Award-winning innovative strength: Dr.-Ing. Max Schlötter GmbH & Co. KG from Geislingen has been awarded the TOP 100 seal 2021. This award honours particularly innovative medium-sized companies – and this is now the 28th time. Schlötter had previously proven its innovative strength in a scientific selection process.
On behalf of compamedia, the organiser 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 organisation, external orientation/open innovation and innovation success. Schlötter participated in the innovation competition for the first time and was successful right from the start.
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 work on the development of new electroplating processes at the headquarters in Geislingen. Schlötter’s commitment to research & development can also be measured by the number of patents from the fields of chemistry and plant technology that are filed each year. From 2018 to 2020, for example, 22 national and international patents were filed by Schlötter employees and one national and 9 international patents were granted in the last 2 years, including patent EP 3481976 for the SLOTOLOY ZN VX technology, a particularly resource-efficient process for the deposition of alkaline zinc-nickel, which was awarded the Innovation Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg in 2018.
“We are very pleased 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 keeping with the tradition of our company founder Max Schlötter: “Trusting in the old to create the new”, we strive every day to make a visible contribution to the technological leadership of our customers. The protection of our natural resources is particularly close to our hearts. For this reason, many of our new projects deal with the challenging issues of data transmission, the mobility of tomorrow, or the closing of 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 oriented themselves towards being as innovative as possible,” he states. On 26 November there will be another reason to celebrate: then 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.
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