Awards

The Friedhelm Loh Group won first place in the "Innovation Champions Award 2020” for its award-winning ONCITE solution. It is the world’s first real-time AI-based edge cloud data centre with data sovereignty for future industrial production data processing. The award, presented by the journal WirtschaftsWoche, St. Gallen University and ADWM (Academy of German Global Market Leaders), recognises the most innovative companies in Germany. The “all in one edge” solution was hailed a “flagship for German industry” and awarded first prize in the Technological Innovations category.

The Friedhelm Loh Group has once again been named “Top Employer Germany.” For the twelfth time in succession, the Top Employers Institute has bestowed this accolade on the family-run business. Since 1991, the award has been presented to employers worldwide who work consistently to optimise HR processes and structures and create optimum framework conditions for employees. The Friedhelm Loh Group is reliant on the expertise and training of its employees, and this has helped it to become a successful global player. This dedication was rewarded when the group was named "Top Employer" in Germany for the twelfth time in succession.

The winners of the SCHALTSCHRANKBAU Innovation Award 2020 have been announced: The jury, comprised of representatives from research, switchgear manufacturers and the trade press, included Rittal’s Wire Terminal WT in its list of awards. In 2019, for the first time, SCHALTSCHRANKBAU, the sector’s leading trade journal, presented the Innovation Award to five exceptionally innovative products.

Rittal won over the jury with its digital integration. The company was awarded a special prize for innovative digitalization for its spray-finishing plant at the Haiger factory. “At its new spray-finishing plant, the company has consistently implemented the Smart Factory concept.
The awards are an annual benchmark competition for industrial spray-finishing, initiated by Fraunhofer-Institut für Produktionstechnik und Automatisierung (IPA) and the editors of the trade journal Besser Lackieren.

In 2018, Rittal launched the VX25, the first enclosure system designed specifically to boost productivity in controlgear and switchgear manufacturing as well as in Industry 4.0 value chains. The German Design Council, set up by the German Parliament (Bundestag), presents the German Innovation Award for forward-thinking innovations with lasting impact offering added value to users.

Rittal, SICP and WestfalenWIND IT won first prize in the “Data Centre Ideas & Research” category of the Deutscher RZ-Preis 2019 for their concept "WindCORES++". For nine years, this prize has been awarded to pioneering ideas and concepts to boost energy efficiency in data centres. The 16 members of the jury were particularly impressed by this new concept’s combination of cost-effectiveness and sustainability. Rittal supplies all the entire data centre infrastructure to “WindCORES++”, including security rooms, IT racks, climate control, UPS and monitoring.

For the fourth time, the Friedhelm Loh Group has been named as one of Germany’s top training companies. The Friedhelm Loh Group scored very highly in a study commissioned by Deutschland Test and Focus Money, which identified the family-owned enterprise from central Hesse as one of the best training companies in Germany. The survey scrutinised Germany’s 2,000 largest companies (in terms of workforce size) across 22 sectors.

Blue e+ from Rittal has been named one of the best products of 2017. The trade journal MaschinenMarkt presented this generation of cooling units with the Best of Industry Award in the automation category. Publishing group Vogel Business Media bestows this prize on solutions that have already won an industry award or generated an exceptional market response. It makes decisions based on the criteria “Level of technical innovation” and “Benefits for industry, environment and society.” Blue e+ from Rittal met both these criteria with aplomb. This generation of cooling units represents a genuine quantum leap forward in terms of energy efficiency.

On 30 November, Deutsches Institut für Erfindungswesen e.V. (German Inventions Institute) awarded the Diesel Medal 2010 to Friedhelm Loh. This prestigious award in the Best Innovation category honoured Loh’s business achievements with Rittal. This medal is known as the “Oscar of inventors” and is the highest accolade for inventors whose work benefits society. The prize, which has been awarded since 1953 in memory of Rudolf Diesel, the inventor of the diesel engine, honours inventiveness as well as inventions leading to corporate success.