The second annual “Baden-Wurttemberg Competence Prize for Innovation and Quality” has been awarded. This year’s winner is the Neuhausen-based Balluff GmbH, a company which for over 50 years has been a global leader in sensor technology.

The second annual “Baden-Wurttemberg Competence Prize for Innovation and Quality” has been awarded. This year’s winner is the Neuhausen-based Balluff GmbH, a company which for over 50 years has been a global leader in sensor technology. The prize was created by P.E. Schall GmbH & Co. KG and TQU under the auspices of the Steinbeis Foundation for Promotion of Economic Development. It was awarded as part of the “Control” exhibition in Stuttgart on May 5.

The promoters use this prize to recognize those companies – in a German state that is characterized like no other by innovation in many economic areas – which demonstrate outstanding achievement, even in difficult times. The jury also placed special emphasis on companies who “send the right signals with their candidature for the Competence Prize of Baden-Wurttemberg,” according to Helmut Bayer, jury member and CEO of TQU BUSINESS. “The application from Balluff definitely showed us this,” says Professor Heinz Trasch, Chairman of the Board of the Steinbeis Foundation and presenter of the award. “As a Swabian, owner-managed company in which their very origins inspire an emphasis on quality, Balluff has not rested on the laurels of their outstanding market position but rather consistently taken the road of improvement.”

In particular, the jury praised the fact that Balluff GmbH does not act out of necessity, but rather looks even as a market leader at their own products and processes from the perspective of the customer and develops procedures which lead to a high degree of quality assurance. Precisely in this area Balluff has sought a new procedure for assessing and evaluating long-term reliability and failure mode response over the life of their products so as to further increase customer benefit.

With the so-called HALT testing procedure, an approach has been selected which deliberately exceeds the technical specification limits, contributing to a significant increase in benefit to the customer. “This created an initial new challenge which was then met by the appropriate organizational solutions that resulted in being able to offer the customer more added value,” the jury unanimously agreed.

The judges also pointed to the company’s change in philosophy from “We prove that our products are reliable” to “We look for technical weak points in our products which could cause difficulties for our customers in the future.” In summary, Balluff GmbH was praised for having developed a package which guarantees reliably functioning products, ensures trouble-free operation of the customer’s equipment, reduces costly service work and results in a competitive advantage and increase in market share.

“Balluff GmbH is therefore a worthy prize recipient of the Competence Prize for Innovation and Quality,” Professor Trasch adds.