According to the expert jury, the consistently value-oriented corporate culture of Pilz GmbH & Co KG is particularly worthy of honor. Renate Pilz is the first woman to receive this award. After the death of her husband Peter (1975), Renate Pilz continued to run the automation company based in Ostfildern with his technological vision. A housewife at the time, she hired an external management team for the company, which employed 200 people at the time. At the same time, she worked her way deeper and deeper into the subject matter: "It's wonderful for me how you can learn something if you really want to - and how it gives you pleasure," she explained on the fringes of the award ceremony in Berlin.

Automation technology for the global market

In 1994, Renate Pilz took over the management of the company herself and drove its international expansion forward. With solutions for safe automation technology, she turned Pilz into a leading global company, which became the world market leader in the field of safety relays. Pilz technology ensures the protection of man and machine and monitors machinery and plant, cable cars, ski lifts and amusement rides, for example.

Today, the company has 42 subsidiaries worldwide. With around 2,400 employees, it generated a turnover of 338 million euros last year. At the end of 2017, Renate Pilz handed over the management of the company to her children Susanne Kunschert and Thomas Pilz.

Respect and innovation

Renate Pilz shaped the corporate culture with her humanist-Christian values. In addition to treating each other with respect, she always focused on driving innovation. As a result, 20 percent of turnover is continuously invested in research and development. This has also led to Pilz being one of the pioneers of digital transformation. The German Mechanical Engineering Award is presented once a year as part of the Mechanical Engineering Summit in Berlin.