29.06.2022 | Press release
Excellence – Made in Germany: Pierburg Pump Technology GmbH takes bronze in German Excellence Prize
Learning from each other is a guiding principle of business excellence at Rheinmetall, which prompted Group subsidiary Pierburg Pump Technology GmbH in Hartha to take part in this year’s assessment of the renowned “Initiative Ludwig Erhard Preis e. V.” in cooperation with the “Germany – Land of Ideas” initiative. Successfully, as it happens: Pierburg Pump Technology GmbH’s efforts were rewarded on 24 June 2022 with the German Excellence Prize in bronze at Munich’s Freiheitshalle. The prize recognizes the company’s holistic management system and the sustained success of its business activities.
In the words of plant manager Mario Schäfer, “We are proud of winning this award from the Initiative Ludwig Erhard Preis e.V. and will continue to invest in our company’s future in order to meet the high expectations associated with the words “Made in Hartha”.
For decades, the company has been a byword for innovative strength. The very first patented product developed at the Hartha plant, an electric water recirculation pump, proved to be a bestseller, with over 100 million units sold to date. The company’s strategy of tapping into future markets such as hydrogen technology and micro-mobility – e.g., industrialization of the company’s proprietary pedelec drive – and achieving CO2-neutral production by 2035, have set the stage for sustained success.
In order to further establish itself in the world of cutting-edge technology, a company’s cooperation with internal and external partners, supplier performance, the value-added chain, and attractiveness as an employer all have to be maintained and continuously optimized. The globally recognized responsibilities contained in the model underlying the prize systematically support adjusting the product portfolio in response to deep-running change in the mobility markets, helping to guide transformation and further improve profitability and innovative strength.
The latest acknowledgement of a Rheinmetall Pierburg plant as part of a European Foundation for Quality Management assessment, i.e., one based on a highly developed quality management system, attests to its continuous success in the realm of business excellence. As recently as 2020, the company’s plant in Berlin was awarded the bronze German Excellence prize.
Pierburg Pump Technology GmbH is a subsidiary of publicly traded Rheinmetall AG, an integrated technology group with some 25,000 employees worldwide – a substantial, internationally successful enterprise serving multiple markets with a wide array of innovative products and services.
Forming part of Rheinmetall’s Sensors and Actuators division, Pierburg Pump Technology GmbH stands for outstanding expertise in thermal and fluid management applications in the mobility and industrial domain. Its core areas of activity are pollution reduction, e-motors, actuators, solenoid valves and water, oil and vacuum pumps. The company’s Pump Technology business unit focuses first and foremost on developing and producing innovative pumps and products for thermal management. With production and development facilities and its own application centres around the globe, the unit can respond quickly and flexibly to individual customer requirements. Products produced at the Hartha plant include advanced electric pumps in different performance categories, designed for various tasks in and around the engine, some of which now feature in battery-powered vehicles as well.
In order to meet the high demand from carmakers for electric cooling pumps made in Hartha, the company regularly invests in the plant, which has some 460 employees. Moreover, it offers a variety of training opportunities.
Initiative Ludwig Erhard Preis e.V. is an association supported by corporate members. Ludwig Erhard, West Germany’s second federal chancellor and an early proponent of the country’s social market economy, believed in an economic order that “combined the principle of free enterprise with social equity and a moral responsibility of each individual to the whole [of society]” – a principle that has lost none of its force in the intervening decades. It is this concept the underlies the model of the Ludwig Erhard prize. Initiative Ludwig-Erhard-Preis e. V. evaluates the management of companies and organizations, awarding prizes for different levels of excellence as a partner of the European Foundation for Quality Management. Further information can be found at www.ilep.de .