Motometer (brand)
Motometer (historically also Moto Meter , Moto Meter Hermann Schlaich , MotoMeter , Moto-Meter or MM ) is a brand for measuring and display instruments for car repair shops and vehicle equipment. The originally independent company has its origins at the beginning of the 20th century in the Stuttgart area .
history
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Founding time: 1912 to 1945
In 1912, in the established US expatriate Württemberg Hermann Schlaich in New York , the company Boyce MOTOMETER in New York, which initially focused on the development and production of radiator thermometers. In 1917 he brought the capillary tube remote thermometer onto the market, which the driver could read from his seat. In a short time, Schlaich achieved a monopoly in the field of cooling water measurement. In 1925 Moto-Meter-GmbH, Frankfurt a. M. first mentioned in business documents, then entered in the commercial register in Stuttgart in 1926 as “Moto Meter Hermann Schlaich GmbH” . In 1938 Schlaich moved his production to Stuttgart and soon afterwards employed around 300 people. During this time, the company brought various new instruments to the market, such as the tire pressure gauge and industrial and remote oil thermometers. This worked according to the then new bimetal principle. Nothing is known about the role of the company during the Nazi regime , in its current anniversary brochure the company writes about this period:
“The MOTO METER quality was convincing, which led to a further increase in production. Schlaich received support from his family, who actively supported him during the first years of the war. But the war did not leave Schlaich unaffected. In 1945 only rubble was left of the facilities. Six months of forced administration followed, as the Allies classified some MOTO METER products as 'dangerous'. Despite all the adversities, MOTO METER was able to deliver again in 1946. This was also due to the enthusiasm and inventive spirit of the future-oriented Schlaich and his employees. "
Post-war period: 1946 to 1977
In 1950 Hermann Schlaich developed the compression pressure recorder (KPS). In 1953 Hermann Schlaich died and his son Robert became the managing partner. From this time on, the company focused on the original equipment program for automobiles, agricultural machinery and the general machine industry . The previous range of pressure gauges , tachometers and combined instruments, as well as complete dashboards, has now been expanded to include test and inspection devices for workshops. Robert Schlaich, who as a trained engineer had a technical understanding himself, used the most modern technologies for the products at the time, such as B. the eddy current principle for the construction of speedometers. The compression pressure recorder developed during this time is still in use today because it provides information about the pressure in the individual cylinders without the engine having to be dismantled beforehand.
Such developments and, above all, their economic use were particularly conducive to the increasing motorization of West German society at the time and the company expanded. In 1960 production started in Leonberg , another location was found in Neckarhausen , which increased the number of employees to over 1,000 in 1962. Four years later, Schlaich restructured the company. The Moto Meter Hermann Schlaich GmbH went under the same name into the Meß-, Regel- und Steueranlagen Gesellschaft , the business purpose was expanded with the aim of a comprehensive coverage of the entire segment in production and trade, including raw materials and semi-finished products and all related businesses. In 1966, in addition to the aforementioned plants in Stuttgart, Leonberg and Neckarhausen, the company owned a fourth one in Nagold , which together employed 1,100 people.
Only two years later, Robert Schlaich left the management and was replaced by Heinz Oppermann, who renamed the company Moto Meter GmbH in 1969 and relocated the headquarters of the Leonberg branch. The products were equipped with processor-controlled display systems, which now summarized the information on a single display that was previously shown by individual instruments. This achieved a market share of ten percent in the European and 20 percent in the German OEM business for instrument clusters. In 1974 the range produced was expanded to include tachographs . The economic success made another change of the corporate form seem sensible, and so it was converted into a stock corporation in 1977 .
Assertiveness in the eighties
The expansion of the business purpose initiated by Robert Schlaich in the years from 1966 proved to be impracticable in the long term, so that in the eighties the company went back and concentrated again on the company's core competencies in the automotive sector. The growing advances in microelectronics made it possible to perfect the displays that had already been produced up to large displays that bundle all available information. In order to meet specific customer requirements, the development of custom chips , i.e. application-specific integrated circuits or ASICs, began.
