FROM YESTERDAY TO TODAY

It all started in 1898 when the Swiss company DUBIED opened its daughter company in Pontarlier with 3 workers and a foreman for making bicycle valves, bolts, rivets and screws. Spearhead of a new industry in the region, bar turning, the little factory grew and was employing as many as 42 workers at the beginning of the 19 th Century.

Business flourished. In 1908 M. Dubied built a new factory on the Salins road, which started up that same year, with a workforce of 90 to make bicycle parts and sewing machines.

Growth was interrupted during the war years. From 1914 to 1918 male workers were mobilised and production dedicated to the war effort. Despite this, by 1920 the bar turning company had assembly lines. Growth quickened pace. In 1931, the industrial boom helped things along. At this time 530 persons were producing refrigerators, knitting machines, automobile spark plugs, arms parts.
In 1936, the company provided a living for 700 staff. A brass foundry workshop was built.

Another interruption followed in 1939. The requisitioned company put its know-how at the service of the country. 1100 staff, mostly women, worked 60 hours a week.

After the war, the company improved its tools and started manufacturing rubber valves for inner tubes and by 1950 it was one of the leading companies in the departement. This newly-acquired status opened up new horizons and DUBIED incorporated SCOVILL-USA under the name SCHRADER.

Growth accelerated. In the seventies, SCHRADER started to manufacture rubber tubeless valves for automobiles. In 1980, items for tyre repair and the DigitAir electronic inflater were launched.

In 1984 SCHRADER France absorbed its competitor Pingeot-Bardin and resumed pressure gauge manufacture “under licence from Michelin” and in 1990 developed valves and connectors for air conditioning and automobile injection.

April 1998 important new stage: Schrader Bridgeport International is incorporated into Holding TOMKINS (UK) and celebrated the company centenary the same year with the manufacture, at Pontarlier, of the “RTPMS” tyre pressure monitoring valve.