Quality and its history
In 1988 Peter Kessler designed his first monochrome camera system in his cellar in Sonthofen and founded the iPEK Kessler GmbH.
In 1990, together with his former colleague Manfred Baral, Peter Kessler founded iPEK Spezial-TV GesmbH & Co. KG in Riezlem (Kleinwalsertal).
In 1991/1992 iPEK employed nine people and first unveiled its products at the Entsorga exhibition in Essen. It made its first contact with customers in the USA.
In 1993/1994 it lounches its first standard colour portable systems. At the Entsorga event in Cologne iPEK celebrated its first success with its SK80 Pan & Tilt camera.
In 1995 iPEK moved into larger premises in Hirschegg. By this time the company held 20 employees and an annual turnover of DM 2.5 million.
In 1996/1997 the Portable System was supplemented with a crawler and a removable control desk.
In 1999 iPEK had a workforce of 26 and was manufacturing around 200 color portable systems per year, which it sold to customers in 13 countries. Its annual turnover by this time had risen to almost DM 8 million.
In 2001/2002 the SUPERVISION® system was unveiled to the general public for the first time. The DigiSewer® saw a completely new type of sewer TV inspection system launched on the market. Sales and service outlets were opened in Great Britain, Spain, Mexico, Japan, Hong Kong and Greece whilst sales in the USA and Canada were taken over by its partner Envirosight . Turnover topped the 5 million euro mark for the first time.
In 2003 the first ROVVER® systems were supplied to customers in Japan and Hong Kong, whilst sales and service in Ireland were taken over by Fernie Technical Services.
2004 saw the delivery of the company's 1,500th SK Pan & Tilt Camero SK80. The first borehole cameras offering pressure resistance of up to 50 bar were supplied. Peter Kessler left the company and Manfred Baral became the sole Managing Director.
In 2005 Sven Breitenfeld took up the position of Marketing and Sales Manager. The year finished with a record turnover of over 8 million euro.
2006 became the most successful year in the history of iPEK. Our turnover expanded for about 40%, we launched the SVR140 that completed the SUPERVISION® System. The Launch of the camera head RC90 of the ROVVER® system became the most successful launch ever. Our Team increased up to nearly 70 employees.
2007 was a new year of success at iPEK. We finished the year with nearly 90 people and another increase of 30% in sales. Several new developments, new partner in further countries support our global position being one of the leading CCTV manufacturer in the world.
2008 the year of changes. iPEK started to build a new facility in Kempten/Sulzberg with more than 2500 m² of production and office space. The company joined IDEX to secure future technology and market growth. The Team has 91 people and new products such as AGILIOS™ and SUPERVISION® lateral launch system got launched and underline the technology leading market influence of iPEK. We close the year with almost 17 Mio. € revenue.
2009 was the year of the team. Also iPEK was affected by the international crisis, but thanks to our strong global partner network and our international sales structure, the year went reasonable well. Said that, we have been even better after the first two quarters, when the new products AGILIOS™, the EX proof systems and the VisionReport Software started their success story and covered the impact of the earlier year. In some countries, such as Germany and Norway, our partner from the German Alliance and Vulkan in Norway grown double digit percentage and have been even more successful than 2008. All in all we had a good year and at the end of 2009 we finished with the highest order book value in our entire company history. Thanks for your trust and thanks to our partners and customers!
2010 was an easy start due to a comfortable order book from 2009. New products such as DigiSewer Mark III, SUPERVISION® SAT unit with wider range, WinCan integration in VisionReport and the new ROVVER® RCS80 camera with better illumination and short housing helped to forget the 2009 crisis. The AGILIOS® was our bestseller in 2010 and with the guiding support and the VisionReport Software we have been able to sell more than 350 units since april this year. Even with all the supplier issues we had (mainly electronically components like other branches in the world had, too), we managed this big amount and got everything much better under control towards the end of the year. The new orders we already have (currently more than 120 units) will be with our customers much faster. Changes in our production, increase of production head count by 10 people and the reorganisation of the supply chain made tremendous changes in lead times.
2010 was the most successful year in the iPEK history. The management is proud on its team that we all together managed these difficult times and that we showed that the effort of a team can is greatly valued. Our partner and customers stayed with us and supported us even at the hardest times with supplier issues and long lead times and we highly appreciate this and thank you all for this!
Today, in 2013, iPEK is a globally active company with a well-established product portfolio. The most recent development towards a system able to meet any pipeline inspection requirements due to its flexible and modular structure makes us confident that iPEK is ready for today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.
