Lehmann&Voss&Co. once again honoured as leading innovator

The Hamburg-based company Lehmann&Voss&Co. has for the second time secured a place in the ranks of leading innovators among small and medium-sized enterprises.

As part of the 26th edition of the TOP 100 seal, the company was honoured at a gala event held on 28 June 2019 in Frankfurt’s Jahrhunderthalle (Centennial Hall) by Ranga Yogeshwar, Prof. Nikolaus Franke and compamedia. In the independent selection procedure, Lehmann&Voss&Co. once again impressed in the category of “Successful Innovations”; at the same time, there was a significant improvement on the good outcome of 2017.

Under the motto “125 years of innovation” the company is celebrating its jubilee this year. The business unit for high-performance compounds is particularly innovative. This top-selling activity by Lehmann&Voss&Co. concentrates on the development and production of customer-specific, tailor-made plastics.

To coincide with the start of the jubilee year, the company was able to move into a new innovation centre. Alongside an extensive laboratory and a large pilot plant, it also has facilities for the development of forming processes, including those of the new 3D printing technologies in particular. In this future-oriented field, the company is primarily concentrating on laser sintering and extrusion technology. “Our objective is to transfer 3D technology from prototyping to industrial applications”, explains Dr Alexander Sunder, the head of the business unit.

In order to achieve progress in this way, the chemical company is concentrating on innovative and exceptional 3D products that serve as examples and also function as beacons. One of these is a 6.5-meter racing boat produced by means of 3D printing. This first sailing yacht in the world to be produced by 3D printing used a material specifically developed by the firm: the high-performance polyamide with carbon fibre reinforcement boasts high levels of rigidity and strength along with a low weight. And it is not only the 3D-printed yacht that is sailing towards uncharted territory, but also the Company Group as a whole – as its business is becoming increasingly international in character: since 2016, the TOP innovator has also been represented in China with its own plant.


TOP 100: The competition

Since 1993, compamedia has been awarding the TOP 100 seal to small and medium-sized enterprises for special innovative capacity and innovations with an above-average level of success. Since 2002, the scientific management has been in the hands of Prof. Nikolaus Franke. Prof. Franke is the Founder and Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation of Vienna University of Economics and Business. The mentor of TOP 100 is the science journalist Ranga Yogeshwar. Project partners are the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung [Fraunhofer Society for the Promotion of Applied Research] and The German Association for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (BVMW). Media partners supporting the comparison of enterprises are manager magazin, impulse and W&V. More information is available at www.top100.de.