SimPlan celebrates its 30th anniversary – from start-up to industry leader

Founded in 1992 by Dirk Wortmann, Sven Spieckerman and Roman Wortmann, SimPlan AG today looks back on a success story. What began with two employees has now grown into a group of companies with 120 employees. With ten locations in Germany as well as locations in Austria and a sales office in China, SimPlan is the markt leader in the field of services related to process and material flow simulation and distributes numerous simulation systems as a manufacturer-independent provider.

Started as a GmbH (limited liability company), SimPlan changed its legal form to a stock corporation in 2000. In 2001, SimPlan AG founded its first subsidiary, SimPlan Integrations, based in Witten. In the following years, additional locations were added in Braunschweig, Regensburg, Munich, Holzgerlingen, Dresden, Bremen, Austria and a sales office in Shanghai (China). SimPlan offers services in the areas of production and logistics optimization, supply chain analysis, digital twins, virtual commissioning, value stream mapping and process mining.

In 2004, SimPlan AG, through its participation in Indusim in Langenau, expanded its portfolio to include dynamic multi-body simulation, kinematic simulation, finite element calculations (FEM), flow simulation and injection molding simulation.

With the foundation of the subsidiary SimPlan Systems, the company consolidated its software development capacities in 2012. The range of solutions offered by SimPlan Systems extends from web applications and desktop applications to mobile applications for smartphones.

In addition to simulation systems from suppliers such as Siemens AG, Rockwell Automation or Anylogic, SimPlan AG also has numerous in-house developments in its portfolio:

• SimVSM        App for value stream mapping
• SimQueue     App for the design of buffer sizes
• SimAssist      Tool for data analysis
• SimPath        Process Mining Tool

With a steady growth of 5 – 10% annually over the last 30 years, SimPlan AG has developed continuously and exceeded the € 10 million mark in sales for the first time in 2021. Further growth is also planned for the current year 2022 and for the following years. The turnover of all companies in the SimPlan Group now amounts to more than € 15 million.

Having started with one project, SimPlan AG now handles an average of 500 projects per year. Around 100 simulation specialists work for the SimPlan Group. The range of customers is enormous. From all German automobile manufacturers, the automotive supply industry, mechanical engineering, trade, logistics companies and airports to healthcare facilities and hospitals.

In addition, SimPlan AG has been able to develop into an important player in the academic sector in the field of simulation. Several employees are active as lecturers at different universities. The simulation specialists of the SimPlan Group are sought-after partners in regional, national but also European research projects. In these projects, SimPlan AG deals with future-oriented topics, including how simulation can complement artificial intelligence, sheds light on autonomous driving or simulates scenarios for CO2 neutrality. The variety of application areas for simulation continues to increase. At the same time, the topics are just as current as they were 30 years ago.