The year 2019 is of special importance to Werum Software & Systems AG as the company, which commenced as "Entwicklungsbüro Wulf Werum", is celebrating its 50th anniversary!

After Wulf Werum's untimely death in 1982, Hartmut Krome and Dr Hans Windauer founded the company "Werum Datenverarbeitungssysteme GmbH" together with the then employees and successfully expanded the business over time. In 2001, the company's legal status was changed into the privately held stock company "Werum Software & Systems AG". The motives for this change were to facilitate share ownership for employees and to simplify succession planning for the main shareholders.

In 2013, the two major business units existing at that time were split up to become separate companies. The business unit which had specialized in solutions for pharmaceutical and biotech industry became Werum IT Solutions GmbH and merged into the Körber Group.

Werum Software & Systems AG continued their business activities in the area of supporting customer-specific processes focusing on test data and information management, earth observation, eGovernment and Enterprise Information Management. The company is still owned by its employees and independent in terms of technology and finances.

Punch cards and customer computing times

The company's beginnings were at a time when today's internet, smartphones or autonomous driving were yet unheard of. The technical and organizational challenges of that time among others were to reserve computing times on the customers' on-site servers and to store and read out programs by means of punch cards.

Realtime systems and integration

The software industry, however, experienced thriving development during the 70s and 80s – just like Werum. The development of a PEARL Compiler for the realtime and multitasking programming language PEARL and of the realtime database system BAPAS-DB in combination with a programming interface for application-independent data viewing and data storage were some of the company's most important milestones. Innovations like this made it possible in the area of automation to break away from application and machine specific programming, to speed up data processing and to integrate functions without a need for additional interfaces. So, Werum was even then able to design software for exotic, specialized realtime operating systems like Lynx or SORIX and to integrate external systems with their own software.

Next to innovations in the sphere of automation, software development for public administration has also been playing an important role ever since the 70s. The result is a long-standing and stable partnership with the German Federal Statistical Office. To this day, Werum designs and maintains tools and applications for the Federal Statistical Office and various State Offices.

Architectures in the course of time

During the 90s, the software systems by Werum – among them BAPAS-DB, specific process management systems and data processing systems tailored to meet individual customer requirements – were used in various industries, such as the automotive or pharmaceutical and biotech industry, as well as by scientific institutes and public authorities.

A special highlight was in 1993 when BAPAS-DB was employed in the second German Spacelab mission. Even then Werum was aware of the necessity of and the potential for flexible, open software architectures and, focusing on integrated systems, encouraged the software development trend to go from closed to open architectures and to use open source software. Driven by this vision, Werum implemented first solutions for research vessels and large-scale test facilities towards the end of the 90s.

Platform-based solutions

In the course of the 2000s, platform-based software solutions for various fields of applications resulted from those first approaches.

The Wind Tunnel Control System WTCS was developed to integrate the different systems applied in wind tunnels and to automate the workflows. Based on this platform, Werum has implemented control systems for the wind tunnel centers of Audi, BMW and other renowned car manufacturers.

Especially for the purpose of supporting the test activities in development and production, the HyperTest platform was designed. Among the customers employing solutions based on this platform are the German Aerospace Center (DLR), car manufacturers like Volkswagen and Audi as well as white goods manufacturers like Miele.

For the administration of data and information from satellite-based earth observation and the management of the processing chains for data processing, the Data and Information Management System DIMS-EO was devised. Using this platform as a basis, Werum has designed solutions for various satellite missions, among them TerraSAR, Tandem-X and some of the Sentinels.

The scientific data and information management system DSHIP was designed to satisfy the need of collecting and distributing the data produced on research vessels, aircrafts and stationary stations. DSHIP meanwhile is employed on most of the German and a number of international research vessels.

Customizing with an eye toward the future

All our developments are and have always been inspired by Werum's self-concept of offering their customers solutions that are cost-efficient and yet tailored to their specific needs. And to be a partner to their customers who supports them in achieving their goals. Accordingly, topical and imminent issues of increasing importance for our customers have always been and are considered in developing new platforms and continuously advancing the existing ones.

Together with our customers, we are presently working on anticipating their particular requirements and needs arising from topics like "Industry 4.0", "Internet of Things", "Cloud" or "Mobile First" and to develop adequate solution concepts. In this context, we are delving into "Big Data" analyses, "Data Science", "Machine Learning" and "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) in order to utilize latest technological possibilities and to enhance our platforms by adding expedient functions. That way, we are able to provide our customers with beneficial, contemporary solutions and ideas today and in the future.

The foundation of success

All of Werum's success and its long history rest on our customers' confidence in our work and on the dedication of our employees. We are deeply grateful for that and appreciate the commitment. Throughout all this time and even under difficult conditions, it has always been the spirit of collaboration guided by mutual trust, solidarity and respect that pervaded the climate, and it is the appreciation of individuals and their achievements together with a distinct conception of service and partnership that has always been at the heart.

This is the foundation for Werum to continue standing at their customers' and partners' side with passion and enthusiasm and to be a trustworthy and reliable partner in tackling the future's challenges.