Congratulations on 25 years of AT - Automation Technology! Looking back: What has been the most significant technological development in your company?

André Kasper: For our team, the idea of innovation is always at the forefront. Developing new things and driving ideas forward with a pioneering spirit gives us great pleasure. We are therefore particularly proud of our latest development: the 3D sensor 3070 from our new C6 series, which incidentally was not only our largest development project to date, but also our largest single technological investment. For this product, we have developed our own CMOS image sensor including on-chip processing. On-chip processing - which we call 'WARP' - means that only the relevant data from the laser line is passed on to the FPGA. This makes the 3D sensor the fastest sensor currently available on the market worldwide in terms of resolution and speed. Due to this new, extremely fast WARP technology, we are convinced that this product will bring us the biggest step forward so far in the next five years.

With the 'MetrologyPackage', users can configure their 3D sensor in under ten minutes and obtain an initial measurement result for their application in this time.

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What is the roadmap for the next ten to 15 years?

Daniel Seiler: It is important to us that we are agile and can react quickly, as the global crises in the last three years have clearly shown. That's why we don't make fixed plans for such a long period of ten to 15 years. For the next three to five years, our focus will be on underpinning our solution-oriented components with an even broader range of software products.

André Kasper: A first step in this direction is our new MetrologyPackage, for example. With this software, we enable our customers to configure their 3D sensor in under ten minutes and obtain an initial measurement result for their application within this time. In addition, common applications can be tested immediately using the sample data provided and all evaluation scripts can be adapted in the source code. This open, flexible concept is a novelty for us and the field of 3D metrology.

What technological trends do you see that are or will be important for AT?

Daniel Seiler: Due to the increasing shortage of personnel in all technical industries, we see a general trend towards automation and, as a result, an increasing demand for our products, which are used for automated quality control. Furthermore, many of the industries we supply, such as electromobility or battery technology, are currently experiencing a strong upswing.

André Kasper: Finally, the increasing standardization in the area of Industry 4.0 and IoT interfaces is important for us, which makes it particularly easy to integrate our products into customer processes, thereby optimizing them and making them more effective.

What do you think will be the biggest challenge over the next few years, in terms of business and/or technology?

Daniel Seiler: We have already solved many technical challenges well so far. In business terms, our environment is of course strongly influenced by geopolitical trends and the changes that result from them. Political and economic relations between countries can change rapidly and have an impact on international trade. Companies need to be able to adapt to these changes, build new trade relationships and overcome potential trade barriers.

André Kasper: At the same time, such changes also offer opportunities for companies to tap into newly emerging markets - one example is the major investment in European semiconductor factories. A flexible business strategy and the ability to react quickly will be key to successfully dealing with these challenges and exploiting the growth potential in these regions.