Sensors from Lüdenscheid

40 years of ipf electronic: the success story of a local company

"No one knows what they can do until they try" is a saying that may well apply to the beginnings of many companies.

Over the last 40 years, ipf electronic from Altena has developed from a medium-sized company into a specialist for industrial sensors "Made in Sauerland". To mark its milestone birthday, we take a look back at the success story of a family business that has remained true to its location.

Everyone has them or uses them without really knowing it. We encounter sensors everywhere in our everyday lives: in smartphones, in vacuum and cleaning robots, in automatic doors and, of course, in many different forms in cars, e.g. in the airbag, in tire valves or in the fuel tank. Sensors are also indispensable in industry, especially when it comes to the control (unit) and monitoring of automated production processes. And this is precisely what ipf electronic has specialized in over its 40-year history, with a very wide range of solutions for a wide variety of applications. It is therefore likely that many people have already held a product in their hands that was produced with the help of ipf electronic sensors. But first things first.

The first steps to success

ipf electronic (your partner for electronic) was founded in 1982 as a sole proprietorship by Wolfgang Neuhaus (deceased in 2016) and Reinhard Siringhaus (72), who remembers the early days well: "Like many other companies, the company started out in small steps. Together with my wife Christiane, I converted the attic of our house into an office and turned the double garage into a warehouse."

Flexible in every respect

In 1987, the first in-house production facility was set up, producing light barriers and fiber optic amplifiers, among other things. "We were a flexible company in every respect, not only in terms of our product range, which we continued to expand in the following years, but also in terms of our locations in Lüdenscheid. We had to move several times because the premises kept becoming too small," says Reinhard Siringhaus.

Just five years after the company was founded, ipf electronic already had seven employees at the Kalver Straße 73 site. Ten years later, the company moved to Kalver Straße 27 with a total of 35 employees. Further companies and sales offices were founded in the north and south of Germany. The company continued to grow internationally and hired its 100th employee in 2008.

On the way to becoming a "hidden champion"

One of the most important milestones in ipf electronic's company history is certainly the development of its own products. These include the first in-house manufactured sensor for pneumatic cylinders (1991) and one of the first logic modules for linking sensors (1998). In this area, ipf electronic is still a "hidden champion" today, not least because the solutions are constantly being optimized and further developed. The company is also known for its inductive sensors with an enlarged temperature range of up to +230° C, which are extremely robust and therefore highly valued in the metal and plastics processing industries, for example. And so that these and many other solutions can be presented to a broad public, ipf electronic has been represented at international trade fairs such as the Hannover Messe, Motek in Stuttgart or Smart Production Solutions (sps) in Nuremberg since the 1980s.

Internationalization, generational change and "ONE ipf electronic"

From 2003, Antje Wieners, partner and daughter of company founder Wolfgang Neuhaus, continuously built up the export business at ipf electronic. Today, the company is active in all major markets worldwide. New ideas are just as important for a successful company as its international presence, and in a family business these are usually associated with a generational change. In 2006, Dirk Neuhaus took over the management of the company from his father Wolfgang. Reinhard Siringhaus was followed in 2014 by Christian Fiebach as another new Managing Director of ipf electronic.

Four years later (2018), the ground-breaking ceremony for a 7,500 square meter building in the Märkisches Gewerbepark Rosmart took place. The first ipf electronic employees then moved into the new company headquarters at the beginning of 2020. At this time, the company still consisted of several companies. At the end of 2020, the individual companies, which were previously spread across several locations, merged and are now also under one roof. "For us, this decision was a logical and logical step, if only because of the spatial concentration of the companies in one company building, from which our customers and partners in particular benefit due to an even more efficient organization, including leaner processes and accelerated internal procedures," says Dirk Neuhaus, who today manages ipf electronic gmbh together with Christian Fiebach, Detlev Rössel and Bodo Hano.

Top employer for the region

Even before the move, the company had much more to offer its 140 employees than just ergonomic workstations with state-of-the-art technical equipment. "We do a lot to ensure that our employees feel at home in the IPF family, because that is an immensely important success factor," says Christian Fiebach.

Repeated awards as a top employer, including an award as a particularly family-friendly company for the second time in a row in 2019 and the "Top Company" seal, which ipf electronic recently received from an independent employer evaluation platform, confirm this in Dirk Neuhaus' view. "Our products are very good, but our self-tested strengths lie in our employees. Thanks to their expertise and many years of practical experience, but above all their ability to work together successfully as a team, we offer exactly the sensor solutions that our customers need. And I am really proud of the fact that many employees have been with ipf electronic for more than 20 years."