“Energy, style and enthusiasm”: this is the meaning of “élan” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. But if we admit it, this meaning was not of prime importance when the company was founded. Rather the name was the abbreviation for “ELektrische ANtriebe” (electrical drives), an area of specialisation that no longer occupies Elan Schaltelemente today.

But the term “élan” continues to be lived, meaning that Elan’s employees go about their work with “energy, style and enthusiasm” and exhibit the typical virtues of a medium-sized company, namely a high level of flexibility, short decision-making paths and fast reaction times. The large number of innovations shows that these virtues have also been systematically put into practice: the technical features of switchgear, which have become established equipment over the course of time, were not seldom to be found first in Elan devices. As a consequence, we only work systematically on developing and producing devices that set themselves apart from the standard in terms of mechanical, electrical and functional features. This is why the user will only be able to find much of the switchgear with special properties or for special applications from us.

The benefit to the customer and to the end user of machines and plants is of prime importance to us in all processes within the company and in joint development projects. This applies to the development of new products and to the advice given to customers when integrating operating and safety systems into machine and plant. There is a clear objective behind this approach: our products and systems are intended to lead to higher productivity, economic efficiency and a high level of safety of production processes. In this way our customers are given advantages over the competition.