News
Analytik Jena Opens Company Museum and Presents the History of Analytical Measuring Technology in Jena
Jena, June 18, 2013 – Analytik Jena AG’s company museum presents the exciting history of analytical measuring technology in Jena to visitors, customers, business partners and interested guests over 70 square meters, and showcases the successful continuation of instrument development at Analytik Jena up to the present day. More than 40 exhibits are on display from the three business units of Analytical Instrumentation, Life Science, and Optics, including many historical instruments from the time before Analytik Jena was founded in 1990 – starting in the 1960s and 1970s, and stretching into the 1990s. A variety of instruments ranging from spectrophotometers, atomic absorption spectrometers, thermal cyclers, automatic pipetters, and refractometers to small reflex sights from the Optics unit are on display.
“Analytik Jena AG is one of the most innovative companies in the world for modern analytical measuring technology. The foundations of our success were laid in April 1990 when three former Zeiss employees established Analytik Jena. With the acquisition of lab analysis technology from Carl Zeiss – including product portfolio, patents, employees, and their expertise – in December 1995, the long-standing tradition, which was on the verge of coming to an end, was continued with great success in Jena. We are still strongly committed to the historical achievements of Ernst Abbe and Carl Zeiss today,” said Klaus Berka, Chief Executive Officer of Analytik Jena AG.
Following a six-month conception and design phase, Analytik Jena now presents a unique overview of innovative technologies from the area of optical spectroscopy on the ground floor of the Company’s headquarters on Konrad-Zuse-Strasse in Jena-Göschwitz. With the AAS 5 EA, for instance, the Company demonstrates a spectrophotometer in the area of atomic absorption spectrometry, which was a global first at its time with its transverse-heated graphite furnace applications and the possibility of direct solid sample analysis in graphite tubes, and which represented a technologically important link in continuing later research and development work at Analytik Jena.
“Individual exhibit items still work after many years and many of these devices are still being used in laboratories around the world because of their excellent quality. We remain committed to this legacy of quality in our products today. Our one-of-a-kind contraAA® technology still has a unique global technological position after more than eight years on the market,” continued Mr. Berka.
The industrial manufacture of the first analytical instruments in the world began in Jena, in the optical workshop of Carl Zeiss, founded in 1846. Carl Zeiss launched the world’s first spectrometer in 1874; Ernst Abbe had provided the scientific basis for producing optical measuring instruments effectively.
Analytik Jena was founded in spring 1990 during the time of German reunification as a sales company, and, with commercial register number 27, was one of the first companies founded in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin wall. With capital of 6,000 East German marks, today’s Executive Board members Klaus Berka and Jens Adomat, together with Walter Maul, who left at the end of 1990, started Analytik Jena GmbH initially as a ‘sales company for analytical instruments’. The acquisition of lab analysis technology from Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH in December 1995 represented a turning point and, from then on, Analytik Jena acted as a developer, manufacturer and provider of innovative high-tech products, with which the Company has been able to survive and grow in the face of competition from large corporations in the global market. Today, Analytik Jena products are used in more than 120 countries around the world. The Group currently employees more than 900 people and aims to achieve an annual revenue in excess of EUR 100.0 million for the current financial year.
Foto material is available for download at http://www.analytik-jena.de/en/company/press/downloads.html.
