ZEISS SA
ZEISS SA
An Unbending
Focus on Innovation PRODUCTION: Timothy Reeder
Zeiss has been partnering with local distributors to bring its famous and world-renowned technology and solutions to its African customers for over 75 years. With its solutions, the company constantly advances the world of optics and helps shape technological progress, and recent results bear testimony to the strength of its work.
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Now an organisation spanning the globe, Zeiss was founded in Jena, Germany in 1846 by optician Carl Zeiss, and has had representation for the past 75 years on the African continent via a wholly owned subsidiary based in South Africa. This arm of the business has been able to expand its reach during its lifetime to see it now serve customers across Angola, Kenya, Namibia and Zambia, to note just a few. The ZEISS Group is represented in more than 40 countries and has over 50 sales and service locations, more than 30 manufacturing sites and about 25 research and development centres throughout the world.
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As a whole, Zeiss has been contributing to technological progress for more than 160 years, and along the way has produced solutions for the semiconductor, automotive and mechanical engineering industries, biomedical research and medical technology, as well as eyeglass lenses, camera and cine lenses, binoculars and planetariums. Perhaps best known for its manufacture of optical systems, industrial measurements and medical devices, the coming together of founder Zeiss with Ernst Abbe and Otto Schott, who joined in 1866 and 1884 respectively, was the catalyst to the building of crucial foundations for modern optics and manufacturing.
Having opened an optics workshop in Jena, Germany in 1846, by the advent of 1847 Carl Zeiss was already making microscopes full-time. By 1861 the Zeiss workshop was considered to be among the best scientific-instrument makers in Germany, in 1866 seeing Zeiss sell its 1000th microscope, and at the outbreak of World War I Zeiss was the world’s most significant location of camera production. Currently the company comprises two chief sections: Carl Zeiss AG located in Oberkochen with important subsidiaries in Aalen, GÜttingen and Munich, and Carl Zeiss GmbH located in Jena.
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In the intervening years Zeiss has been responsible for many of the most crucial innovations in optical design and engineering. Ever since the enlisting of Dr Ernst Abbe early in the company’s lifetime, a renowned scientist recruited to elevate Zeiss beyond its many competitors, new and ground-breaking products have appeared in rapid succession to bring Zeiss to the forefront of optical technology. It is an ethic ingrained at the company’s heart, as Dr Michael Kaschke, President and CEO of ZEISS, summates: “Innovation is a way of life at Zeiss; you might even say it is in the company’s genes. “Optical technologies are key technologies for our future, and their technological and scientific applications will increasingly appear in our daily lives.” At Zeiss South Africa, the focus is placed on several of the key aspects of the Zeiss portfolio. With its experience in lithography optics and other optical systems, Zeiss’s enables Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology allows customers the world to produce extremely powerful microchips. Crucial to the technologies at the heart of the modern world, the semiconductor equipment developed and manufactured by Zeiss forms the basis of the microchips used in nearly every technical device today. A diverse product portfolio covers a wide range of key processes in microchip manufacturing, including optical lithography and mask optimisation. Zeiss’s Spectroscopy Solutions are again found in numerous industries, be this agriculture, food, glass, solar or the chemical branch. From Ultraviolet (UV) to Near-infrared (NIR), among its principal applications are in colour management, where a spectrophotometer is used to take measurements in the visible region of the wavelength range. The use of white light interference is a proven excellent method for measuring layer
ZEISS SA
thickness, while NIR spectroscopy is a well-established technology for achieving accurate online moisture measurement. Vision Care in the digital age is an ever more important concern as the influence of digital devices such as smartphones and tablet computers continues to grow, with a typical user looking at a digital display between 60 and 80 times a day. As a direct result, we are using our close-up vision more than we used to, and generally in a highly focused way. Zeiss’s progressive lenses offer smooth vision from near to far, and provide natural, comfortable vision, its 100 years of experience in the production of precision spectacle lenses creating four different types. At its annual press conference for 2017, Zeiss was able to report the best results in its more than 170year history, with record revenue and earnings coming as a result of prolonged investments and the technical innovations for which
it is famed. Among the headline announcements were double-digit revenue growth to € 5.348 billion and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) increases to €770 million. The success came as a result of positive contribution from all segments of the company, while growth with cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology was singled out for praise. “All four segments – Research & Quality Technology, Medical Technology, Vision Care/Consumer Products and Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology – are either at or above their target returns and have made a positive contribution to the most successful fiscal year in the history of ZEISS,” commented Michael Kaschke. “This development was not and is not just a matter of course. Rather, it is the result of the tremendous efforts made by all employees and partners over a long period of time. Thanks
to investments in cutting-edge Innovation and Customer Centres, global partnerships and strategic expansions, we have focused entirely on the needs of our customers. “Ultimately you only win if you also take responsibility and make bold decisions for the road ahead,” continued Kaschke. “In order to ensure success over the long term, we need to stand our ground in the face of ever stiffer competition. With our innovative products and solutions, we see transformations in technology and society such as digitalisation and demographic change as a significant growth opportunity.”
WWW.ZEISS.CO.ZA
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