Area served Worldwide Website www.mennekes.de Founded 1935 | Number of employees 800 worldwide Headquarters Kirchhundem, Germany Type of business GmbH & Co. KG | |
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Key people Walter Mennekes, Volker Lazzaro, Andreas Sprecker Products Industrial plugs and connectors Net income In the last financial year 2009 the MENNEKES-group generated consolidated revenue of about 100 Million Euros | ||
Mennekes Elektrotechnik GmbH & Co. KG is a leading manufacturer of industrial plugs and connectors with headquarters in Kirchhundem/Sauerland region and in Neudorf/Erzgebirge.
The Mennekes company was founded in 1935 when Aloys Mennekes received the master craftsmen senior electrician certificate and set up his own business. Today Mennekes has over 800 employees worldwide and generates a consolidated revenue of about €100 million. The company's headquarters are still in Kirchhundem in the south of Sauerland with additional factories in Neudorf/Erzgebirge (Sehmatal community) and Nanjing (China). Mennekes has 16 offices in Germany, 80 offices worldwide and a number of international co-operations. The owner and current managing director is Walter Mennekes who is also board member of the Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie .
The roots of the factory business live in the "Glühauf" invention (a wall-mounted lighter) made after the war that allowed to open the first manufacturing factory in 1948. Shortly later in 1951 an aluminium casting metalworks was added, which functioned as foundation of a fabric that nowadays manufactures over 11,000 different products – including all standardized plugs and various industrial variants.
Mennekes connector
Although being a well known producer in the industrial sector for decades, the Mennekes company became better known to general public for their compliant Electric vehicle car recharging connector developed by Mennekes with requirements from RWE and Daimler. Mennekes had a background in the design of charging couplers based on the IEC 60309 standard (CEEform plugs) including variants like the CEEplus that included additional signal wires. During the initial presentations in 2009 the new connector had been referenced after its creator and only manufacturer as the "Mennekes design" plug. The actual specification was published formally by VDE in the VDE-AR-E 2623-2-2 publication. Two years later the specification was taken over by the international IEC 62196 as "Type 2" connector but the original nickname is kept in informal conversations. As the term Mennekes Connector is ambiguous Mennekes itself uses the term in press coverage along with a clarification as "Type 2"
With the introduction of the first electric cars in the UK they were initially able to connect to the electricity grid with using a 3-pin domestic socket or a "Type 1" connection as it was developed in the USA as SAE J1772. The ACEA (organisation of European automobile makers) however settled on the "Type 2" connector that allows access to the 3-phase power grid. The UK Department for Transport agreed with the position and funding for charging stations favours the Type 2 connector. Many charging point manufacturers are beginning to include a "Type 2 Mode 3" (Mennekes type) socket in addition to a domestic 3-pin socket on their products.