"We are very satisfied with the development. We exceeded our own growth forecasts for 2017 and achieved the highest turnover in the company's history," explains Jörg Timmermann, CEO of Weidmüller. "We recognized the potential of digitalization early on. The investments in our new automation portfolio and solutions for digitalization are now starting to pay off," says Timmermann. In addition, business in the established fields has also developed very well. "The results show that we are on the right track with our strategy."

Strong growth through automation and digitalization solutions

By reorganizing the divisions into Device and Field Connectivity, Cabinet Products and Automation Products and Solutions in 2017, the company responded to the differences between the components and solutions business. With success: last year, turnover increased significantly across all divisions, with the Automation Products and Solutions division in particular achieving above-average growth of almost 24%. "We now offer a comprehensive portfolio for automation and digitalization, consisting of communication-capable components for the provision and processing of process data, the open, platform-independent automation kit u-mation and tailor-made digitalization solutions for optimizing production performance," explains Chief Sales Officer Jose Carlos Alvarez Tobar.

Investments in research and development

At 44.6 million euros, Weidmüller invested almost 5% of its turnover in research and development in 2017. This is set to continue in the future. "The new construction of our customer and technology center in Detmold will be completed in the third quarter - the largest investment in Weidmüller's history and an important component in the development of new solutions and services," explains Elke Eckstein, Chief Operations Officer and Chief Digitalization Officer. In addition, a new innovative research and development site is being created on the Future Mile in Paderborn as part of an investor project.

Weidmüller is the overall project manager for the project and will be a tenant alongside the University of Paderborn and the Fraunhofer Institute. The company is driving forward concrete research projects in the 'It's OWL' technology network, which has just been extended by five years. Weidmüller is represented here with several projects on important future topics - including digital platforms, machine learning in production and the digital twin. At the same time, Weidmüller is also investing in the expansion and modernization of production capacities in order to be prepared for the increasing demands of the coming years.