Three friends

It all began in a tiny one-room apartment on the ground floor in January 1990. Three young engineers did not want to wait any longer for “flourishing landscapes” and handed in their notice to the (still) existing VEW Kombinat in Chemnitz. This was an unusual occurrence considering the circumstances of East Germany and especially in those times of uncertainty. The “form of organisation” of that time would today be called engineering office. The economy of scarcity (also in the service sector) helped to fill the order books quickly, in particular of the textile industry. The development and implementation of special solutions by means of store-programmed controls were the main tasks.

The years of travel

The monetary union of July 1990 changed the situation suddenly. All orders were cancelled and there were no new ones in return. This is why the three friends tried their luck in the old West German federal states. One of the friends rode with his Trabi to the north-western region, one of them went to the West and the last of them went south-westwards. They slept in their cars or at other convenient places. The main goal of those times was to update the technical and theoretical knowledge. They succeeded in obtaining their goals and met in summer 1991 at the company DÜRR® in the electrical production in Markgröningen, near Stuttgart.

FLEXIVA was born

The then production manager was very impressed by the commitment, hard work and skills of those engineers and asked “if there were more of them in East Germany”. The result was that more employees were employed, all working in Markgröningen. Not only engineers but also well-trained and committed skilled workers were needed. In a few months, there were about 15 employees and the msr-soft GmbH, the precursory company of FLEXIVA, was launched, which became the FLEXIVA in 1995.

FLEXIVA grows up

The first object was acquired in Dittersdorf in 1991 and expanded by credit. In an area of about 250 sqm was enough space for 30 employees to construct and build control cabinets. In 1998, the management decided to buy an old hosiery factory in the same place. Again a basic restoration was required. But with 1026 sqm, the area had been tripled. The fields of software and robot programming were established. In 2015 FLEXIVA built a new production facility with about 3000 square meters. Today FLEXIVA has about 90 employees and has a subsidiary in Darmstadt.