Schleicher Electronic
Schleicher Electronic GmbH und Co. KG is a German technology company based in Berlin. The company develops and produces control systems (CNC) for automation engineering. In addition, Schleicher Electronic also works in the field of functional safety engineering. Schleicher Electronic collaborates with internationally known research facilities, such as the Fraunhofer Institutes and the Technische Universität Berlin. The company is additionally a member of SERCOS International e.V. – an open, real-time interface for drives. History. The company was founded by Otto Schleicher as “Schleicher Relais Werke” in Berlin in 1937. In 1958, the “Schleicher Relais Werke” presented the  MZ 54 time-delay relay at the very first industrial trade fair in Hannover. At that time, it was the first multifunctional time-delay relay in the world, and due to its purely electromechanical basis is still used in many ways. Electromechanical and, later, electronic time-delay relays were and are sold in large numbers around the world and made “Schleicher Relais Werke” internationally known. In 1976, one of the first programmable controllers (PLC) was developed at Schleicher and introduced to the market. In collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute, an NC kernel was developed in 1983, which Schleicher Electronic took  over completely. The company is one of the few CNC manufacturers with their own software kernel. In 1986, the company received the Berlin-Brandenburg Innovation Prize for an “Online Curve Interpolator” for generating free-form curves (in NC machines). In 1988, the Promodul-U CNC-RC-PLC system was introduced and safety control devices were introduced to the market in 1989. In 1995, production was changed from assembly-belt production to group-workstations; at the time a very new concept. Starting 2003, Schleicher Electronic became part of the Wieland Group. In this phase, Wieland incorporated Schleicher into the parent company  in significant product areas and discontinued a series of product developments. At that time, Schleicher was essentially a production and development company and dependent on the sales department of the parent company, until the latter sold the company to Aurelius AG in 2007. After reorganisation, the expansion of the sales department and establishment in the Asian market, Aurelius AG sold the company in the summer of 2013 to entrepreneur Sven Dübbers.