Award-winning innovative strength: Dr.-Ing. Max Schlötter GmbH & Co. KG from Geislingen has been awarded the TOP 100 seal 2021. This award honors particularly innovative medium-sized companies - for the 28th time now. Schlötter had previously proven its innovative strength in a scientific selection process.
On behalf of compamedia, the organizer of the TOP 100 innovation competition, innovation researcher Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke and his team examined Schlötter's innovative strength. The researchers used around 120 test criteria from five categories as a basis: Innovation-promoting top management, innovation climate, innovative processes and organization, external orientation/open innovation and innovation success. Schlötter took part in the innovation competition for the first time and was immediately successful.
Innovation has a long tradition at Schlötter. After all, the company was founded in 1912 as an electrochemical research laboratory. Even today, around 25% of all employees at the headquarters in Geislingen work on the development of new electroplating processes. Schlötter's commitment to research and development can also be measured by the number of patents in the fields of chemistry and plant technology that are registered each year. From 2018 to 2020, for example, 22 national and international patents were registered by Schlötter employees and one national and nine international patents were granted in the last two years, including patent EP 3481976 for the SLOTOLOY ZN VX technology, a particularly resource-saving process for the deposition of alkaline zinc-nickel, which was awarded the Innovation Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg in 2018.
"We are delighted to receive this award! After all, it is a visible sign of our successful research and development activities and a very special award for the efforts of our employees. In the tradition of our company founder Max Schlötter: "Trust in the old to create the new", we strive every day to make a visible contribution to the technological leadership of our customers. Protecting our natural resources and livelihoods is particularly important to us. For this reason, many of our new projects deal with the challenging issues of data transmission, the mobility of tomorrow and closing material cycles. All of this is only possible with our great team from all areas of the company," says Dr. Michael Zöllinger, Managing Director of Schlötter.
Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Franke, the scientific director of TOP 100, is impressed by the award-winning medium-sized companies. "The TOP 100 companies have consistently focused on being as innovative as possible," he states.
On November 26, there will be another reason to celebrate: all the award winners of the current TOP 100 year will come together to receive congratulations from Ranga Yogeshwar at the 7th German SME Summit in Ludwigsburg. The science journalist has been mentoring the innovation competition for ten years.
