ept GmbH receives award from Continental AG

ept GmbH has been singled out as best supplier by the Continental Automotive Group. The ‘Supplier Day 2018’ served as a venue for the reception of the supplier award for outstanding achievements in the “Plastic and Rubber” materials group. The ept Group has won the prestigious award once before in 2014 for its exceptional service in the “Electromechanics / Plastic-Mechatronics” materials group. The formal awards ceremony took place in the Estrel Congress Center in Berlin, with 550 guests from all over the world in attendance. Leaning on the future oriented theme of the supplier’s day, a robot served cocktails at the evening gala. The award was presented by Thomas Wageman, (Senior Vice President Purchasing Plastic & Rubber), Wolfgang Meunzel (Director Purchasing Gobal Category Connectors), Günter Fella (Senior Vice President Purchasing Automotive) and Jürgen Braunstetter (Senior Vice President SCMA).

As a key player in the automotive industry, Continental has been honoring companies with its “Supplier of the Year” award for the past ten years, an accolade which enjoys considerable prestige throughout the sector. Following the motto “Supplier of Choice 2030”, Continental has been alluding to its ambitions for the future: Continental wants to consolidate and expand its position as a supplier. In doing so, it has set out to the meet the challenges of the future: “People will increasingly come to rely on assistance from artificial intelligence in their personal lives. Secure networking is becoming ever more important not only for people but also vehicles. This will most likely be accompanied by a paradigm shift: The car is losing significance as a status symbol – because the new mark of prestige now is time”, is how Kurt Lehmann, Corporate Technology Officer at Continental, explains the transformation also confronting suppliers.

Over 3500 series suppliers manufacture around 140 billion components for Continental’s Automotive divisions. Along with the other 15 winners, the award allows ept GmbH to stand out from the remaining crowd of 3500 series suppliers.

ept GmbH – based in Peiting (Weilheim-Schongau district) with additional plants in Halblech-Buching (Ostallgäu district) and Augsburg – is a manufacturer and supplier of electrical plug connections and contact elements. Besides its traditional business involving standard plug connectors, the medium-sized company has made a name for itself in the field of electrical plug connections for
car control units (e.g. ABS/ESP, airbag control units, engine controls, etc.), today counting a broad range of automobile electronics manufacturers amongst its clientele.

The Continental Automotive Group carries out a far-reaching analysis each year in order to assess the performance of its strategic suppliers and determine the winners of the award. Every supplier is evaluated according to defined criteria in the categories of quality, technology, logistics, and price .
“We see the Supplier Award as an outstanding acknowledgment of the path we have chosen – that is, holding ourselves to the highest quality standards and placing a consistent focus on customer requirements and customer satisfaction,” says Managing Director Thomas Guglhör.