The nineties: takeovers and liquidation
In 1991, Moto Meter AG was majority taken over by Robert Bosch GmbH . In 1991, Bosch / Motometer had a market share of approx. 10% in the highly concentrated market for instrument clusters in the European Union and was thus in third place. Magneti Marelli and VDO were the market leaders . Bosch / Motometer supplied 95% of the instrument clusters installed by German car manufacturers.
In 1992 the company was renamed MM Messtechnik GmbH. This company entered into a contract with Robert Bosch GmbH as MotoMeter GmbH , Heinz Oppermann left the company. In 1996 IVEKA Automotive Technologies Schauz GmbH was founded in Mühlacker-Lomersheim , which took over the Motometer brand and has continued it since then.
Moto Meter AG, founded twenty years earlier, still existed formally until 1997. In the course of its liquidation by Robert Bosch GmbH, the Federal Constitutional Court decided in 2000, following a complaint by the small shareholders' association , that every liquidation must be judicially reviewed by a majority shareholder. The actual complaint was rejected because it was insignificant, as the protective association only owned two shares in Moto Meter AG. In 2001 the two managing directors of IVEKA, Hans Schauz and Roland Klein, acquired the MOTOMETER brand rights. In 2005 IVEKA Automotive Technologies Schauz GmbH became a contractual partner of Stoneridge Electronics. One year after Hans Schauz left, IVEKA GmbH became a certified training center. In October 2011 IVEKA GmbH became Motometer GmbH. On April 1, 2014, the areas of tachographs, tachograph accessories and fleet management systems were transferred to Stoneridge Aftermarket GmbH.
Today's products and company structure
The range of services offered by the Motometer Group today extends from OEM products (supplied products for original equipment manufacturers and AM aftermarket products ) to customer-specific special solutions for small and medium-sized series.
The Motometer Group today consists of three sub-areas, the area of trade, sales and service, the area of development and the area of production, which are represented by legally independent companies. The managing directors are Roland Klein and Joachim Bulla.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Anniversary brochure MOTOMETER 1912 - 2012 ( Memento from December 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 1.9 MB), accessed on August 28, 2012
- ↑ Moto Meter Hermann Schlaich (Ed.): Fifty years of MOTO METER - measuring, regulating and controlling with MOTO METER . Daco-Verlag, Stuttgart 1962.
- ↑ Commercial Register Section B of the Stuttgart District Court HRB 3124: Entry number 1
- ↑ Company News In. "German International", Vol 10, Heinz Moeller-Verlag, Bonn-Lengsdorf 1966, ISSN 0016 to 8769 , p.52.
- ↑ The documents of Moto-Meter Hermann Schlaich GmbH are now in the archive for company fonts of the Deutsches Museum in Munich Holdings of the archive for company fonts - letter M
- ↑ Commercial Register Section B of the Stuttgart District Court HRB 3124: Entry number 8
- ↑ Der Spiegel, No. 32/1980, p. 61
- ↑ Klaus Gugler, Dennis C. Mueller, B. Burcin Yurtoglu and Christine Zulehner: Effects of mergers in continental Europe and Germany (PDF; 56 kB) . In: "Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung", Vol. 70, No. 2, DIW, Berlin 2001, ISSN 0340-1707 , p. 211.
- ↑ Case No. IV / M.164 - MANNESMANN / VDO (PDF; 44 kB). Decision of the European Commission of 1991, document number 391M0164.
- ↑ 1 BvR 68/95 / 1 BvR 147/97 . In: Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court, 2000.
- ↑ Federal Constitutional Court strengthens protection of small shareholders In: "Handelsblatt" of September 13, 2000
- ↑ site Stoneridge , accessed on 12 December 2014
- ^ Motometer GmbH, Mühlacker-Lomersheim
- ↑ Motometer Engineering GmbH, Pforzheim ( Memento from December 16, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ NAP automotive GmbH, Pforzheim |