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About Böllhoff
Innovations at Böllhoff
Innovations do not occur in isolation – you need good ideas, the right methods and a lived innovation culture.
A problem solver for joining technology
Innovation ensures our success
Well equipped— our accredited test laboratory
Innovation is vital to the success of our company. This is why it is firmly anchored in our corporate strategy. Every Böllhoff innovation has to solve a specific problem for our customers.
We see ourselves as “a problem solver for joining technology”: We supply every customer with the right fastening solution – regardless of the components they want to connect.
"Our company owners are real and authentic. The Böllhoffs know almost every employee and that is one of the reasons we have been here for so long."
Dr. Jens Bunte Member of company management responsible for R&D
How innovations succeed
Systematic innovation management as the key to success
Technological progress is growing exponentially. Product development and manufacturing processes are progressing just as quickly. Product life cycles are noticeably shorter. More than ever, companies are forced to constantly innovate in order to keep pace. We rely on stringent innovation management, including the following measures:
Trend analyses and search field teams
We analyse global market trends and set out clearly defined areas in which we systematically search for innovations. Example: In one of countless search fields, we looked for ideas on how we could use our production expertise to implement intelligent fasteners for aircraft seats. Promising ideas from our employees are then presented to the Innovation Steering Committee.
Innovation Steering Committee
The Böllhoff Innovation Steering Committee meets twice a year. Developers and project managers have the opportunity to present their ideas for new products or processes to a European management committee at an early stage. The committee then decides which ideas it considers to be promising and will therefore be given further support. As a rule, we look at around 25 innovation projects at each steering committee.
Euro Innovation Contest
The in-house Euro Innovation Contest has been held every two years since 2012. On average, ten teams participate from all over Europe. Each team presents an innovative joining solution or a process innovation that grew out of a customer project, for example.
A jury of experts then awards the “Best of Innovation” prize to the best innovation. In addition to this award, all podium finishers will also have the opportunity to win further prizes in the form of team events, for example.
A culture of innovation
Innovation needs the right environment
All innovation management measures have a single goal: to promote a culture of innovation within our company. We encourage all employees to get actively involved because they are the true experts when it comes to market trends and the challenges faced by our customers, allowing them to tap hidden potential.
Trust is a crucial factor here. The best environment for innovative ideas is to trust your employees and “let them get on with it”. This means that some ideas will also fail, because not every good idea becomes a successful innovation. But it is important to enable a positive type of failure and to also see every unimplemented idea as a valuable contribution. Because every unimplemented idea is still a small step to the next innovation.
"Courage and trust are two cornerstones of our corporate culture. You can only create a culture of innovation in a company by trusting your employees and by encouraging them to be brave and to think outside the box."
Michael W. Böllhoff Member of the company management
A culture of innovation
Innovation needs the right partnerships
New ideas also arise from exchanges based on partnership. That’s why we have increasingly opened up our innovation process to the outside world in recent years. We call this: Open Innovation.
In addition to existing partnerships with leading research institutes and universities, we have also participated in the METEOR project since 2021, for example. The joint project METEOR (methods and technologies for validating and optimising the resource efficiency) aims to reduce CO₂ emissions in the production of lightweight structures by up to 80 percent. We support this by investigating new methods for robot-assisted joining of plastic/metal composite structures. We are also part of the “It’s OWL” technology network as a core partner when it comes to developing intelligent approaches for digital transformation.
Innovations from Böllhoff
In the course of our history, our company has produced quite a few innovations. We would like to present three of them to you.
"We are proud to announce that we currently have around 1,000 patents and patent applications pending. And every year, around 15 to 25 new property rights are added in Europe."
Stefan Henning Head of Patents
Documentary about Böllhoff
Learn more about how we support our customers with 360° joining technology and drive forward innovations in the process – in this video from the “Innovation Deutschland” series.
A short documentary about Böllhoff
from the “Innovation Deutschland” series by TBD Media Group.