About elektrotechnik

elektrotechnik

elektrotechnik — styled elektrotechnik AUTOMATISIERUNG — is the Vogel Communications Group's specialist medium for automation technology, published from Würzburg with editorial offices in Munich and Würzburg. Founded in the autumn of 1918, it is one of the oldest electrotechnical journals in the world, having documented more than a century of industrial transformation from early electrification through the electronics age to Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things — a publishing longevity few technical journals anywhere can match. Addressing the manufacturing and process industries as well as building automation and mobile automation, it covers the entire value chain of automation technology for the engineers, planners, and managers who specify, purchase, and implement it.

Overview

elektrotechnik AUTOMATISIERUNG is a trade medium for automation technology in the manufacturing and process industries, building automation, and mobile automation. Its readers are the people and organizational units who procure and implement automation components and systems, who plan projects and realize solutions: design engineers, planners and project engineers, operations and production engineers, purchasers and service providers, and technical management in factory, process, and building automation.

The editorial concept follows the complete product lifecycle: reporting on new technologies and services, presenting their application possibilities, operating conditions, and improvement potentials, and above all demonstrating the practical utility of new developments for operational practice — the requirements and changes they bring for the user, and all other aspects influencing the deployment of automation processes. The magazine accompanies the technical-trend discussion with background information and fosters dialogue between automation-solution providers and users from factory, building, and process automation.

The publication appears several times yearly with additional special issues — historically nine issues per year plus specials, with the 2026 listing showing five issues per year — and maintains the web portal elektrotechnik.vogel.de (also reachable as elektrotechnik.de) with daily industry news. Distributed circulation was reported at 20,241 copies (IVW Q2/2019). The magazine celebrated its centenary with a "Meilenstein" (milestone) series honoring pioneering companies of electrical automation — twelve portraits of the firms that built the automated factory.

History

The journal was founded in the autumn of 1918 — in the final months of the First World War — and its first issues appeared in 1919. Few technical publications can claim such continuity: elektrotechnik has documented the electrification of industry, the rise of control engineering, the arrival of electronics and programmable controllers, and the digital transformation of manufacturing — a front-row seat to the entire history of industrial automation. The "100 Jahre elektrotechnik" milestone series, produced with publisher Bernd Weinig, honored twelve pioneering companies as pathfinders to individualized products, flexible value networks, and the automation of tomorrow — a retrospective that doubled as a statement of the title's institutional memory.

The Vogel connection defines the modern era. The Würzburg publishing house — which described itself in 1933 as Germany's largest specialist-magazine publisher — made elektrotechnik a cornerstone of its automation coverage. In 1966, Elektronikpraxis was founded in West Germany as the journal's sister publication, extending the Vogel electronics portfolio into professional electronics while elektrotechnik kept its automation focus. The two titles have coexisted ever since as complementary specialist media, together covering the electrical-engineering professions from the component to the automated factory.

The digital age brought the web portal and the thematic reorientation toward Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things — concepts the magazine covers as forces dissolving the classical automation pyramid. Editorial leadership was most recently reported with Ute Drescher taking over as editor-in-chief in November 2022; Drescher had led the Konstruktionspraxis brand since 2014 and had already headed elektrotechnik on an interim basis since 2020, bringing deep automation editorial experience to the centenarian title. CEO Matthias Bauer framed the appointment as following the growing importance of automation and digitalization for industrial transformation.

Coverage and Content

The coverage spans the automation value chain in mechanical and plant engineering and other producing industries. Drive technology — motors, drives, motion control — forms a traditional core, alongside measurement, control, and regulation technologies and their components: the classical disciplines of automation that the journal has covered since long before the term "mechatronics" existed. The magazine reports on new automation products and systems with emphasis on concrete application: operating conditions, integration requirements, and the practical benefit for the user's operation.

Industry 4.0 and IoT coverage addresses the digitalization of automation: networked production, data-driven maintenance, edge computing, and the cybersecurity of industrial systems — the technologies dissolving the classical automation pyramid the journal documented for most of its history. Building-automation coverage follows the intelligent building — HVAC control, lighting, energy management — while mobile-automation coverage addresses automation on vehicles and mobile machinery. Trend and industry-development coverage provides the background: market analyses, company strategies, and the structural changes reshaping automation suppliers and users in an era of consolidation and digital disruption.

The dialogue function is explicit in the editorial concept: the magazine fosters exchange between providers of automation solutions and users from factory, building, and process automation — through interviews, discussion formats, and event-related coverage. This matchmaking role is one of the title's oldest functions: the trade journal as the marketplace of ideas where suppliers and users meet. Special issues dive deep into focus topics, and the milestone series demonstrated the title's capacity for historical journalism, honoring the pioneers whose innovations built the automated present.

Organization and Ownership

elektrotechnik is published by the Vogel Communications Group GmbH & Co. KG, Würzburg — one of Germany's leading specialist-communication providers, with around 790 employees, revenues of about 104 million euros (2021), and a portfolio of over 100 print media, web portals, and business events across some 20 companies and participations in twelve countries. The magazine maintains editorial offices in Munich and Würzburg.

The editor-in-chief is Ute Drescher (since November 2022, interim since 2020), previously editor-in-chief of Konstruktionspraxis. Earlier editorial leadership included Ines Stotz as reported in reference sources. The annual domestic subscription was listed at 114.90 euros (2026 listing), with subscription servicing through the Verlag Dr. Otto Schmidt KG customer service in Düsseldorf. Circulation was last reported at 20,241 distributed copies (IVW Q2/2019); current figures are not publicly confirmed. Financial details of the publication are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The web portal elektrotechnik.vogel.de (elektrotechnik.de) reports daily on industry trends, new products, and technical applications in automation — the continuous news layer beneath the print magazine's curated issues. The portal's daily rhythm serves the automation professional who needs to know about a product launch or market move today, while the print issues provide the in-depth technical treatment and the lifecycle perspective.

For a century-old B2B medium, the digital strategy follows the established Vogel pattern: the website as the always-on news service, the print magazine as the authoritative periodic briefing, and the publisher's event business as the physical forum where the provider-user dialogue the magazine fosters takes place in person. The milestone centenary series demonstrated the brand's digital storytelling capacity, presenting the pioneers of electrical automation in a multimedia format that connected the journal's deep archive with contemporary web presentation. In an industry where the automation decision determines a factory's competitiveness for decades, elektrotechnik's combination of century-deep institutional memory and daily digital currency gives it a distinctive position — the journal that has documented every wave of industrial automation since 1918, from the first motor starters to the networked smart factory, and continues to document the current one.