BUSINESS

Many innovations emerge where different experiences, perspectives, and areas of expertise come together. With these new programs, Heraeus aims to strengthen the networks among experts, share knowledge more quickly and facilitate the transfer of successful methods across business units. At the same time, the company seeks to further strengthen innovation capabilities, market understanding and strategic thinking.

The programs create a cross-functional network of experts who learn from one another and work together to develop solutions. This is intended to accelerate the translation of ideas into concrete applications, make better use of best practices, and intensify collaboration within the group. The goal is to strengthen Heraeus’s innovative capacity over the long term and to open up new growth opportunities for the operating companies.

Global data volumes are growing rapidly, thanks in no small part to artificial intelligence—and the cloud computing power required to support it. To meet this rising demand, more and more data centers are being built. Their number is expected to triple worldwide by 2030. A fast data connection is essential, as information must be transmitted and processed in fractions of a second. Fiber-optic cables are currently the highest-performance solution for this—but their potential has been exhausted. The future belongs to hollow-core fibers, though manufacturing them in large quantities is extremely challenging. Microsoft developed a new hollow-core fiber intended to connect the tech giant’s data centers to one another. It selected Heraeus as its strategic partner for the mass production of the fiber.

Hollow-core fibers are optical fibers whose cores are filled with air rather than glass. The idea behind this is that light travels significantly faster through air than through glass. This allows more data to be transmitted in less time—about 30 percent faster. Data volumes are increasing, while latency is decreasing. To meet the demanding manufacturing requirements for hollow-core fibers, a team at HCT developed a new process that allows them to be produced in large quantities with consistent quality. The most important innovation was an improved approach to manufacturing the preforms from which the fibers are drawn. This made it possible to very precisely control the outer and inner structure of the hollow-core fiber during drawing—all at a lower cost than other methods.
 

Using the new production method, the HCT team succeeded in bringing a new technology from the lab to industrial-scale production thanks to scalable manufacturing processes. It is currently one of Heraeus’s largest development projects. The demand is enormous: For Microsoft alone, HCT plans to produce about 100 times more fibers per year than are currently available on the market. Over the next three years, HCT expects to generate sales in the triple-digit millions with hollow-core fibers.
 

HME operates in 90 countries and, with over 200 sales representatives, serves more than 16,000 existing and potential customers. This global footprint requires a high degree of transparency, speed, and accuracy in sales management. By 2023 at the latest, it had become clear that Excel-based analyses, delayed data, and intuition-driven decisions were no longer sufficient to meet the demands of a business of this scale. As a result, a team from HME and HIT-AD developed a new data platform that supports the sales team with better market and customer analytics.

For the new sales data platform, the team first created a unified data foundation using Snowflake. Over six million data records from various systems—such as SAP, CRM, external data sources and historical sales data—were consolidated for this purpose. The result: the “HME Data Iceberg,” featuring over 700 tables and more than 30 reporting layers. In the next step, this structured data was used to build 13 applications with 65 dashboards in Qlik, a tool for data-driven business decisions. The user interface is consistent across all levels. This supports sales-oriented analyses and visualizations. This makes it possible to identify customers who have not yet purchased any products or who purchase only a portion of the portfolio, as well as those with high up-selling and cross-selling potential. Analysis is possible at the country, region, hospital and product levels. Another key focus is on analyzing price trends. The next step is to use AI to improve and simplify predictive capabilities as well as data retrieval—keyword: “conversational analytics.”
  

The HME Sales Factbook, the Qlik app that is essential for sales employees, is by far the most widely used Qlik application at Heraeus today, with over 40,000 accesses per year. The new approach has generated over 3.6 million euros in additional annual revenue through new customers as well as cross-selling and upselling. However, this is not solely attributable to the new technical solution, but also to the cultural shift it has sparked: Instead of relying on intuition, decisions are now made based on sound insights and a centralized database; silos are being replaced by collaboration.
 

Steel producers in the United Kingdom and the EU are struggling with low steel prices on the global market and high local energy costs. To remain competitive, many manufacturers are turning to green steel, which is produced in electric arc furnaces. This process releases significantly less CO2. However, to make optimal use of energy and produce as efficiently as possible, oxygen levels and temperature must be controlled throughout the entire melting process. Currently, the necessary measurements are performed manually by a worker—a dangerous task. The worker must insert a lance equipped with a sensor into the blast furnace, where temperatures can reach up to 1,700°C. This can lead to accidents caused by molten steel, explosions, or toxic gases. This method of measurement is also highly inefficient. To improve safety, our client, 7 Steel, asked the HEN team to develop a solution that minimizes the risk to people.

