 | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Automation, Electrical technology |
| Founded | 27 April 1951 |
| Headquarters | Minden, Germany |
Key people | Heiner Lang (CEO), Axel Börner (CFO), Contents
|
| Revenue | 946 million EUR [2] (2020) |
Number of employees | 7,466 [2] (2020) |
| Website | www.wago.com/de |
WAGO is a German company based in Minden, Germany that manufactures components for electrical connection technology and electronic components for automation technology.
WAGO was founded on April 27, 1951 as WAGO Klemmenwerk GmbH in Minden, after brothers-in-law Heinrich Nagel and Friedrich Hohorst purchased a patent for spring clamp technology. The company is named after the inventors Wagner and Olbricht from whom the patent (Patent No. 838778) was purchased. In the same year, WAGO presented the first spring terminals at the Hannover Messe, [3] which however faced less reception due to ductility problems. [4]
In 1961, Wolfgang Hohorst, son of the founder Hohorst, joined the company. At that time, the company had 20 employees. [5] In 1966, the company changed the material of
the terminal housings (from thermoset to Polyamide 6,6) and developed additional components such as connectors and solderable terminals for printed circuit boards, which enabled the company to enter the lighting industry. [3] A few years later, in 1973, WAGO introduced the box terminal for use in electrical installations, which was the first spring-loaded terminal to be certified by VDE. [4] In 1975, the English company Bowthorpe Electric acquired a majority stake in WAGO. [6]
In 1977, the company developed the spring-cage terminal block under the product name Cage Clamp. This invention was also the basis for the company's subsequent product groups. [4] The cage clamp has since become an industrial standard. [3] With the launch of the box terminal and the cage clamp, the company expanded internationally. Until the mid-1990s WAGO established subsidiaries in France, Switzerland, Austria, USA, Japan, the UK and former East Germany (Sondershausen), [7] Czechia [8] and in India. [6] In 1994, the company revenue amounted to 204 million DM. [6] In 1998, Wolfgang Hohorst founded the WAGO Foundation with the goal of promoting education and training for young people interested in technology. [9]
After the Fall of the Berlin Wall, WAGO announced that they set up a new plant in Sondershausen, Thuringia, which had a special role amongst the newly founded production sites. One year after the announcement, operations in Sondershausen first started in a rented facility; since 1993, Wago has been producing in a newly built factory. In the following years, WAGO continuously invested into expanding operations in Sondershausen, with 200 million EUR invested and 13 expansions until 2022. [7] In 1999, a logistics centre was established, with which customers in Central Europe would be supplied directly from Sondershausen. [10] In 2022, WAGO announced the latest investment into the logistics centre of around 40 million EUR. [11]
In 2003, the company shares were bought back from Spirent PLC (formerly Bowthorpe), making WAGO into a family owned business again. [9] In the 2000s, WAGO further developed existing products, notably, they improved the miniaturisation of the picoMAX connector system in 2010, in which glass fiber-reinforced plastics PAA-GF were used. [4] In the same year, Sven Hohorst took over the position of managing director from his father Wolfgang Hohorst. [12] In summer 2012, WAGO expanded its headquarters investing 8 million EUR on a development centre in Minden. [13] In 2015, WAGO acquired a majority stake in the company M&M Software. The purchase of the previous development partner served the strategic orientation of the automation division. [14] In the same year, WAGO generated a revenue of 718,7 million EUR and had 5,996 employees. [15] In 2016, WAGO's communication centre, a customer and training centre, and a new stamping plant were completed. After one and a half years of construction and a total of 53 million EUR invested, this marked WAGO's latest investments around the headquarters in Minden. [13] [16] In the beginning of 2021, Sven Hohorst retired from the operational business and moved to the advisory board. Heiner Lang took over as Chairman of the Management Board. [17]
WAGO Holding GmbH is the parent company of the WAGO group. It primarily performs holding functions for its subsidiaries and second-tier subsidiaries. WAGO GmbH & Co. KG (formerly WAGO Kontakttechnik GmbH (under Swiss law) & Co. KG) [18] is responsible for the operating business of the group, with all its subsidiaries. [2] WAGO is owned by the Hohorst family. [9] The headquarters of the WAGO Group is located in Minden. The firm's German production sites are in Minden and Sondershausen. Other production sites are located in Wrocław (Poland), Domdidier (Switzerland), Germantown (United States), Noida (India), Tianjin (China), Tokyo (Japan) and Tremblay-en-France (France). As of 2020, WAGO has about 7,500 employees, of whom about 3,750 are employed in Germany. 2020 the company revenue amounted to 946 million EUR. [2]
WAGO manufactures components for electrical connection and decentralised automation technology as well as interface electronics. [19]
The company specialises in developing products in the field of spring clamp technology. WAGO products are used in the automotive industry, building and lighting technology, and in mechanical and plant engineering. The first product was patented in 1951 with patent No. 838778. This was a terminal with a non-self-supporting contact insert for solid conductors. The clamping force was transmitted to the insulating housing. This was followed in 1957 by a self-supporting spring terminal with helical springs for all types of conductors (Patent No. 1095914). Further important product developments include the box terminal (1973), the terminal block cage clamp (1977), the push-in cage clamp (2003), and the miniaturised picoMAX system. [20]
Roland Berger is an international management consultancy headquartered in Munich. With 2,400 employees and 52 offices in 35 countries, it has a presence in all major industrialized and emerging markets. As the market leader in Germany, Roland Berger is the only European consultancy with an international presence and is one of the leading representatives of its industry. Annual sales in 2018 were around EUR 600 million, the most successful financial year to date.
