Annual Report 2020
75 YEARS OF SICK – IN THE FIELD OF TENSION BETWEEN CONTINUITY AND CHANGE
We are not afraid of tension – it makes us inquisitive. Innovation, creativity and development only occur if we cross boundaries and allow ourselves tensions. The digital transformation shifts boundaries or makes them disappear. Understanding tensions between realities is a prerequisite for our innovations and our success. We consider customer requirements from a variety of perspectives, and work on the best solution cross-departmentally. We anticipate future developments and trends, think a step ahead, respectfully weigh up the various perspectives, and create something new from them. Whereby we balance inventive spirit, collaboration, efficiency, and customer requirements. We thus create real innovations.
We have opened up new markets and business fields since our founding 75 years ago. We have become more international; our customer base has too. We have rolled out our product business worldwide, and supplemented it with system and service solutions. The mix and breadth of our product portfolio makes us unique. This start-up – “with a license for Erwin Sick to practice his profession as an engineer” (26 September 1946) – has become a worldwide supplier of intelligent sensors, systems and services for industrial automation and data-based Industry 4.0 applications.
Again and again, we at SICK cross boundaries together: In our heads, in our organization, in our product portfolio, and geographically – and find ourselves on exciting journeys of discovery in new worlds.
75 YEARS OF INNOVATION
It all began more than 70 years ago with Dr. Erwin Sick and his ‘start-up’ in a garage near Munich. Erwin Sick was a visionary and inventor. Above all else he recognized that the combination of precise optics and intelligent electronics could solve numerous tasks. He laid the foundations for the success of our present company with his ability to ‘see into the future,’ to anticipate customer requirements and to develop innovative solutions for them. His independent and courageous thinking and actions, his inventive spirit, and his instinct for trends and technology are still fixed elements of our culture.
