The automotive supplier Preh is expanding its activities in Romania. In future, the German company will develop innovative electronics for control systems in the vehicle interior in the university city of Iași. Since 2009, the company group (app. 7,000 employees worldwide) has already produced and developed switches for multifunction steering wheels as well as climate control systems for well-known automotive suppliers in Brașov.
Operations at the new Preh development location in Iași are to begin in April 2017. A story of some 600 square meters in an office building in the town center of Iași, located at Soseaua Nationala nr. 31, is being fully renovated and adapted to the needs of the new tenant.
In Brașov, Preh is manufacturing with more than 1,000 employees. This is the largest plant of the Preh Group outside Germany. Here the innovative “Touch Control Button” switch systems for the steering wheel of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class and other products are being built. In addition the company has made a name for itself, among other items, with the iDrive Controller as a supplier for BMW and supplies battery management control units for the trendsetting E-vehicles BMW i3 and i8. The customers of Preh include many other internationally renowned automotive manufacturers, including VW, Audi and Porsche.
In Brașov currently some 50 employees are working in Preh development and a further expansion is planned. The additional location in Iași is to grow in parallel to about 60 developers. In future, 40 are to be involved in software development as well as ten in the area of software tests. Another ten specialists are to drive hardware developments forward.
Jochen Ehrenberg, Managing Director for Product Development and Plants (CTO), says: “In parallel with the expansion of our development center in Germany we have decided on Iaşi as the new location for innovative developments in Romania. We will find highly qualified experts for challenging tasks in this university city. We look forward to close cooperation with the Universitatea Tehnica ‘Gheorghe Asachi’ and the Universitatea ‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’ in Iaşi. From this location, too, we want to develop solutions for the automotive future.”
Norbert Bauer, Head of Electronics and Software Development at Preh, adds: “We offer a great variety of many-sided jobs since we will integrate both software development as well as qualified tests of the software and the development of hardware.”
