Celebrating over 500 patents

OPHARDT Hygiene has recently passed the milestone of being awarded our 500th patent. This is a testament to our focus on research and innovation.

Greatness, engineered

“When my father started this company,” Heiner Ophardt, CEO, reflected recently, “he focussed on solving needs with well-engineered inventions. This continues to be our DNA. We outspend and outperform on R&D compared to companies in the same market segment, because we want to push the hygiene industry forward.”

Our innovations, everywhere

This focus on research and engineering has made OPHARDT Hygiene the experts that organizations and companies work with to improve their dispensers and pumps. A majority of North American commercial sanitizer dispensers use OPHARDT designs or OPHARDT pumps. We believe that our focus on dispensing technology—and not on producing sanitizers or soaps—is what enables us to continuously out-innovate.

From analogue to digital

This focus has made us pioneers time and again. In the 1960s, we developed a dispenser that was the first to reliably dispenser new alcohol-based sanitizers without the leaking and drips that were common at the time. Over ten years ago, we helped pioneer electronic hand hygiene monitoring for healthcare with OHMS (now Kanary).

Our belief that digitalization can cause a seismic shift in hand hygiene is evident in our patents since then. From our innovative use of NFC to quickly configure a fleet of smart dispensers or the use of RFID to ensure that the right product is being used in dispensers, our patents tell a story of an obsessive integration of the newest technologies to solve one of humankind’s oldest problems.

A strong company mission

Heiner Ophardt believes that this our obsession cannot be chalked up to an engineering-first culture; “Our focus on research and development is an expression of our mission to Break the Chain of Infection. This mission helps us pair advanced research with a drive to bring these innovations to market and into people’s hands.”

A bold future

Some of our most exciting projects are ones we cannot talk about, but our continued, rapid pace of patent applications is an indication of great things to come. As Heiner Ophardt shares, while this pace is not without its challenges, it is vital for our future. “Pushing onto new frontiers is rewarding and highly risky. Innovation is for us (OPHARDT) as a family business is the only path of staying relevant and independent.”