Quality Automation Sitz

His­to­ry

Michael Fritz Managing Director der Quality Automation GmbH

Managing Director Michael Fritz remembers the founding years of Quality Automation GmbH

„In the year 2000 I received a very inter­est­ing enquiry from the com­pa­ny MBRAUN Intert­gas-Sys­teme GmbH from Garch­ing near Munich. The con­tact came about because I had already worked with MBRAUN on sev­er­al projects in my posi­tion at my for­mer employ­er and had got to know the com­pa­ny as a reli­able part­ner. MBRAUN now want­ed to equip all plants des­tined for the Asian mar­ket with a Mit­subishi Elec­tric con­trol sys­tem. Accord­ing to the request, I was to devel­op, build and com­mis­sion the con­trol sys­tem on site! To me, this sound­ed like a very attrac­tive and excit­ing project. My col­league Heinz Mon­nartz was also enthu­si­as­tic and so we decid­ed to found Qual­i­ty Automa­tion GmbH. For me in par­tic­u­lar, self-employ­ment was some­thing I had been think­ing about for a long time, and the fact that Heinz went along with it at the time was real­ly super!

The first automa­tion projects were all for the MBRAUN com­pa­ny. How­ev­er, oth­er projects with new cus­tomers quick­ly fol­lowed. The first com­pa­ny head­quar­ters was in the ser­vice cen­tre in Stol­berg. It con­sist­ed of only two offices — but in the ini­tial phase, with three employ­ees, that was suf­fi­cient. Then, how­ev­er, it devel­oped quite quick­ly. Since we were already sev­en employ­ees at the end of 2001, we moved to our cur­rent com­pa­ny head­quar­ters at the begin­ning of 2002. With the new cus­tomers came new require­ments and fields of activ­i­ty, which we also want­ed to serve. This was only pos­si­ble through con­tin­u­ous growth and the fur­ther devel­op­ment of our know-how. Cur­rent­ly, Qual­i­ty Automa­tion GmbH has more than 50 employ­ees and is one of the largest com­pa­nies for automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy in the Cologne-Aachen area.“

QA from the foun­da­tion until today

A short jour­ney through 20 years of Qual­i­ty Automation

Shareholder agreement and business registration

Foun­da­tion of the com­pa­ny by Heinz Mon­nartz and Michael Fritz and mov­ing into the first premis­es in the Ser­vice Cen­tre (DLZ) in Stolberg. 

25. August 2000 

The 1st employee starts work

The begin­ning of steady growth: Wolf­gang Felser becomes the first employ­ee at QA. 

01. Jan­u­ary 2001 

Move to Konrad-Adenauer-Straße

The two offices of the DLZ become too cramped with the addi­tion­al new employ­ees, so the com­pa­ny moves to its cur­rent head­quar­ters at Kon­rad-Ade­nauer-Straße 156, Stolberg. 

01. Jan­u­ary 2002 

Renting additional office space

The fur­ther expan­sion of the premis­es pro­gress­es quick­ly. Just two years after the move, addi­tion­al office space is rent­ed in the Philips Rothe Erde indus­tri­al park in Aachen, close to one of our main customers. 

23. Sep­tem­ber 2004 

Partnership with Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V.

Due to the long last­ing project busi­ness with com­po­nents from Mit­subishi Elec­tric, we become part of the Sys­tem Part­ner Automa­tion Net­work with improved con­di­tions and com­pre­hen­sive sup­port possibilities. 

Mitsubishi Electric Logo

22. March 2007 

Renting additional commercial space

In order to be able to fur­ther expand our own con­trol cab­i­net pro­duc­tion and stor­age facil­i­ties, com­mer­cial space is rent­ed very close to the head­quar­ters: our “Plant 2” is built.

28. July 2009 

Bosch Rexroth system integrator

As we increas­ing­ly use com­po­nents from Bosch Rexroth in the field of dri­ve tech­nol­o­gy and some of our employ­ees have become spe­cial­ists in this field through train­ing and in the course of numer­ous projects, we are list­ed as a sys­tem inte­gra­tor for elec­tri­cal dri­ves and con­trols in 2009. 

Rexroth – A Bosch Company

17. Novem­ber 2011 

10-year company anniversary

10 years have already passed since the com­pa­ny was found­ed. We look back on many excit­ing projects with great cus­tomers and valu­able expe­ri­ences and cel­e­brate the anniver­sary fes­tive­ly at the Eyneb­urg in Her­gen­rath, Belgium. 

