Albstadt - Circular knitting machine manufacturer Mayer & Cie has been named one of Germany’s most innovative SMEs for the second time.
Benjamin Mayer, Marcus Mayer and Sebastian Mayer collected the Top 100 award from host Ranga Yogeshwar during the SME Summit in Ludwigsburg, Germany.
Mayer & Cie. received the prize for their "innovation management and success", the most well-known example of which is currently their spinitsystems spinning and knitting technology.
“We are delighted to have been named one of the most innovative German SMEs for the second time already,” said Mayer & Cie executive Marcus Mayer. “For us, it is part of our self-understanding to advance in the market and think in terms of new solutions. This requires us to take the long view in business – but also to show courage, as not every idea manages to become an innovation.”
Mayer & Cie has been operating in the market for more than 100 years, with over 75,000 machines sold worldwide since the company’s founding. To ensure that knitters in countries like India, China and Turkey will count on quality “made in Germany” well into the future, Mayer & Cie. invests five to six per cent of its turnover each year into research and development. Around seven per cent of the employees are engaged in development and construction.
Mayer & Cie also keeps a close ear to the market, with the sales and marketing staff in the headquarters in Albstadt, and also with 80 representatives around the world. “We want our customers to be able to maintain their market advantage with the help of our machines," said Benjamin Mayer of the executive board. “We take customer’s wishes very seriously, whether in the individual configuration of existing machines or in the development of entirely new solutions.”
According to Mayer & Cie, the most current example of the application of new ideas is the spinitsystems technology. This is a compact machine with the dimensions of a conventional knitting machine combining two previously separate processes, spinning and knitting The effect is a significant saving of time and space with Mayer and Cie also suggesting that it has another innovative "coup' up its sleeve, which it will present at ITMA 2019.
Awards
The Top 100s focus on a company's innovation management. Whether a company is accepted into the Top 100 club or has its place reconfirmed – as is the case with Mayer & Cie. – is decided upon by a jury drawn from the fields of politics, economics and research, under the chairmanship of Professor Nikolaus Franke, Chairman of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). For this year’s competition, Franke and his team examined more than 470 applications. 288 companies were successful in three classes, including 120 global market leaders.
