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Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Prof. Claus Weyrich (62), member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG and head of Corporate Technology, retired on September 30, 2006. Prof. Hermann Requardt (51) joined the Corporate Executive Committee on October 1, 2006 and succeeded Weyrich as head of Corporate Technology. In Prof. Weyrich's ten years at Corporate Technology, he reoriented the company's central research toward a stronger focus on customer orientation, internationalization and a systematic concentration of research content on future markets and customer needs. Under his leadership, the company made many technological breakthroughs, including two that won the Future Prize of the German President in the past two years. "Innovation is the lifeblood of our company, and the innovative power of Corporate Technology plays a special role in securing the future of our company," said Heinrich v. Pierer, Chairman of Siemens' Supervisory Board. "Claus Weyrich and his Corporate Technology made an indispensible contribution to our company's innovative strength, and Hermann Requardt will continue in this same spirit."
Following his studies of physics and mathematics at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, Claus Weyrich joined Siemens AG in 1969 and worked on semiconductor research. In 1983, he took over as head of the Applied Materials Research Department, and in 1996 was named head of Corporate Technology - which conducts corporate research and development and is also responsible for the company's patent activities - and was also appointed to the Managing Board of Siemens AG.
"The customer stands at the beginning and the end of every innovation process." - In order to more sharply concentrate corporate research activities on the business goals of the company's Groups, Weyrich developed - together with the current CEO Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld, who headed Siemens Management Consulting at the time - a new business model for the company's research. In this model, the amount invested in corporate research was directly coupled to the business success achieved by the research results.
"We need the best and brightest people worldwide." - For Claus Weyrich, close proximity to customers, to business partners, to renowned universities as cooperation partners and recruiting pools, and to technology hot spots throughout the world is the key criterion for choosing R&D locations. He always highlighted and praised Germany's excellent climate for research and development. At the same time, he underscored the need to build up the company's own research units in the most important and dynamic technology regions around the world. Today, Corporate Technology not only maintains key R&D locations in Munich, Erlangen and Berlin, but also operates facilities in Princeton, Berkeley and Roke Manor as well as in Beijing, Shanghai, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Bangalore, and in Tokyo.
"Innovations often happen by chance - but we can't leave them to chance." - Another major development under his direction was the development of the Pictures of the Future (PoF), a systematic process for predicting future markets and customer needs. Today PoFs provide a strategic framework for planning technologies and innovations, as well as the research programs at Corporate Technology. In addition, the global trends derived from the POFs provide important information for medium- and long-term development of the company's business areas. At the same time, he installed three incubators in Berkeley, Munich and Shanghai that attract external technologies with high value-added potential for Siemens and that also spin off outstanding technology solutions, that can't be commercialized within the company, as start-ups in the free market. One highly successful example of such a Corporate Technology spin-off is EnOcean GmbH, which was able to win 60 OEM customers within 5 years and sell 150,000 radio modules. Enocean has created more than 30 jobs since 2001 and is establishing its technology as a radio standard.
"Innovation demands technology leadership and excellent teams." - During Claus Weyrich's era as head of Corporate Technology, his department turned out a large number of outstanding developments - such as Ultra Fast Ceramics (UFC), the basis for the extremely fast generation of image data in computed tomography, a unique selling proposition of Siemens Medical Solutions. He transformed high-temperature supraconducting technology from pure materials research into the world's first 4 MVA - HTS generators, which are now being tested in ship operations. In addition to the advances made in materials research, he systematically built up the company's software-driven research. These efforts include, for example, an industry-unique, 50-member neural computation team that works on new math-based learning methods for accelerating manufacturing and logistic processes and ensuring quality in the company. Lab-on-a-Chip and the piezo-based fuel injection system were two developments in his department that were awarded the Future Prize of the German President.
"Innovation needs atmosphere." - Weyrich always emphasized that the excellence and creativity of each individual as well as the ability to work in a team are just as decisive for success as the ambitious goals and entrepreneurial freedom defined by management. His own management style was characterized by an atmosphere of open dialogue and the recognition of excellent performance. Every year, for example, Dr. Kleinfeld honors twelve outstanding inventors chosen by Corporate Technology for their distinguished contributions.
Prof. Hermann Requardt took over as head of Corporate Technology on October 1, 2006. "Claus Weyrich has done an outstanding job in orienting corporate research and has left the department in excellent shape," noted Requardt. "I see it as a great challenge for the future to continue this development." Hermann Requardt joined Siemens in 1984 after doing scientific work at the German Research and Testing Institution for Aviation and Spaceflight. In 1995, he took over as head of the Magnetic Resonance Division in the Medical Solutions Group, and joined the Group Executive Management of that Group early in 2001. He was appointed to the Managing Board of Siemens AG on May 1, 2006, and moved up to the Corporate Executive Committee on October 1, 2006.
Prof. Claus Weyrich
Source: Siemens
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Prof. Hermann Requardt
Source: Siemens
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Merkmale dieser Pressemitteilung:
Elektrotechnik, Energie, Wirtschaft
überregional
Personalia
Englisch
Prof. Claus Weyrich
Source: Siemens
None
Prof. Hermann Requardt
Source: Siemens
None
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