Before the end of this year, our general manager Klaus Hirzel takes a look at a successful year 2015 and at the many innovations that will come in 2016…

Copyright: Tom Maurer

In 2015, Lufft was honoured with technology awards, both nationally and internationally. At Photonics in San Francisco, we almost stood on top of the podium at the measurement technology “Oscars”. At the Industry Award 2015 of the Federal Republic of Germany, we won through against high-tech competitors from big industry. And our home state of Baden-Württemberg awarded us the prestigious Rudolf Eberle Prize.

The main question at the award ceremonies is always the same: How exactly does innovation come about? The answer is simple: by disruption or empathy. For disruption, the driver is the “think tank”, i.e. the development department – for empathy, it is the customer. We love our customers and listen to them. And if it turns out that our customers in New Zealand, China, Europe and North America have similar wishes, our “think tank” naturally gives consideration to how we can meet their requirements. But one customer is already enough for us to discuss such needs internally in the context of innovation management and to give qualified feedback. In contrast to a well-functioning private relationship (“stay as you are”), a business relationship works if we are in a constant state of flux. Customers challenge us (“do it differently than the status quo, and make it better, more accurate, more stable in the long-term, etc.). And as they challenge us, they also encourage us, provided that we convert their wishes into reality.

The development of MARWIS has tied up a great deal of capacity at Lufft in recent years. Meanwhile, we have doubled the R & D department. We invest more than 15 percent of our turnover in innovation. At Lufft, highly qualified physicists, hardware specialists, sensor experts and software professionals work hand in hand. Young and experienced, highly qualified innovators feed off each other and think holistically in terms of the defined goals. To make sure we don’t lose sight of our goals, we use “Scrum”. This allows us to continuously adjust the process.

So what comes after the year of the innovation awards? Of course: the year of the breakthrough innovations.

The following products will be introduced in 2016:

• Visibility sensors that repel spiders.
• Air pressure, temperature and humidity measurement for environmental reference stations with unprecedented accuracy and long term stability.
• A precipitation measuring method that is maintenance-free and highly accurate. Finally.
• A particulate matter sensor for mobile use in conjunction with MARWIS which for the first time measures in real time the concentration of the critical 2.5 ppm fine particles in the entire distribution over an area.
• A cloud altimeter family that complements our S-Class CHM 15k.
• A new snow depth sensor for the highest accuracy requirements.

“The real secret of success is enthusiasm”, according to the automobile pioneer Walter Chrysler.

We at Lufft are going into the year ahead with enthusiasm.

We wish you a successful and happy New Year 2016.