Voith establishes new division for Industrie.4

Photo: Voith Paper

The Voith Group is picking up speed as it taps into new opportunities for growth in the realm of “Industrie 4.0”. At its meeting recently, the Shareholders’ Committee approved the Corporate Management Board’s digital agenda. This agenda includes the establishment of a new Group Division, Voith Digital Solutions. The new unit will consolidate all of the group’s know-how in the field of the digital transformation known as Industrie 4.0. The new unit’s focus will be on the development of new digital business models for sectors that already exist today as well as for completely new sectors which are not yet being served. Dr. Roland Münch, who has been CEO of the Voith Hydro Group Division up until now, will become CEO of the new Group Division. Dr. Münch’s successor as Head of Voith’s hydropower division will be Uwe Wehnhardt.

Expertise related to automation, software, IT, digitization and sensor technology that is currently covered by the Group Divisions Voith Hydro, Paper and Turbo will now be consolidated and refined in the new Group Division, Voith Digital Solutions. In addition, all the Group’s venture and start-up activities in the digital realm will be relocated to Voith Digital Solutions. With its establishment, the division starts with roughly 600 employees and about 250 million euros from existing business. Measures to address the market are set to begin on April 1, 2016.

“With Voith Digital Solutions, we are consolidating our skills in the area of Industrie 4.0 and are thus taking a key step on the path to achieving our objective: We are systematically developing Voith to be a company that will play a decisive role in shaping the digital transformation in our sectors and markets,” says Voith Head Dr. Hubert Lienhard.