The Festo Group
April 23, 2024
Responsible family-owned company and global player in automation technology and technical education
Festo is an independent family-owned company in the field of pneumatic and electrical automation technology. Headquartered in Esslingen a.N., Germany, the company has been a driving force in automation for over 60 years and has developed into the world’s leading provider of technical education and training. Around the world, 300,000 customers rely on Festo’s pneumatic and electric drive solutions in factory and process automation.
The focus is always on the most efficient and productive solution for motion tasks in industrial production. Sustainability and the climate-friendly transformation of production are becoming the most important tasks along the entire value chain. Festo Didactic also offers state-of-the-art education solutions for around 56,000 industrial companies and educational institutions worldwide. In the 2023 financial year, the Festo Group generated sales of 3.65 billion euros and has around 20,600 employees at 250 locations worldwide. The company invests over 7% of its turnover in research and development every year.
The Festo Blue World in Automation and Didactic
As a family-owned company, Festo attaches great importance to long-term and responsible thinking and action. The company stands for clear values, top quality and customer-oriented innovations. In industrial automation technology and technical education, the company contributes to the sustainable development of the environment, the economy and society.
Festo has anchored this holistic claim in its Blue World approach. This model focuses on two of the major challenges of our time: population growth and demographic change on the one hand, and the impact on our planet of climate change and dwindling resources on the other.
For Festo, automation technology and technical education are the key to working with customers and partners to find technical solutions that benefit people while conserving the environment and resources.
Sustainability in industrial production: CO2 neutrality and circular economy
Sustainability is firmly anchored in Festo’s corporate strategy. By 2024, the Festo Group is CO2-neutral at all locations worldwide in Scope 1 and 2, the direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions.
The greatest leverage and core of activities lie in Scope 3, which focuses on the development of energy-efficient solutions for customers who use their products. Customers have the option to choose from a broad portfolio of products that effectively reduce energy consumption. Festo was awarded the German Sustainability Award 2024 for this.
Biological transformation is a new and promising area of technology. Using automation technology, biological processes that take a long time in nature can be accelerated and scaled up to make them economically viable. Thanks to the combination of many years of experience and highly developed technology, Festo plays a leading role and demonstrates what is possible with automation and sophisticated control and loop control technology in the area of biologization.
The company is also engaged as a partner in the development of an economical recycling industry on the way to the Net-Zero age.
Motion as Festo’s core competence
The company offers over 30,000 products and system solutions for pneumatic and electrical automation technology that enable maximum productivity. With a wide range of modular systems, customer-specific applications can be realized for a wide variety of factory and process automation sectors. Festo offers components from all levels of the pneumatic and electrical control chain as well as modular system solutions and standard handling systems.
Digitalization: intelligent products and connectivity
A fully compatible automation environment in which all components fit together seamlessly includes both pneumatic and electrical systems. As an automation company, Festo offers an open architecture that makes it possible to control electrical and pneumatic systems in one solution. With its many years of experience, the company supports its customers in the optimal design and technology mix, whether in pneumatic or electric automation or in the implementation of combined solutions.
Value creation through digitalization and artificial intelligence is another focus. The company is driving digitalization in all areas and developing new concepts based on innovative technologies, human-machine collaboration and training and further education. Intelligent products, connectivity, data analysis, machine learning and artificial intelligence offer added value for customers for successful and end-to-end digitalization from the workpiece to the cloud.
Lifelong learning: qualification in the digital transformation
Festo Didactic has been offering state-of-the-art learning solutions for technical education and training since 1965. Its customers include vocational schools, universities, research centers, educational institutions and industrial companies worldwide. Thanks to its industrial roots and didactic expertise, Festo Didactic bridges the gap between school curricula and industry requirements. The portfolio of learning opportunities starts with the industry-related and job profile-oriented qualification of junior staff and specialists and ends with the permanent on-the-job learning of experienced employees who have to implement trend topics such as electromobility, artificial intelligence or sustainable management in the course of their professional lives.
The comprehensive learning solutions are based on a pedagogical approach and offer didactically prepared learning materials, learning systems and software that are tailored to the qualification requirements of industrial sectors. It integrates the latest trends in technical training and covers a wide range of technologies, including factory and process automation, fluid power, electrical engineering, industrial trades and much more. The new Festo Learning Experience digital learning portal creates customized learning experiences.
Related Story
Passing the Baton: Festo Names New Management Board Chairman
Festo has appointed Thomas Böck, 52, to succeed Oliver Jung as head of the Management Board of the family-owned global automation technology leader, effective Jan 1, 2024. The Management Board is the senior executive team charged with overseeing the worldwide operations of the company and strategic development.
