Schneider Electric is hoping to become the global leader in the packaging automation market via a new packaging competence centre that it has created, based on its subsidiary Elau, which already dominates the packaging machinery markets in Germany and Italy.

Norbert Gauss (above), who has been chief executive of Berger Lahr (now called Schneider Electric Motion) since 2005, has succeeded Dr Thomas Cord as CEO of Elau. He aims to make better use of Schneider’s global infrastructure to make Elau the global market leader for motion and logic controls, as well as servo drives, for use in packaging machines.

"Leveraging the possibilities of a major global group more intensively is our chance to internationalise Elau’s OEM business more aggressively and, above all, faster," he says.

Elau’s sales grew from €40m in 2004 to €63m last year, based largely on orders from Germany and Italy - the world leaders in packaging machinery engineering. Schneider hopes that under Gauss, Elau will strengthen its grip on these markets even further, as well as expanding into largely untapped markets such as the US and Asia.