High-tech location with tradition: Siemens Amberg celebrates its 75th birthday

The Siemens site in Amberg will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2023. From the beginning in 1948 in Amberg as an alternative quarter for the expropriated Oppach switching plant in Saxony, the location developed over the following decades into a globally respected model for digital production and the development of high-tech products. The location started the anniversary year with a kick-off event in the visitor center "The Impulse". Site manager Hans-Peter Scharl welcomed the colleagues present as well as guests from politics, business and science on behalf of the management. “Siemens has been in Amberg for three quarters of a century. As a large employer in the region and an innovative location, we stand for both continuity and permanent further development. On the one hand, this is the merit of innovative and motivated colleagues, sometimes across generations, and on the other hand, a far-sighted management that stands and stands by the location. People made Siemens Amberg what it is today – a success story,” said Scharl. Among the guests of honor were the two Siemens board members Cedrik Neike, Siemens Digital Industries, and Matthias Rebellius, Siemens Smart Infrastructure, who paid tribute to the location. "Right from the start, Amberg has been an important location for our global business with low-voltage products," said Matthias Rebellius. “I am proud of the many innovations that are developed here in Amberg by our highly qualified specialists for the world.”

His fellow board member Cedrik Neike added: “Amberg not only has one of the most innovative but also one of the most sustainable factories in the world. Our customers love the electronics factory and the location because we have managed to reinvent ourselves over the past 75 years and to be at the forefront - thanks to cutting-edge technology and the enthusiastic, competent people on site."

In 1948, Siemens in Amberg began manufacturing contactors, motor protection switches and roller switches, cathode arresters, NH fuses and terminal blocks in rented rooms from the former Royal Bavarian Rifle Factory at Nabburger Tor. A year later, the site began teaching with the first three trainees. The approximately 150 employees in the early days quickly grew to several thousand. As early as 1962, there were around 4,500 employees. In the meantime, mainly air rifles were built in Amberg. In the same year, the construction work for the sister plant in Cham began, and a year later production started there. At the beginning of the 1970s, the product range was expanded to include the development and manufacture of electrical household appliances. In 1978, the first programmable logic control system, the SIMATIC S5, was added to a product family that still sets industry standards today. In 1989 the equipment factory was divided and the electronics factory assigned to Siemens automation technology as an independent production facility for the development and production of electronic control units. Another premium product from the Amberg site expanded the production spectrum in 1997: the SIRIUS switching devices. From the turn of the millennium, many prizes such as "Best Factory" or "Factory of the Year" followed, which both factories won. The most recent award is being named a Sustainability Lighthouse by the World Economic Forum in January 2023.

Today, the Amberg site has around 5,000 employees in development, production, administration and internal services, and with its two award-winning plants it is an industrial benchmark in the Group as well as in global competition. Over 1,000 engineers develop high-tech products for industrial applications, infrastructure and buildings at the site, including leading automation systems such as the SIMATC and SIRIUS families. The equipment factory (GWA) and the electronics factory (EWA) form the blueprint for the digital factory with their above-average degree of automation and digitization.

The visitor center "The Impulse", which opened in 2021, shows the digital competence and performance of the location. Around 10,000 visitors come to Amberg every year to see the "manufacturing of the future". Siemens Amberg cooperates in a strong network of business and education. In the “Impulse”, Siemens, together with the OTH Amberg-Weiden University, offers a so-called innovative learning location (ILO) where students from Amberg research the latest technologies for the industrial environment together with Siemens developers and partners. With around 150 trainees, the location is one of the largest training companies in western Upper Palatinate.

The location's anniversary will be celebrated with other social and cultural events for employees and the public throughout the year