Elections were held at the Annual General Meeting of the Technology Initiative SmartFactory KL e.V. to determine the membership of the management board on May 10, 2017. Prof. Dr. Detlef Zühlke, initiator and founder of SmartFactoryKL, was re-elected to chair the board with 100 percent of the vote. The General Meeting also resulted in the election of top managers from long-standing member companies Bosch Rexroth, Harting, and Pilz to the 4-member board.

“I am very pleased to continue my active service as chairman of the board of SmartFactoryKL and thank the voting members for honoring me once again with this office,” said Prof. Dr. Detlef Zühlke. “The continuous expansion of our organization and the untiring cooperation of our members are proof of the significance of our work in the field of Industrie 4.0,” he added. SmartFactoryKL is a manufacturer-independent platform for the transfer of research knowledge to industrial practice.

Dr. Thomas Bürger, Vice President Engineering Automation Systems at Bosch Rexroth, and Andreas Huhmann, Strategy Consultant Connectivity and Networks at Harting, were also re-elected to serve another term of office. Newly elected to the board of managers is Klaus Stark, Senior Manager Innovation Management at Pilz. “It is a great honor and an exciting challenge for me to advance the work of SmartFactoryKL over the next two years,” said Stark.

Elections are held every two years for the board of Technology Initiative SmartFactory KL e.V. All regular members of the association have voting rights. The central task of the board is to define the strategic orientation and ensure the long term viability of the association. Besides providing the scientific content, the board determines the technological roadmap and the priority research topics. Members of the board also represent the association to all the major government, research, and industrial stakeholders. The 4-member board is comprised of three members representing industry and one member representing the scientific community.

Currently, the SmartFactoryKL association has 47 members (31 regular members and 16 supporting members). Among these member companies are 41 commercial enterprises,
which include regional SMEs as well as globally operating companies listed at the German stock exchange (DAX). Thanks to the commitments of companies from the USA, Japan, China, and Korea, the SmartFactoryKL initiative is widely recognized and well positioned internationally. Members include 6 scientific and research institutes from Germany and abroad.

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