04. Sep­tem­ber 2010 

Certified quality

Qual­i­ty is not only in our name, but is also our high­est pri­or­i­ty in inter­nal project man­age­ment and exe­cu­tion. This is why we decid­ed to intro­duce a qual­i­ty man­age­ment sys­tem and to be reg­u­lar­ly cer­ti­fied accord­ing to DIN EN ISO 9001:2008.

14. July 2011 

Cooperation with Keyence

Machine vision and intel­li­gent sen­sor tech­nol­o­gy are increas­ing­ly being used in automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy. With Keyence Ger­many as our part­ner, we have access to a wide range of prod­ucts and com­pe­tent advice to offer our cus­tomers high-qual­i­ty machine vision solu­tions and sen­sor technology.

Keyence Logo

25. Novem­ber 2011 

First apprentice and scholarship funding

Our first “appren­tice” starts his train­ing as an elec­tron­ics tech­ni­cian for automa­tion tech­nol­o­gy. At the same time, we sup­port our first schol­ar­ship hold­er in the pro­gramme of the Aachen Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sciences. 

01. August 2012 

Expansion of the management

The man­age­ment gets sup­port: Chris­t­ian Franssen, Andreas Fritz and Fried­helm Stef­fens are giv­en procu­ra­tion and from now on take more care of acqui­si­tion and quo­ta­tion preparation.

08. March 2016 

System partner of Kollmorgen Europe GmbH

A new part­ner­ship with the com­pa­ny Koll­mor­gen EUROPE GmbH from Ratin­gen expands our range in the field of dri­ve technology. 

01. Decem­ber 2017 

QA in a new design

The com­pa­ny comes of age and receives a new logo as a gift from the mar­ket­ing depart­ment. The abbre­vi­a­tion and the colour scheme remain, but in a mod­ernised and min­i­mal­is­tic style with a high recog­ni­tion value.

25. August 2018 

Partnership with Balluff and Matrix Vision

The image pro­cess­ing sec­tor is fur­ther expand­ed and the port­fo­lio is extend­ed by many dif­fer­ent prod­ucts. After suc­cess­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion in the part­ner train­ing pro­gramme, we are qual­i­fied as a Solu­tion Part­ner by Matrix Vision GmbH, a mem­ber of the Bal­luff-Group, and can thus offer our cus­tomers cost-effec­tive GigE and Smart Cameras. 


25. Feb­ru­ary 2019 

20th company anniversary

In the tur­bu­lent times of 2020, our com­pa­ny anniver­sary unfor­tu­nate­ly pass­es with­out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a major cel­e­bra­tion. We hope to be able to make up for this in a fit­ting man­ner next year. Until then, we would like to thank all our cus­tomers for their trust and long-stand­ing partnerships! 

25. August 2020 

New management

With effect from 11.01.2021, Andreas and Chris­t­ian Fritz will take over the man­age­ment of Qual­i­ty Automa­tion GmbH as suc­ces­sors of Heinz Mon­nartz and will man­age the com­pa­ny togeth­er with their father Michael Fritz and the two autho­rised sig­na­to­ries Fried­helm Stef­fens and Chris­t­ian Franssen in the future. 

11. Jan­u­ary 2021 

Certified Excellence Partner Solution

Qual­i­ty Automa­tion GmbH is now a licensed Cer­ti­fied Excel­lence Solu­tion Part­ner of Bosch Rexroth. This means that we belong to a select­ed net­work of sales and ser­vice part­ners in Ger­many, Aus­tria and Switzer­land. Togeth­er with around 60 Excel­lence (CE) Part­ners, we have a high lev­el of per­for­mance and solu­tion exper­tise for automa­tion, dri­ve and con­trol tech­nol­o­gy applications. 

30. March 2021 

Siemens Solution Partner

Qual­i­ty Automa­tion GmbH is a Siemens Solu­tion Part­ner for Fac­to­ry Automa­tion and Dri­ves & Motion. This means that we belong to a select­ed glob­al part­ner net­work with uni­form qual­i­ty stan­dards world­wide. This cre­ates com­pet­i­tive advan­tages, which we are hap­py to pass on to our customers. 

20. Jan­u­ary 2023 

ICONICS System Integrator

Qual­i­ty Automa­tion GmbH is part of the ICON­ICS Sys­tem Inte­gra­tor Pro­gram and as a sys­tem inte­gra­tor has full access to devel­op­ment tools, train­ing and tech­ni­cal resources. As a sys­tem inte­gra­tor we can offer our cus­tomers, in close coop­er­a­tion with ICON­ICS, the best and most effi­cient solutions. 

20. April 2022