F. L. Smidth was established in Copenhagen in 1882 by Frederik Læssøe Smidth as an engineering consultancy specialising in the building products industries, and developed into the supply of cement making equipment, supplying its first plant at Limhamn, Sweden in 1887. The company had established overseas offices in London, Paris, New York and Berlin by 1901.
FLS differs from the other suppliers in that for much of its history, it was also involved in cement manufacture, starting with the Aalborg (Denmark) plant in 1889. It supplied the Davidsen Tube Mill, the Aalborg kiln, and subsequently the Schneider kiln. It developed a rotary kiln design about the same time as Polysius and the prototypes were installed at Aalborg in 1898. Similar kilns installed at Shoreham were their first in Britain, and they installed another fourteen (at nine non-APCM locations) before, in 1911, they bought the Tunnel company’s plant at West Thurrock, and commenced a long involvement in British cement production that continued until 1973. They provided the technical input for the launch of the Drogheda and Limerick plants of Irish Cement, and remained major shareholders for a long time. Their involvement with Aalborg continued until 2004. Numbers of British plants therefore had essentially 100% FLS equipment.
Aside from this captive market, the other British companies bought FLS equipment consistently although not exclusively, and in terms of kiln systems FLS have been the largest suppliers.
See FLS website.