Between tradition and digital change – over 60 years of quality sensor technology

"This year we are not only celebrating our 60th anniversary, but also the steady organic growth of the company and the further development of all departments," says Felix Steinebach. The continuous efforts to train junior staff in the development area ensure a strong development department in the company. Not without reason, as the focus of competence has clearly shifted towards data analysis, processing and provision in recent years. Smart data processing is no longer necessarily a primary task of the control system, but can be carried out in the sensor by complex mathematical software algorithms.

By specialising in individual developments, which means that the top priority is close cooperation with the customers, the company consistently implements its corporate mission. "As a development partner, we analyse and understand the challenges of our customers in order to jointly derive the requirements for new products. For this purpose, we are available as a partner with a technically experienced sales team," says Robert Steinebach and adds: "This precise tailoring of sensor solutions makes it possible in particular to minimise total system costs (TCO) for our customers." In addition to this, the company aligns its quality management strictly to DIN 9001:2015 and ensures continuous automation of processes in production and manufacturing. "Most recently, we implemented data-driven quality assessment to optimise our manufacturing processes," Hannwelm Steinebach references.

In today’s digital world, it is of great importance to also drive digitalisation within a company. Thus, considerable resources were invested in the implementation of a project planning tool and requirement tracking along the product development. The way of communication has also been advanced. With the introduction of modern communication software, the global exchange with customers has been greatly advanced. "Despite the uncomplicated sales communication through video calls, we still value the personal conversation with our customers – preferably on site and directly at the application", says Robert Steinebach. The company is not only perceived as a series supplier, but also as a development partner. "This was confirmed by a world market leader in the field of automation, who awarded us an innovation prize," says David Steinebach.

To strengthen its market position, the company continues to develop the product groups rotary encoders, displacement transducers, inclination sensors and vibration sensors. In concrete terms, this means: high-precision encoders for safe and precise positioning, compact miniature encoders, encoders with SIL3 according to IEC61508 and ASILD, inclination sensors with dynamic compensation and evaluation algorithms for safe speed calculation, wireless sensors with LoRaWAN and displacement sensors with IO-Link interface. In this way, the company has built up know-how and expertise over the past decades in order to act as an enabler for the functionally safe automation of plants and machines. The focus on functional safety according to IEC61508 and DIN EN 13849 will be further expanded in the future. "In particular, we want to support machine and plant manufacturers with special requirements for safe automation components – also beyond encoders – in the further development of existing as well as the new development of future electronic components. We are already a strong partner and enabler for customers in wind power, factory automation, mobile automation, heavy industry, driverless transport systems and many more," concludes Hannwelm Steinebach.

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