Effective April 1st, Dr. Alexander Horch became new Head of Development at HIMA Paul Hildebrandt GmbH. In addition to aligning the development organization with customer and market requirements, Dr. Horch will help HIMA continue to consistently develop its safety automation leadership. This includes further developing and integrating functional safety expertise to reflect industry-wide issues such as Industrial Internet, cyber security and the role of human beings in the process industry.
Additionally, Dr. Horch is planning to optimize the development processes with regard to long-term product life cycles, and to tap new application areas that take advantage of HIMA's proven and efficient safety concepts and safety products.
Dr. Horch comes to HIMA from the energy and automation group ABB. From 2007 to 2016, he worked in various management roles in the areas of process control technology and automation of electrical networks, smart grids, and industrial and manufacturing plants, as well as Industrial Internet for ABB Germany and ABB Switzerland. From 2001 to 2007, he worked in the ABB Corporate Research Center Germany as a scientist and project manager specializing in plant optimization and plant asset management in the process industry.
In joining HIMA, Dr. Horch stated, "With its products and solutions, HIMA has set standards for decades. The employees have committed themselves heart and soul to the topic of safety, and this attitude pervades every part of the enterprise. The alignment to such a central theme, optimum opportunities for developmen and HIMA's culture are precisely in line with my ideas."
The new Head of Development is a Certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) of the PMI, and Certified Automation Professional (CAP®) of the ISA. His activity in research and development has been regularly accompanied by committee work, publications and presentations, as well as lectures on automation technology at Stuttgart University and ETH Zürich. Dr. Horch graduated in Engineering Cybernetics from the University of Stuttgart and received a Ph.D. in Process Control from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
"For us as a technology enterprise, development is a central function with a special priority," said Sankar Ramakrishnan, CEO of the HIMA Group. "Dr. Horch will help us make our enterprise sustainable with innovative product developments and solutions," he added.
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