The HEN team developed a fully automated measurement system that no longer requires human intervention. It consists of an innovative probe and a newly developed carrier for insertion into the blast furnace. These are equipped with the latest generation of oxygen sensors (Falcon) and a fiber-optic temperature measurement system (CoreTemp®). Both systems were developed from the ground up and are among the leading measurement technologies on the market. The new system thus protects workers during one of the most dangerous phases of steel production. Measurements are now taken automatically from the safe control room; workers no longer have to be in close proximity to molten steel.

This project sets new standards for safety and efficiency in steel production. Thanks to the new solution, workers are no longer exposed to extreme heat and molten steel. All measurements inside the furnace are now performed fully automatically. This not only reduces the risk of fatal accidents; it also saves the steel manufacturer more than 150 work hours per year. In addition, the new solution enables significantly more precise control of steel production. This increases production yield by five percent, which translates to two million euros in additional annual revenue for the customer. Furthermore, thanks to the more accurate measurements, energy is now used more efficiently—meaning the steel is produced in an even more climate-friendly manner.

With WE@HET, Heraeus Electronics (HET) created a new platform across all its locations to drive cultural change within the company. The goal: to firmly embed diversity, inclusion, leadership behavior, as well as exchange and collaboration into the company’s daily culture. The biggest challenge was to create a comprehensive “blueprint” for HET’s future culture—rather than a series of individual initiatives—that could be scaled across all functions, levels, and regions. To initiate such lasting change, a structured approach, close employee involvement, and measurable criteria were necessary.

HET’s approach is based on five principles: communication, KPIs, training, process integration and taking concrete action based on employee surveys. In addition, the WE@HET Ambassadors—a network of employees—was launched to promote cultural activities, model open communication even when addressing difficult issues and support local and global initiatives in these areas. Unlike previous D&I champions, this initiative has a broader scope and also includes employees at levels N-3 and N-4. Global programs—including events such as Cultural Week or D&I Month, specialized learning modules and continuously improved processes—have been embedded locally, thereby helping to shape the new culture in everyday life.

The results are significant and measurable. Cognitive diversity—which reflects a variety of opinions and perspectives within the workforce—has improved at all nine locations. In addition, the proportion of female leaders on the Extended Leadership Team rose from 10% to 16%—exceeding the original target for 2025. The inclusion index reached 77%. Employee engagement has also been strengthened—as evidenced, among other things, by the Employee Net Promoter Score, which improved from -3 to +15. The conclusion: WE@HET has sparked a genuine cultural transformation that has permanently changed the way leadership, collaboration and personal growth are practiced at HET.
 

Shaping quartz glass requires extremely high temperatures of over 2,000°C. To reach these temperatures, a graphite tube heated by very high currents has traditionally been used. Copper contacts are used for this purpose because the material is highly conductive. To prevent them from melting at these high temperatures, they must be heavily cooled with water. The downside: About 60% of the heat input is transferred to the cooling water and is lost to the process. In addition, the copper is in direct contact with the hot graphite, which can adversely affect the purity of the shaped quartz glass. A team at HCT therefore worked on a process that uses energy much more efficiently and thus reduces CO2 emissions.

To save energy, the team opted for a different heating technology. The graphite heating tube is now heated contactlessly via induction—a coil is powered by a highly efficient inverter to generate eddy currents in the graphite. These currents heat the heating tube. Since an electrically conductive connection is no longer necessary, direct contact with water-cooled copper is no longer required. Instead, efficient insulation made of graphite felt is used to keep the heat where it is needed—in the quartz glass. The new method also enables better temperature control, which allows for more precise shaping of the glass. However, this requires protecting the interior of the furnace from atmospheric oxygen, which is achieved through improved sealing combined with an inert gas purge. As a side effect, this also drastically reduces the burning of the carbon-based heating tube, which in turn saves costs and reduces carbon dioxide emissions.

The new furnaces began operation in June 2025 in Buford and in August 2025 in Kleinostheim. The new process cut the power requirement per furnace in half to 150 kW. This results in an annual reduction of 45 metric tons of CO2. Overall, the lower energy and graphite consumption resulted in annual savings of 100,000 euros (Kleinostheim) and 130,000 euros (Buford), respectively, in operating costs per furnace. However, the team not only succeeded in reducing CO2 emissions and cutting costs—the new process also improved the quality of the glass. Furthermore, maintenance requirements have decreased, as the graphite elements now need to be replaced less frequently.