• Manz AG celebrates the company’s 25th anniversary
• Prominent politicians attend the event in Reutlingen
• Company founder Dieter Manz emphasizes the importance of Germany as a location for industry
Reutlingen, June 18, 2012. “25 Years of High-Tech for a Green Future” was the slogan of the event held last Friday by Manz AG, based in Reutlingen, Germany, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the company’s founding. In addition to employees and long-term business partners, the approximately 700 guests included Baden-Württemberg’s state ministers Dr. Nils Schmid and Franz Untersteller, the mayors of Reutlingen and Tübingen, Barbara Bosch and Boris Palmer as well as Joachim Walter, the Tübingen district administrator. In his greeting, Dr. Nils Schmid, state minister of economics and finance, emphasized Manz’s uninterrupted innovative spirit: “For a quarter of a century, high-tech systems for important future industries around the world, such as renewable energy generation through photovoltaics and groundbreaking solutions in the field of display manufacturing for mobile communications, have come from Reutlingen. This shows that Baden-Württemberg is more than just a successful location for the automotive industry – although Manz is also leading the way in the field of electric transportation as well.”
Founder and CEO Dieter Manz reminisced about the company’s beginnings at the event, which was held in front of Manz headquarters: “Over 20 years ago, we started to move photovoltaics from the lab into the production halls. We did this as a result of our convictions and, in doing so, initiated changes that Germany can be proud of today. With our technologies, we played a major role in making the cost of solar panels today a fraction of their initial prices. And now the vision we had back then is almost a reality – solar power will soon be more affordable than power from fossil fuels.”
Today, 25 years after its founding, Manz AG is renowned for setting the pace of innovation and sustainability in all of its areas of business. In this context, Dieter Manz emphasized the importance of Germany as a location for industry: “Of our 2,000 employees, over half work overseas – in production, sales, and service. But our roots are here in Germany, here in Baden-Württemberg, and this is where we can draw on an enormous amount of potential expertise. This is the only way we can successfully deliver the renowned art of German engineering to all corners of the earth.”
Manz AG began operations in 1987 as a one-man office for automation technology. In the meantime, the company has diversified in a sustainable manner and has grown into a global manufacturer of integrated production systems for the growth markets of photovoltaics, flat panel displays, and lithium-ion batteries. In this context, Manz’s strength lies in the ability to make use of synergies among its areas of core expertise of automation, laser processing technology, wet chemical processes, vacuum coating, and inspection systems throughout a variety of applications in its strategic areas of business. The latest example of this is a wet chemical system for crystalline solar cells that was recently presented at the Intersolar 2012 trade show in Munich – and was developed using expertise from the FPD division.
As part of the Manz’s anniversary celebration, the company also invited visitors to an open house event on Sunday, June 17, 2012. Several thousand guests used the opportunity to learn about photovoltaics, electric transportation, and the history of Manz.
High-resolution images available from Judith Klingler, Storymaker GmbH j.klingler@storymaker.de, +49-7071-938-7213
About Manz
Manz AG, headquartered in Reutlingen, Germany, is one of the world’s leading high-tech engineering firms. Founded in 1987, in recent years the company has grown from an automation specialist into a supplier of integrated production lines for crystalline solar cells and thin-film solar modules, for manufacturing flat panel displays, and of production systems for lithium-ion batteries. The company, led by founder Dieter Manz, has been listed on the stock exchange in Germany since 2006, and currently operates production facilities in Germany, China, Taiwan, Slovakia, and Hungary. At the beginning of 2012, Manz AG employed close to 2,000 employees, 950 of which in Asia. With its slogan, “Passion for Efficiency,” Manz’s engineers are making a promise to offer its customers – all companies active in important future markets – increasingly efficient production equipment.
