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 ten 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 very start, Pilz has set standards. Our products and solutions have become established as a brand in safe automation technology.
The generational change at Pilz

Under the management of Renate Pilz, the company expanded worldwide. The Swabian SME 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 controller: 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 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.
Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow: Pilz in transition
Commitment and values are deeply engrained in Pilz's business culture because: Values create future. Take a little time to find out more about the value-based business management and the remarkable history of Pilz!
Figures, data, facts: Pilz in profile
What are the products and solutions that Pilz can offer for complete automation? How important to us is the issue of research and development? Learn more about what distinguishes Pilz!

The generational change in the press
Read how the press reported on the change at our company!
- Family Business Hall of Fame: “Nerds are welcome”
- Hall of Fame: Mrs Renate Pilz
- From housewife to company director
- Interview with Renate Pilz: “I'll work in 2017 - then that's enough”
- Renate Pilz: Mother of the red pushbutton
- Gold Staufer medal for Renate Pilz
- What’s it to be, Renate Pilz?
- From housewife to company director with self-study
- Pilz: Thinking beyond boundaries
- “The continuity is preserved”
- Generational change at Pilz
- Renate Pilz hands over the management of the family business
- Generational change in the German family business
How an idea conquered the world
Combining safety and automation: The Pilz brand

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 human, machine and the environment.
Find out more about what motivates and inspires us every day!
Top developments: from mercury relays to visualisation software
Together to success: Pilz's companions along the way
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!
Pilz is actively shaping the future of automation!

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!
What will the future of automation look like? Find out more about the future topics that we are already working on today!
Renate Pilz
- Member of the exhibitors’ advisory board for SPS/IPC/Drives
- Member of the board of Ulm University
Thomas Pilz
- Member of the board of the German Engineering Federation (VDMA)
- Chairman of the management board in the research association of the institute for microelectronics (Forschungsverein des Instituts für Mikroelektronik Stuttgart e.V.)
- Chairman of the advisory board of the German research association for automation and microelectronics (DFAM)
Susanne Kunschert
- Appointed in 2010 to the Research Alliance (Forschungsunion), 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 Business at Baden-Württemberg International (bw-i)
- Since 2016, deputy chair of the Board of the German Engineering Association (VDMA ) Baden-Württemberg
Pilz products are used in applications all over the world!
Pilz Automation Safety L.P.
7150 Commerce Boulevard
Canton, MI 48187
USA
Telephone: +1 734 354-0272
E-Mail: info@pilzusa.com