Type Aktiengesellschaft Services Glass Manufacturing Founder Otto Schott Parent organization Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung | Industry Glass Headquarters Mainz, Germany Founded 1884 | |
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Key people Dr. Frank Heinricht
(Chairman of the Management Board) Number of employees 15,000 in 35 countries, 5,200 of whom in Germany (2014/15) Website Schott AG Official Company Website Revenue 1.93 billion EUR (2014–2015) Subsidiaries SCHOTT Nexterion AG, Schott Kaisha Pvt Ltd Profiles | ||
Schott AG is an international manufacturing group of glass and glass-ceramics. The company is headquartered in Mainz, Germany and employs approximately 15,000 people worldwide. All shares of Schott AG are solely held by the Carl Zeiss Foundation. The company reported sales worth 1.93 billion Euros in its fiscal year 2014/2015.
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History
In 1884, the glass chemist Otto Schott partnered with the congenial Ernst Abbe, Carl Zeiss and his son Roderich Zeiss, founded the Glastechnisches Laboratorium Schott & Genossen, which would later become Jenaer Glaswerke Schott & Genossen and then Schott AG.
Erich Schott, the son of the company founder, took over the management of the plant in 1927. The company suffered a severe blow at the end of World War II, when American troops brought its management and select experts over to West Germany. After the main production plant in Jena was expropriated, Erich Schott opened a new plant in Mainz, the company's current headquarters, in 1952.
During Germany's division, there were two independent companies: the VEB Jenaer Glaswerk at the historic site, which would later be integrated into the combine VEB Carl Zeiss Jena, and the glassworks in Mainz that traded under the name Jenaer Glaswerk Schott & Gen. After the close cooperation of the two glassworks in the first years following World War II had been cancelled by the GDR in 1953, a dispute arose over the use of company names and its logo, a square with a circle and the words Jena Glass with a superscript "er,". The two parties finally reached an agreement in 1981, which allowed the West German company to use the name "Schott" and the square with a circle, while the East German company was permitted to use the term "Jenaer Glass." After the fall of the inner German border in 1989, the company based in Mainz acquired the East German company in Jena.
Schott Solar
In 2008, Schott announced that it planned to produce crystalline photovoltaic cells and modules with a total of 450 MW annually. It also planned to produce thin-film PV wafers with a capacity of 100 MW. In 2009, the company inaugurated a US$100 million solar manufacturing facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA to build receivers for concentrated solar thermal power plants (CSP) and 64 MW of photovoltaic modules. They had already been making 15 MW of photovoltaics annually in Billerica, Massachusetts, until the factory was closed in 2009. The In June 2012, Schott announced that its Albuquerque plant would close down, laying off all photovoltaic cell manufacturing employees immediately and ramping down the remaining employees over the rest of the summer. The company started operating in China since 2011, with a large production.