Lenze is a major global industrial automation and drive technology company headquartered in Germany. From high precision motors to servo drives, the company supplies industrial machinery on a significant scale. Hannah Barnett spoke to SVP for Global Key Account Management Daniel Lindemann, Head of Marketing Communications & Sales Support Europe West Marc Vissers and Global Key Account Manager Rob Vos.
As both a family business and a global heavyweight, Lenze has been responding to the demands of a highly dynamic market for almost 80 years. In the ‘70s, the company pioneered the frequency inverter in the modern industrial high-tech market. By the ‘90s, Lenze was the first to market a digital servo inverter and started developing advanced automation capabilities. And in the last 20 years, the company has responded to the vast developments in smart tech while remaining firmly part of the Operational Technology sector.
“Lenze has always evolved with its customers – we believe the best way to predict the future is to create it,” said Daniel Lindemann, SVP for Global Key Account Management. “This is what Lenze stands for: excellent motion control expertise, high industrial standards and strong partnerships. These values have been firmly embedded in our DNA for decades now.”
The Lenze way
When Lenze was founded by Hans Lenze in 1947, its purpose was to bring innovation to electronic motion control and automation. In the ensuing decades, the company began to expand outside Germany, moving first across Europe, then into the wider world. The company now has a significant international footprint and is represented in 45 countries, while employing more than 3,400 people worldwide. Recent turnover has exceeded €820 million.
“Knowledge of machine building has always been vital,” said Marc Vissers, Head of Marketing Communications & Sales Support Europe West. “We’ve built up so much knowledge and experience about how to perfect motion control. And we do that on a global scale. This means we have representatives from Lenze, or a subsidiary, in every major industrial country.
“We ask: ‘What does the world need from industry?’ In Europe, we have a scarcity of resources, more so now than in the last 100 years. That’s not a problem that Lenze can solve, but we need to face the facts. We use the word ‘glocalisation’, which means trying to promote global partnerships with local responsibility. We try to make life easy for the customer. That’s our starting point.”
Instead of looking directly to the outcome for an application or machine, Lenze takes a future-centric, goal-oriented approach that considers the customer’s sustainability goals and what they want to achieve in the long-term. All the company’s high-tech products, from efficient motors to inverters and AI systems, are seen as a tool for achieving these long-term goals.
“When a customer gets involved with me or one of my colleagues, they see that we are not a normal supplier,” said Rob Vos, Global Key Account Manager. “That’s due to the partnership we offer the customers, as well as our technical knowledge. Of the 3,000 people working at Lenze, one third are within R&D. So, we have a strong base of knowledge, and we work to understand what a customer or machine builder wants to achieve.”
“We are not building the machine,” Mr Vissers added. “We give the machine builder different options for the end solution, but allow them to make their own decisions while helping them to become more productive.”
Driving efficiency
As a family business, Lenze has also maintained its strong market position by building a network of solutions-based knowledge to share with teams around the globe. All this is geared towards creating value, and perhaps something unique, for the customer.
“While ‘unique’ is a big word, we have a very strong application team all over the world, and these guys know applications,” said Mr Lindemann. “They have vast experience in different industries and the key to bringing value to different applications is to create success stories with customers and also to create new specific use cases from other customers.”
It is no secret that in modern manufacturing, electricity costs are a massive expense. The Lenze IE5 and IE6 energy-efficient motors waste almost zero electricity as heat. Impressively, they also provide high-performance, dynamic motion control sensorlessly, meaning less wiring and fewer components to break down. The IE5 represents the highest official efficiency tier for standard electric motors. IE6 is the next-generation tier that goes beyond current standard mandates.
“We started developing high-efficiency motors years ago, before the regulations had even been written,” Mr Vos explained. “We are now looking at the results of the tests based on the motors which most of the machine builders are using and have seen that we can achieve beyond 60 per cent energy efficiency within a smaller motor. And we have seen that this is even possible at the same cost.”
“This innovation does not end with motors,” Mr Lindemann added. “We have one of the biggest decentralised and centralised frequency inverter portfolios on the market, for discrete factory automation as well as industrial equipment. Also, our servo inverters are very competitive.”
Lenze recently launched the i950 DC-Link advanced electric control architecture designed for multi-axis industrial robots and complex packaging machines that require multiple motors to move in perfect harmony.
Global expertise, local impact
The Lenze sustainability strategy is based around three pillars: people, planet and profit. The latter means a focus on resilient business models for both Lenze and its customers.
“It’s what we call Business Continuity Management,” Mr Vissers explained. “And then we have environmental sustainability, which is, for example, sustainable materials and design, as well as paying attention to the supply chain regarding raw materials. And on the people side, we have health and safety, diversity, and inclusion. Sustainability is not only energy efficiency – it is so much more.”
Partnership is a vital part of the Lenze DNA, and this extends externally to the company’s relationships with customers and suppliers. The focus on Business Continuity Management began after supply chain challenges in 2021 and now means the purchasing team works closely to manage that risk.
“In the last two or three years, we’ve created a new level of partnership for our suppliers,” said Mr Lindemann. “Transparency and being clear about what is needed has become key. I would say we are jumping from one crisis to another in the world, so close cooperation is the other vital element.”
Over 80 years, Lenze has gone from strength to strength, with the family business continuing to hold a significant position in the industrial landscape.
“After eight decades, we have more than 3,000 employees worldwide with the same mission, the same vision and the same energy to bring the company further, but also to bring our employees further,” explained Mr Vissers, in conclusion. “We all have major chances to improve ourselves here.
“Working in an international environment helps to develop me as a human being, but I think it is also important to strike a balance between professionalism and pleasure in the daily job. We spend 30 or 40 hours a week at work – so it has to be fun.”