We at EQUIcon are a team of professionals, technology enthusiasts and specialists for individual and demanding software solutions. We love bringing complex processes and technical systems to life with our expertise.
Founded in 1992 by eleven highly motivated developers from Jena, we are today a company with 45 employees, around 85% of whom hold a university degree in mathematics, physics or computer science. This scientific foundation enables us to solve problems with our software that not everyone can solve.
We don’t just write code — above all, we love immersing ourselves deeply in the specialist topics of our customers. To do this, we analyse and structure complex relationships and tackle the tasks derived from them.
Our expertise spans a wide range of technologies, working methods and approaches that we continually combine with one another as a team. This allows us to find new solutions time and again — for precisely tailored systems that work reliably.
Certified to ISO 9001
EQUIcon’s quality management system was first certified to ISO 9001 in 2004. Since then, the certification has been continuously maintained through annual surveillance audits and re-certifications, most recently in accordance with the ISO 9001:2015 standard.
Management
Frank Thierbach
Martin Sülzle
Ronny Arnold
History & Milestones
The collaboration between the future founders of EQUIcon Software GmbH Jena (at the time still employees of the Department of Mathematics at Friedrich Schiller University Jena) and the then VEB Carl Zeiss Jena begins. Together, we develop the algorithms and software for the ZBA 10 device, the world’s first commercially available electron beam exposure system with a variable shaped beam.
Eleven mathematicians and physicists from the ZBA software development team found EQUIcon Software GmbH Jena and simultaneously become employees of the company. The name EQUIcon is derived from the first and to this day most important business area: “Software for Device Control – Equipment Control.” The most important client initially is Jenoptik GmbH, which has in the meantime taken over the electron beam exposure systems business, only to pass it on to Leica Lithography Systeme Jena GmbH. Today this business area belongs to Vistec Electron Beam GmbH.
Three new business areas have been added to the original software development services: virtualisation of classic computer systems, systems programming/device drivers, and software for logistics applications. EQUIcon achieves a turnover of (converted) over one million euros for the first time and now has customers in the Jena region, throughout Germany (e.g. H. Stoll GmbH & Co. KG in Reutlingen, Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt in Braunschweig) as well as in other European countries (e.g. Ferrari in Maranello, Italy, CNRS in Paris, France) and the USA (e.g. NASA).
Our first own company building at Konrad-Zuse-Straße 2 in Jena-Göschwitz is completed, initially with two floors.
Since 1998, we have been working with the newly founded Carl Zeiss Jena GmbH (established after 1990), initially in the area of laboratory automation for users in the pharmaceutical industry. This business area is today continued by PerkinElmer. EQUIcon has steadily expanded its activities in this field ever since.
Eight years after its founding, the EQUIcon team has grown to around 20 employees and we achieve a turnover of over two million euros for the first time.
We put EQ-Sped into operation for the first time — software we developed for ILN (International Logistic Network), one of the major freight forwarding cooperatives in Germany and Europe. EQ-Sped handles, among other things, the creation, management and distribution of the information required for processing shipments to all companies involved in transporting a consignment. Later, the cooperatives CargoSystem (which has since ceased operations) and GEL would also use EQ-Sped fully or in part. To manage the software operations and commercial processing, the subsidiary “EQUIcon Service GmbH” was founded in 2000, along with a high-availability data centre that we have continuously expanded.
EQUIcon’s quality management system was first certified to ISO 9000 in 2004. Since then, the certification has been continuously maintained through annual surveillance audits and re-certifications, most recently in accordance with the ISO 9001:2015 standard.
EQUIcon now employs a total of around 30 staff; collaboration with new regional and supra-regional partners (including various Zeiss companies, Cross Match Technologies and Q-Cells) further increases revenue.
We deliver the first ePLACE software packages to our customers. ePLACE is a data conversion software for operators of electron beam exposure systems and is developed and marketed in cooperation with Vistec and the Fraunhofer IPMS.
With niceLAB and EQ-Sped.cargo, two further software products are made available for their respective markets. EQUIcon now offers a balanced mix of services and software products across all business areas, which together form the foundation for further growth of the EQUIcon group, which now employs over 40 people.
On 1 January 2020, sim cargo GmbH — emerging from the freight forwarding cooperatives ILN and S.T.a.R — commences operations. Just as in the past for ILN, EQUIcon has accompanied the merger as an IT service provider using the EQ-Sped software and continues to ensure operational support for sim cargo.
After nearly 30 years of company history, EQUIcon — now grown to around 50 employees — has undergone a generational transition in various areas. The majority of founding-generation employees have handed over their responsibilities to younger colleagues in order to continue serving our customers seamlessly and with the same quality as before. As part of this process, a change of management took effect on 1 July 2021. The management, previously consisting of Dr. Reinhard Galler, Dr. Klaus Krönert and Dr. Bernd Papenfuß, has now passed to long-standing EQUIcon employees Ronny Arnold, Martin Sülzle and Frank Thierbach.
Regional and Social Commitment
Sponsor of the Ronald McDonald House Jena
The Ronald McDonald House Jena has been providing families of seriously ill children with a temporary home since 1992. This includes eleven apartments where the families of the children can find a place to retreat and recover during the treatment period. For several years, we have been sponsors of one of these parent apartments and would like to give affected families a space for courage and hope.
Sponsors of the Germany Scholarship
At Friedrich Schiller University Jena, we have been supporting students annually with the Germany Scholarship for over ten years. In addition to taking academic performance into account, this scholarship is primarily intended to support those who undertake voluntary work alongside their studies or who come from a particular social or family background.
Sponsor of the FSU Jena Physics Ball
The Physics Ball is the faculty ball organised by the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Jena, with a 70-year tradition. As well as the festive atmosphere, it features a stage programme with theatre, cabaret and physics-themed highlights for students, teaching staff and alumni, as well as guests from the worlds of politics, business and other faculties. We support this ball as a sponsor.
Our Networks and Partners
We are members of OptoNet e.V. Photonics Network Thuringia, the Software Alliance Germany, and the SiLA Consortium (Association Consortium Standardization in Lab Automation). We are actively involved in all of these networks in order to advance innovative technologies, create cross-industry synergies and develop new standards for the future.
