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Dossier SolvayInnovationTrophy2006
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Under its slogan “We make it visible”, Carl Zeiss, known
worldwide for its high quality optical equipment, brings
into sharp focus its corporate objective of making
everything that exists visible to the human eye.
Seeing everything, even the naturally invisible?
An earth-shuddering ambition.
Today Carl Zeiss leads the world in precision optics
and high tech instrumentation. But it has been a
struggle getting there. Created in Jena in 1846 by
Carl Zeiss, who was joined in turn by physicist Ernst
Abbe and chemist Otto Schott, the company started manufacturing
microscopes. It grew rapidly and gained remarkable
fame. But the Second World War dealt it a hard blow. First its
Dresden plant was badly bombed, then the company was cut
in two with the creation of the two Germanies. In the East,
the Zeiss and Schott factories became the state-owned “VEB
Carl Zeiss Iena”. In the West, where 126 scientists were transferred
to the American occupation zone, the “Optische Werke
Oberkochen” continued its activities. Each lived its own life
for 40 years. But with the fall of the Berlin wall and the reunification
of the two Germanies the unimaginable happened: the
separated couple remarried again. The reunification of the two
companies, in fact a forced repurchase of the eastern company
by the western company, required an integration effort
and financial commitment which brought the latter to the verge
of bankruptcy. A few years on, however, Carl Zeiss has
recovered its former lustre. Better than that: with over
Optics focused on the future: mirror system
for the sample of an EUV (Extreme
Ultra Violet) exposure system for upcoming
chip generations.
Innovation
a driver for growth
10 000 employees worldwide and sales topping EUR 2.2 billion,
it is again a world leader in its sector. But this success did not
come about just like that.
Innovation and customer focus
In the late 1990’s, close to bankruptcy and fighting for its corporate
survival, Carl Zeiss undertook a fundamental reorganization.
Management was radically overhauled and three new board
members were appointed. Their first action was to offer a vision,
an enterprise mission in which innovation took pride of place.
“We continue to challenge the limits of man’s imagination”, this
vision states. “We will be regarded as the most innovative company
in our field of business”. Innovation and technical excellence
are one of seven core values at the heart of Carl Zeiss’s mission.
And these are more than fine-sounding words. 10% of company
revenues are earmarked for research and development. True,
this may be less than in some other industry sectors. “But even
so it is considerably more than our competitors invest”, Group
Quality Officer Thomas A. Louis tells us. “Innovation has always
been the bedrock of Carl Zeiss's growth from day one. We are