Back in 1948 Hermann Pilz founded the company as a glass-blowing business in Esslingen. He laid the foundation for the success of an independent, medium-sized family business. Starting with the manufacture of glass apparatus for medical technology and mercury relays for industrial applications, Hermann Pilz moulded his own style of management. Even then, staff were given overall responsibility for a project, independently processing each stage of the job, from soldering and testing through to dispatch.

From his initial involvement at the end of the sixties and later under the management of Peter Pilz, the company developed in accordance with vision-led management methods, which offered the courage for innovation.

The outcome today is the research and development competence in the field of automation technology that so typifies Pilz. In this way Pilz was able to launch one of the first German programmable logic controllers, the PC4K, back in 1974, based on the EUROPILZ SYSTEM that had been developed in 1969.

Peter Pilz also stands for the company's internationalisation, which started with the foundation of subsidiaries in Austria and Switzerland.

PNOZ (Pilz E-STOP Positive-guided) - An unusual name for an unusual product. Launched in 1987, this safety relay quickly progressed to be the most widely used safety relay in the world.

The eighties and nineties were times of general expansion. Other innovations followed and internationalisation continued at pace. Subsidiaries were set up, not just in Europe but in the USA, Asia and Australia too.

Even today the Pilz family still guarantees the continuity of business development and the company’s independence. Renate Pilz has been the Managing Partner since 1994; together with her daughter Susanne Kunschert and her son Thomas Pilz, they form the management board of a company that now operates worldwide.

In addition to the company headquarters in Ostfildern/Germany, Pilz has 30 subsidiaries and branch offices to support users on all continents, providing local sales and engineering services directly. Worldwide over 1700 employees share their knowledge in the service of safe automation.