GERMANY

Neuhausen a.d.F.

Headquarters, R&D, distribution center EMEA | about 1000 employees

In 1921, the Balluff story begins in Neuhausen a.d.F. when Gebhard Balluff establishes a repair shop for bicycles, motorcycles and sewing machines. After the Second World War, his son-in-law, Eduard Hermle, succeeds in creating the basis for an independent manufacturing program with the development of a switching device for machine tool construction. With inductive proximity switches, the company expanded from electromechanical to electronic products. After the two grandsons of the company founder, Rolf and Klaus Hermle, joined the company, internationalization and product expansion were further promoted. In addition to the first international subsidiaries (1978 Austria), important product developments follow, such as the first RFID systems, magnetostrictive displacement transducers and magnetically encoded displacement measuring systems. The introduction of IO-Link as the first standardized digital interface on the sensor/actuator level marks the entry into the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) in 2006. Since 2017, the company has been pushing digitalization solutions more strongly, today led by Florian Hermle, Katrin Stegmaier-Hermle and Frank Nonnenmann in the fourth generation.

In these now more than 100 years of corporate history, Balluff has made the leap to a global company. The Neuhausen site has always been the company headquarters and the nucleus of our growth. This is where all business units from Marketing & Sales, Supply Chain, Business Development and Finance & Administration operate with our international subsidiaries. In addition, the Neuhausen site is an innovation and competence center for software and IIoT solutions, opto- and (magneto-) inductive sensor technology, and RFID.

As a family-owned company and the largest employer in Neuhausen, we are constantly investing in our headquarters in order to offer attractive jobs in the future-oriented industry of automation. A new 24000 m² building will provide modern workplaces for around 500 employees from 2024, while an existing building will be completely modernized and expanded into the TEC Campus as a home for our technology areas. With our new location concept, the Balluff Campus, we ideally map our growth plans and our future orientation with flexible, open working worlds that promote communication and collaboration in projects and offer space for innovative work.

The Neuhausen site also plays an important role within the logistics network. With our central logistics team, we are setting the course for the global further development of our logistics network and, with our own distribution and logistics center, are responsible for supplying our customers in the EMEA region (Europe - Middle East - Africa). As part of our growth, we are also investing in a new building here. The new EMEA logistics center at the Neuhausen site is planned for 2026.

Viernheim

R&D, production | around 70 employees

As a competence center for capacitive sensors, our Viernheim site strengthens the Balluff range of services with innovative product innovations. The site is part of our global technology team and comprises a complete engineering organization with development, product and project management, industrial engineering and quality assurance.

Since 2007, the Viernheim site, with its now more than 35 years of experience in industrial automation, has been part of the Balluff family. In 1986, the site was founded under the name SIE Sensorik Industrie Elektronik GmbH with a focus on the development, production and worldwide sales of capacitive sensors for object and level detection. Various patent applications and registrations of utility patents followed. Already in the early days of SIE Sensorik, Balluff developed into an important customer. A partnership that has lasted for decades and the same values connect the companies. With the integration of SIE Sensorik into the corporate group in 2007, Balluff expanded its portfolio in the area of capacitive sensors and strengthened its global technology team by around 70 employees at the Viernheim site today.

Munich/Neubiberg

R&D, production | around 100 employees

In addition to standard products, Balluff also designs many high-end products in teamwork with customers at its competence center in Munich. These are high-precision smart optoelectronic measurement systems for a wide range of IIoT applications.

The history of the Neubiberg site near Munich begins as Sensor Technologie München GmbH (STM). STM was founded in 1989 to offer novel optoelectronic sensor technology in extremely small sizes. Extremely small in this case meant LED chips with edge lengths of only 0.3 to 0.4 mm in small packages with 2 mm diameter or M3 screw connections. Together with the university, a technology was developed in which a sleeve is placed on LEDs and photodiodes made from sawn wafers and an optical epoxy resin is cast as a lens using patented processes. This process, which has since been further developed, is still causing a sensation on the market today.

STM and its then 50 employees were integrated into the Balluff Group in 2014 due to its unique product portfolio. Before that, we had already worked together in a development partnership. Since then, the Munich site has been consistently developed by our technology team as a competence center for optoelectronic measuring systems. Today, around 100 employees develop and manufacture both customer-specific optical sensors and standard sensors for a wide range of industrial applications. As a competence center, the site focuses on the further development of opto technologies within the Balluff Group with its teams from technology (development, project and product management) and supply chain (incl. advanced manufacturing engineering). With its many years of expertise and customer-oriented development, the technology team thus ideally complements the production and logistics network, drives innovative solutions forward and thus develops highly competitive products.

Oppenweiler

R&D, Production | around 120 employees

It all began with a long-standing development partnership on Matrix Vision at the Oppenweiler site. In 2017, Matrix Vision GmbH, founded in 1986, became part of the Balluff Group. In 2023, we went one step further and also united our competencies in appearance under the Balluff brand. Within the Balluff Group, our Oppenweiler site is our center of competence for industrial image processing.

As a vision pioneer with almost 40 years of experience in image processing, around 120 employees at the Oppenweiler site today pool expertise in the areas of cameras and image processing software. This ranges from product management, development, custom design and engineering (CDE), design, manufacturing and purchasing to service and support.

We involve our customers in the development phase at an early stage and incorporate their future requirements into our products. With know-how and the highest quality standards, we at Balluff are actively shaping the machine vision market and are a valued member of international associations and standardization committees.

Machine vision and optical identification are becoming increasingly important for quality assurance and ensuring smooth processes in manufacturing in a wide range of industries. Our cameras are also indispensable in the course of the Industrial Internet of Things and the optimization of automated processes. To meet this growth, we are constantly expanding our development team and production. Thus, we have established another development site in Hamburg and a production site in Backnang-Waldrems.

Hamburg

R&D | about 10 employees

The Hamburg site is part of our development team for our solutions in image processing and is part of our competence center Oppenweiler. Founded in 2020, today around 10 employees from our technology team develop high-tech solutions in the field of hardware and software for our camera products and solutions in image processing in the up-and-coming district of Hammerbrook.