successful corporate development mark an outstanding milestone of which CemeCon is justifiably very proud. The company has purposefully earned its now-established position as the technology and global market leader in HiPIMS and Diamond coating for cutting tools. Numerous manufacturers and industries benefit from this quality: In fields such as medical technology, the aerospace industry, and the automotive industry, tools with coating solutions are used that are more than up to the challenges of current and future machining tasks.
High performance in every respect
The advantages of CemeCon’s technologies for tool manufacturers and users set them apart from the competition: The coated tools achieve significantly longer tool life, deliver much better surface finishes, and enable higher cutting parameters. This reduces tool costs, increases process stability, and ensures consistently high machining quality. CemeCon’s product range extends from tools with a universal design and a particularly broad range of applications for various steels to tools designed for highly specialized tasks, such as machining demanding materials like titanium alloys or fiber-reinforced plastics.
In addition to decades of experience, this comprehensive service promise is based on CemeCon’s in-house development and application of coating systems. CemeCon is the only provider to offer customers a fully integrated, end-to-end system from a single source—ranging from plant engineering and process development to global coating services. The close integration of these areas is crucial: Day-to-day experience at CemeCon’s own coating center—the world’s largest—is directly incorporated into the continuous further development of its technologies. This is a model for success that CemeCon has consistently pursued since its founding.
Premium is the measure of all things
Particularly two innovations exemplify CemeCon’s excellence. By developing HiPIMS coating materials to the point of industrial market readiness, CemeCon set unprecedented standards in 2010. HiPIMS stands for maximum hardness, homogeneity, and adhesion like no other coating process, making it the benchmark for demanding machining tasks.
CemeCon has been manufacturing carbon-based diamond coatings since 1993—coatings that are indispensable for machining highly abrasive materials—and remains the market leader today with this patented multilayer technology.
The course has been set for a successful future
Not only technologically but also from a business perspective, CemeCon has recently laid the groundwork for success with a forward-looking generational transition on the AG’s Executive Board. In May 2026, Bernd Hermeler succeeded Dr. Oliver Lemmer as Chairman of the Executive Board, following a distinguished 35-year career during which he contributed to all areas of the company and consistently distinguished himself as a driving force for its development. He is convinced: “Our customers can always count on CemeCon to deliver outstanding coating quality—and to do so at the same high standard everywhere in the world.”
In addition to its headquarters in Würselen, CemeCon has subsidiaries in the U.S., China, Japan, and India. It also maintains an international network with partners in the Czech Republic, Denmark, Thailand, and Taiwan, among other countries. This ensures that customers in all major markets receive reliable service with consistent quality and responsiveness.
At the same time, CemeCon is and remains a family-owned business, now led by the second generation. Many employees have been with CemeCon for decades and, with their in-depth knowledge of processes and equipment, make a decisive contribution to the quality of the products and services that customers in precision manufacturing require. “In addition to four decades of consistent technological development, our strength is a team that lives up to our high standards every day,” emphasizes Hermeler.
From vision to global company
Dr. Toni Leyendecker founded CemeCon on July 15, 1986, convinced that coatings could improve the performance of cutting tools to a fundamentally new level. As a close associate of Toni Leyendecker, Oliver Lemmer was responsible from the very beginning for building the company’s organizational and technological capabilities. The first market-ready systems applied the ceramic coating material TiAlN using a sputtering process—a technology that was still considered a niche application at the time but soon gained widespread popularity among tool manufacturers.
Four decades later, what began as an innovative concept has grown into a company with approximately 350 employees worldwide. Today its name has become synonymous with premium coatings for cutting tools, and with HiPIMS, it offers the most advanced coating technology available.
Bernd Hermeler, the new CEO, believes CemeCon is well-positioned to meet the challenges ahead in a market environment characterized by high volatility and dynamic changes: “With the newly organized Executive Board—which now includes two additional long-standing CemeCon employees at my side, Christoph Feig as the new COO and Dr. Beate Hüttermann as CMO—we continue to emphasize what CemeCon has always stood for: a strong combination of consistency and continuous innovation. This has enabled us, for forty years, to continuously improve our core competency in the coating of cutting tools while simultaneously identifying and implementing new market requirements at an early stage. Four decades of CemeCon mean four decades of investment in technology, in people, and in trust. On this foundation, we are moving forward with confidence into the future—for our customers, our business partners and for all our colleagues.”
