How STOBER Germany Made Complex Drive Sizing Faster, More Efficient, and Easier to Communicate to Customers

Sep 27, 2026

How SERVOsoft helps STOBER Germany manage complex servo applications, respond faster to customers, optimize drive selection, and strengthen engineering confidence.

Customer Overview

Company STOBER
Industry Industrial Automation & Drive Technology
Headquarters Pforzheim, Germany
Products Servo gearboxes, motors, drive controllers, inverters, and complete drive systems
Customer Perspectives   Frank Schaefer and Lothar Berger, STOBER Germany


STOBER is a global manufacturer of precision drive and automation technology. As customer applications have become more complex, its engineers must evaluate increasingly sophisticated motion profiles, thermal requirements, multi-axis systems, and energy-management scenarios while continuing to provide fast, accurate recommendations. SERVOsoft helps STOBER perform this work more efficiently by bringing drive-system analysis, product selection, and engineering documentation into a common environment.

The Challenge

STOBER historically relied on internally developed Excel tools and manual engineering calculations for drive sizing.

As applications became more sophisticated, these methods became increasingly difficult to use efficiently. Crank mechanisms, complex motion profiles, multi-axis systems, and common DC-bus energy management required more advanced analysis.

STOBER needed a solution that could help engineers:

  • Model mechanical systems and motion profiles
  • Calculate torque, speed, inertia, and dynamic loads
  • Verify peak and thermal requirements
  • Size motors, gearboxes, and drive controllers
  • Analyze multi-axis systems using a shared DC-bus
  • Compare alternative products
  • Produce professional customer documentation

Why SERVOsoft?

SERVOsoft combines mechanical, electrical, thermal, and motion calculations within a single engineering environment.

Engineers can model complete drive systems rather than sizing components independently, including gearboxes, motors, drive controllers, power supplies, braking resistors on a shared DC bus.

For complex applications, SERVOsoft also supports defined laws of motion and the import of measured motion-profile data.

Complex Motion and Multi-Axis Analysis

Applications such as crank mechanisms create changing torque, speed, and force requirements throughout the machine cycle. SERVOsoft provides a structured way to model these behaviours and calculate the resulting drive requirements.

For multi-axis systems, it can analyze how axes consume and regenerate energy at different points in the cycle and help size shared power supplies and braking resistors.

Competitive Product Evaluation

Where sufficient product data is available, SERVOsoft can also model products from multiple manufacturers.

This allows STOBER to recreate a customer's existing configuration, evaluate how the current equipment is being used, and compare it with an appropriate STOBER alternative using the same application requirements.

Results

Faster Customer Response

SERVOsoft enables STOBER to complete complex drive-sizing work considerably faster.

Frank Schaefer estimates that response time for this type of application engineering has been approximately halved, allowing STOBER to provide detailed recommendations more quickly.

Greater Engineering Efficiency

SERVOsoft does not replace engineering expertise. It helps engineers apply that expertise more efficiently by reducing reliance on separate spreadsheets and manual calculations.

More Economical Drive Selection

More precise calculations give engineers greater confidence in matching components to actual application requirements.

Rather than adding unnecessary sizing margin because of uncertainty, STOBER can more accurately right-size motors, gearboxes, and drives while maintaining the required performance.

Better Handling of Complex Applications

SERVOsoft becomes increasingly valuable as application complexity increases.

Crank mechanisms, changing motion profiles, thermal constraints, multi-axis systems on a shared DC bus can all be evaluated within a structured sizing process.

Stronger Customer Confidence

SERVOsoft provides professional documentation showing how an application was modelled, what operating conditions were evaluated, which products were considered, and how the final selection was reached.

This gives customers greater visibility into the engineering behind STOBER's recommendations.
As Lothar Berger explains:

“It definitely helps to prove that STOBER is a competent supplier.”

SERVOsoft is also used during customer demonstrations and partner training, allowing STOBER to show the inputs, calculations, product alternatives, and resulting system performance rather than presenting only a final part number.

Business Impact

SERVOsoft helps STOBER:

  • Respond faster to customer sizing requests
  • Handle increasingly complex applications efficiently
  • Select more economical, appropriately sized products
  • Evaluate competitive alternatives on an engineering basis
  • Produce professional technical documentation
  • Demonstrate engineering competence to customers and partners
  • Strengthen customer confidence and relationships

Opportunities for Continued Development

STOBER has also identified opportunities for further improvement, including expanded product databases, side-by-side product comparisons, automated motor and gearbox recommendations, multi-cycle analysis, automated multi-axis worst-case alignment, price-based optimization, and cable selection.

The Bottom Line

As servo applications have become more complex, STOBER's engineering process has evolved from spreadsheets and manual calculations toward a comprehensive digital sizing environment.

SERVOsoft helps STOBER combine sophisticated system analysis with faster customer response, greater engineering efficiency, more economical product selection, and professional documentation.

For Frank, a key benefit is the efficiency with which engineers can handle complex applications. For Lothar, the value also extends to competitive evaluation, training, documentation, and customer demonstrations.

Together, these capabilities help STOBER not only determine whether a drive system will work, but also demonstrate why the selected solution is appropriate and give customers greater confidence in the engineering behind it.

Customer Quotes

“Application engineering still consumes a lot of resources because it's part of our business. But thanks to SERVOsoft, it has become much more efficient. I think the response time has been halved.”

— Frank Schaefer, STOBER Germany
   

“SERVOsoft definitely helps to prove that STOBER is a competent supplier. It's a nice tool to document the selection, and the customer has confidence that the choice is good.”

— Lothar Berger, STOBER Germany