25 years IDS

30/3/2022

"The will to create something new is firmly anchored in all of us"

founded in 1997 as a small two-man company for industrial cameras, today, 25 years later, we look back with gratitude on our company history.

The last two years have put enormous pressure on companies worldwide. As a medium-sized company, we still face many challenges: The worldwide shortage of semiconductors as well as tense supply chains with regard to essential electronic components also affect the production of our cameras. However, if there is one thing that we as a company have proven time and again, it is our willingness to change - often as pioneers. We are therefore responding to the tense global economic situation in our anniversary year with flexibility and creativity: Short-term near-term development of new hardware platforms, proactive corrections in development focus and effective supplier management are designed to secure the flow of goods and dampen the impact of the current situation.

Seeing machines: Sharpening the eye for new things

With our industrial cameras, we have been providing the eye for a wide range of technical solutions in the fields of automation and robotics for many years. In addition to pure "machine vision", there is a particular demand for intelligent image processing components that process images at high speed and with high resolution and interact with systems that enable lightning-fast decisions, control and automate processes. This clearly shows how the market is changing: Meanwhile, it's about more than just developing easy-to-use camera techniques. Instead, the applications are much more in the foreground and the tasks of our customers are becoming increasingly complex.The company around founder and visionary Jürgen Hartmann is therefore currently focusing on the question of how our products can contribute even more to developing innovations that have a positive impact on people, the environment and society.

Smart technologies: Open up new fields of application

"The idea of innovation that has always prevailed at IDS and the will to create something new are firmly anchored in all of us," explains IDS Managing Director and son of the company founder Jan Hartmann. In order to be well positioned for the coming years and to keep a finger on the pulse of the times, it is irreplaceable to look beyond one's own nose and set one's sights on new technologies. "Artificial intelligence is a good example. It is now on everyone's lips, but very few companies are already using the technology. AI solves tasks that classical image processing usually fails at and thus opens up completely new fields of application," Jan Hartmann continues. New areas where we will be more active in the future include, for example, transport and smart city, environment and smart farming. With visionpier, the online marketplace for machine vision, IDS is building a virtual bridge between users - with or without machine vision experience - and providers of turnkey vision solutions from these, but also many other application areas. The expansion of the business focus not only means setting up our own company more broadly for the coming years, but also penetrating industries in which we can make a direct positive effect on growing socio-political challenges.

Step by step: From Obersulm into the world

Since its foundation in 1997, IDS has evolved enormously, but the core has always remained the same. The development and production site in Obersulm now employs 330 people from a wide range of disciplines. In addition, there are locations all over the world. But regional networking remains just as important: in 2020, the company moved into the state-of-the-art technology centre b39 - a commitment to the site. Cooperation with start-ups and young technology pioneers in the region is to be further expanded. Despite all our growth, as a family business we do not lose sight of our responsibility for people and the environment and are proud that sustainability in production and shipping, fairness towards business partners and a strong sense of family are an important part of our identity. With these tools, we have set the course for the future together with all our employees and partners. To use the words of our founder Jürgen Hartmann: "We still have many more ideas than we can implement. That's a good thing.”