Bielefeld Hauptbahnhof is the main station in the region of Ostwestfalen-Lippe, in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is an important station because of the size of the city of Bielefeld and its location at the Bielefeld Pass, which makes it a node for long-distance and regional traffic. It was opened in 1847 with the opening of the Cologne-Minden trunk line. It is classified by Deutsche Bahn as a category 2 station.
Thomas Hagedorn is a German entrepreneur, founder and managing director of Hagedorn Group in Gütersloh.
The Bertelsmann Stiftung is an independent foundation under private law, based in Gütersloh, Germany. It was founded in 1977 by Reinhard Mohn as the result of social, corporate and fiscal considerations. As the Bertelsmann Stiftung itself has put it, the foundation promotes "reform processes" and "the principles of entrepreneurial activity" to build a "future-oriented society."
Anvis (Antivibrationssystems) is a global business group that specialises in antivibration systems to decouple vibrating parts in motor vehicles. The company's head office is located in Steinau an der Straße, Germany.
The Royal Westphalian Railway was a German rail company established in 1848 with funding from the Prussian government, which later became part of the Prussian State Railways. The network eventually extended about 315 km from Rheine via Hamm to Warburg and from Welver to Oberhausen.
Stadttheater Minden is a municipal theatre in Minden, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. The theatre has no ensemble, but stages some productions of its own. It became known for a Wagner project culminating in Der Ring in Minden.
SCHWIND eye-tech-solutions GmbH develops, produces and markets devices for the treatment of ametropiae and corneal diseases consisting of laser systems, diagnostic systems, software for individual treatment planning and a microkeratome. The owner-operated enterprise, based in Kleinostheim near Aschaffenburg, Germany, employs more than 100 people and distributes its products in more than 120 countries worldwide. Customers include ophthalmic surgeons, eye clinics, laser centers and university hospitals.
Patrizia SE has been active as an investment manager in the real estate market across Europe for more than 38 years. Based in Augsburg, Germany, the company is listed on the Frankfurt stock exchange and, among others, is a member of the SDAX and MSCI World Small Cap Index.
EPC Group is a German engineering and construction company. It builds large industrial plants and infrastructure projects around the world. The history of the family business goes back to the 19th century and in the present form, it exists since 1994. The headquarters of the EPC Group are located in Arnstadt, Thuringia. 2014, the EPC Group was named one of the top 100 innovators of the German Mittelstand. In November 2017, the German Business Magazine WirtschaftsWoche honored the subsidiary company EPC Engineering & Technologies GmbH as the most innovative company in the Eastern part of Germany.
Brauerei Diebels is a firm based in Issum on the Lower Rhine that manufactures various beer products. The company was a prominent shirt sponsor of Borussia Mönchengladbach during the 1990s.
sonnen GmbH is a company in the energy industry headquartered in Wildpoldsried in the district of Oberallgäu, Germany. It produces home energy storage systems for private households and small businesses. The company is considered the market leader in Germany and additional international markets. Moreover, it is the center of a community for supplying power from renewable energies.
itemis AG, headquartered in Lünen, is a German IT consulting and software development company, active among other things in the field of model-driven software development (MDSD). With the YAKINDU product family, itemis sells a number of self-developed software products.
Hofmann GmbH Maschinenfabrik und Vertrieb is a family-owned German company, based in Rellingen. That develops, produces and distributes road marking machines. The company was founded in 1952 in Hamburg.
Joana Mallwitz is a German conductor and pianist.
Marco Börries is a German IT entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder of Star Division, who developed StarOffice, which later became OpenOffice.org.
Jutta Hanna Edith Hering-Winckler is a German lawyer and patron of music. Since 1977, she has been head of a law firm in Minden as a lawyer and notary. Since 1999, she has been president of the Richard Wagner Society in Minden. She received awards for her civic engagement as the driving force of the Wagner project at the Stadttheater Minden, particularly Der Ring in Minden, which brought her hometown to international recognition.
Cheplapharm Arzneimittel GmbH, headquartered in Greifswald, is a German pharmaceutical company that markets branded drugs, medical products, supplements and cosmetics.
The Haenel MK 556 is a gas-operated selective-fire 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle designed by C.G. Haenel in Germany. The MK556 was finalised in September 2020, and it is a fully automatic version of an earlier Haenel design, the CR 223, which was already in limited use by law enforcement agencies since 2017. On 14 September 2020, the Haenel MK 556 was selected by the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) as a replacement for the G36, making it the first service rifle used by the Bundeswehr produced by a company other than Heckler & Koch, who had submitted their own designs.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
