2023 is the year in which Phoenix Contact turns 100. What makes us strong are our successful connections between employees, customers, and partners.
We are celebrating our company’s history and this anniversary in very different ways around the world. You can find out more about these inspiring connections, individual projects, and our innovative products and solutions here.
Impressions from our anniversary year We strengthen our connections with each other at numerous events around the world.
We connect people and technologies
Innovations, solutions, and friendships are created through teamwork. Goals are achieved when we work together to achieve them. Progress happens when we implement ideas together. Bonds grow when we share common interests.
We report on all these ties and connections here. From everywhere we call home. From around the globe and in the various constellations between colleagues, customers, and partners. Colorful and diverse. Multifaceted. And inspiring in the best sense. Allow us to inspire you, too, and to learn more about our strong connections.
Making knowledge transparent and passing it on Learning from each other and quickly find solutions together
Always keeping up with the times, collecting and disseminating information, pooling expertise, exchanging experiences and innovations, and finding solutions together – true to the motto “Knowledge is extended when it is shared”, Office Network at Phoenix Contact is the central place for subjects that shape the work of secretaries and assistants. The organizational team is made up of five people from different areas of the company. In total, the network now has around 200 members, who have been meeting regularly in steadily growing numbers since 2004. Depending on the subject, working groups are set up, but mainly the members see themselves as multipliers.
Good communication and collaboration show what true teamwork is all about. The exchange primarily takes place via a Teams channel and meetings, which have become hybrid, with members from subsidiaries throughout Germany taking part. With ever-increasing information and knowledge, it is natural for Office Network to make great waves throughout the company. A strong and productive connection for today and the future.
A shared cause for the energy revolution Bundled expertise based on tradition and a vision of the future
Creating heat from cold is the connecting element between Viessmann, a specialist for air conditioning solutions, and Phoenix Contact. In a joint project at the headquarters in Blomberg, Germany, the two experts are creating a building that is completely carbon-neutral: known at Phoenix Contact as “Building 60”, the future home of machine building.
Viessmann proved to be the perfect partner in the search for a heating and cooling system for this building. A customized ice energy storage system was created within a very short time.
What distinguishes the two partners in particular are their comparable origins and an identical vision of the future. Shaped by the tradition of a family business, they are pursuing the goal of becoming climate-neutral and jointly assuming responsibility for the habitats of future generations.
Matthias Unruhe, Manager Technical Engineering at Phoenix Contact, and Rainer Schmalenberg, responsible for ice energy storage system sales at Viessmann, therefore spoke the same language right from the start. Professionally and personally. As the two men confirm, the project harmonized at all levels – from planning, to contract award, up to realization – and ran smoothly and as a perfect example for future projects.
Production as an event Planning is everything
Sinan Sezer of International Industrial Engineering is planning an optimized manufacturing process for new products to be created. This will make it possible to manufacture products at various production sites worldwide to increase efficiency and flexibility in the supply chain.
Tanja Claes’ passion is event planning. Among other things, Tanja organizes an event for more than 60 participants from different countries once a year, alternating between our international sites, so that they can exchange information about production processes right next to the machines.
Tanja and Sinan work in completely different areas, and it is precisely this variety of backgrounds that is leading to the creation of a highly efficient global network at Phoenix Contact when planning events together.
Network for women engineers Forging links and inspiring the next generation
More and more young women are pursuing STEM careers, but studies show that retention is low and fewer women engineers achieve middle and upper management positions. Melissa Sommer and Shahd Mansour belong to a network for women engineers within the company. In the network, they exchange ideas with like-minded individuals and share their experiences and successes, both locally and globally.
To encourage young women to consider careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, Shahd, Melissa, and other members of the network volunteer at local schools and events. They share their love of engineering and empower the next generation.
Learning and practical experience Training connects
Phoenix Contact’s mechatronics training program was the first of its kind to be certified by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the USA. Noah Greene began his training in 2016. Noah told Barry Carter, his classmate at the local college, about his experience as a trainee and Barry felt inspired to pursue a training program as well.
After Noah, Barry also completed his training, and both are working in different areas at Phoenix Contact. They agree that the combination of classroom and hands-on learning, as well as the mentoring they received from engineers and technicians, proved ideal for launching their technical careers.
100 years of real-life connections The UPDATE anniversary edition
Our strength has always been in our real-life connections, such as those with our location in Blomberg, with our customers, on an international level, or even among work colleagues.
Read these exciting stories from the past 100 years, which bring Phoenix Contact to life, in UPDATE, our customer magazine.
Then, now, and in the future
For a future worth living, our greatest concern is to act responsibly. To find the right solutions for this, we look to the past and incorporate these experiences, for example, into international sustainability projects and our vision of a better world: the All Electric Society Park in Blomberg. It is there that the All Electric Society is truly brought to life.