The Baden-Württemberg Minister of Economic Affairs Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut awarded Ursula Ida Lapp the Business Medal of the State of Baden-Württemberg.
Ursula Ida Lapp made German economic history. She founded LAPP group almost 60 years ago and made it to a global player and leader.
LAPP Group and all employees thank her for this great lifework!
The success story of LAPP Group from Stuttgart started in the end of the 50s. Ursula Ida Lapp husband Oskar Lapp was an ingenious inventor and tinkerer. Back then single wires and switching strands had to be manually pulled into the wires. This was very time-consuming. That's why Oskar Lapp developed the first industrially produced, oil-resistant and flexible control cables with colour differentiation of the individual wires. And there was also another innovation: The couple chose a suitable brand name for the invention: ÖLFLEX® - which stands for particularly oil-resistant and flexible wires.
With a capital of 50,000 German mark U.I. LAPP KG was founded back in 1959. The abbreviation U.I. stands for Ursula Ida. In the garage of their home in Stuttgart-Vaihingen the business started. Oskar Lapp visited the companies as sales representative. Ursula Ida Lapp stayed at home, as the three sons were still little. In the evening she wrote advertisement letters and managed the accounting. Often she drove with the cart to the freight yard to label the ordered cables, which were delivered in rings, to immediately send them then.
ÖLFLEX® was the right product at the right time. The Lapp couple set quality standards that are still globally valid in cable production today. LAPP even offered readily produced cables with up to 130 coloured cores. The demand was astounding. Already in 1963 the first own factory was founded in order to produce ÖLFLEX® wires on their own. In 1965 the company headquarter was moved to Schulze-Delitzsch-Straße in Stuttgart-Vainhingen - which is also today still the headquarter of the successful company.
When Oskar Lapp died in 1987 after a long-time heart disease, Ursula Ida Lapp took over the management of the company together with her sons Siegbert and Andreas. The internationalisation was continued under her guidance. LAPP group is nowadays a global leader for integrated solutions in the field of cable and connection technology. The group's product range includes cables and highly flexible wires, industrial plug connectors and screwing technology, customer-specific and standard fabrication solutions, automation technology and robotic solutions for the intelligent factory of tomorrow as well as technical accessories. The core market of LAPP Group is the machinery and plant construction. Further important target industries are the food industry, the energy sector and mobility. In 2016 LAPP Group was awarded with the TOP 100 seal due to its innovative strength.
