At the end of 2017, Renate Pilz is leaving her active role in the Pilz Management Board. She hands over the management of the company to her two children, Susanne Kunschert and Thomas Pilz, with whom she has been leading the company for 10 years. As such, Pilz remains a family business.

Renate Pilz has had a decisive influence on the company, promoting many product innovations and the internationalisation of the company. For her it was a passion to continue the company after the early death of her husband, the then Managing Director Peter Pilz, and to continue in the spirit he intended. The vision to make machines safe worldwide originated from him. From the start, Pilz has set standards. Our products and solutions have become established as a brand in safe automation technology.

Under the management of Renate Pilz, the company expanded worldwide. The Swabian family business with 200 employees has become a company with over 2,000 employees worldwide. Renate Pilz developed the company with a great deal of dedication and passion. An example of this is the development of the first programmable safety system: an innovative and courageous path, where Pilz made industrial history. Together with her team she initiated important standards and directives, to achieve a globally uniform view of the subject of plant safety.

From 2018, Susanne Kunschert and Thomas Pilz will take the company forward – based on existing company values and the jointly developed strategy. Some of the issues they will promote in future are the progressive digitalisation of industry and robotics at Pilz.

What are the products and solutions that Pilz can offer for complete automation? How important is the issue of research and development for us? Find out more of what is characteristic of Pilz!

Our pursuit of safety forms the basis of our daily thoughts and actions. Our vision, "The Spirit of Safety", has made us one of the leading automation technology suppliers. We use our automation solutions to create safety - for man, machine and the environment.

Find out more about what motivates and inspires us every day!

We asked some long-standing companions of our Managing Director Renate Pilz and of the company Pilz a few questions, including:

When did you first meet Mrs Pilz? How did that first meeting go? What do you wish Mrs Pilz for the future?

Out of this has come a film, a "behind the scenes" look at the company. Discover how our long-standing partners have experienced our family and company history and how they view the company's future!

Alongside a wide-range of social projects, the Pilz Management Board is also active in numerous committees and institutions. Our passion is to make automation even safer, to significantly advance research and further develop state-of-the-art technology. Even today we are actively shaping industry's hot topics and working on solutions for the automation of the future!

Susanne Kunschert

• Appointed since 2010 to the Research Alliance, the central, innovative policy body that advises the German Government
• Since 2011, member of the Supervisory Board at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
• Since 2014, honorary member of the German Association for the Facilitation of Research Transfer (GFFT)
• Member of the Steering Committee Allianz Industrie 4.0 Baden-Württemberg
• Since 2015, member of the Advisory Board for Business at Baden-Württemberg International (bw-i)
• Since 2016, Deputy Chair of the Board of VDMA (German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association) Baden-Württemberg