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• endrich NEWS - May 2023

endrich NEWS - May 2023

ALLOW ME: I AM A COLLECTOR OR TRIPLE USER Wolfgang Endrich You read correctly – I am a collector. My grandfather was a government inspector, that is the highest rank in the lowest class, above there were the "studied", but by profession he was a surveyor, who after the war in the rural area around Stuttgart was significant in the land consolidation, which had the goal to bring the fields of the individual farms, which were fragmented by the succession of the last centuries, together again reasonably, so that the travel distances for the farmers were not longer than the field work.

From this said grandfather I inherited a box, which I still own today. In it are old, rusted nails, a horseshoe, screws, nuts and the like. And when I asked him what he wanted with this old junk, he said laconically: "You never know if you can use it again”.

And when I now see beautiful bottles or jars with caps in the supermarket, filled with food or ready meals, of course, I am heartily sorry to just throw them in the trash - much to the amazement of those around me.

Why I mention this: today we have completely lost the feeling of reusing articles of daily use, a throwaway mentality of "ex and hop" prevails.

Our highly industrialized society today wants beautiful, attractively packaged products, e.g. beverages or food, but they have only one purpose, to attract the customer and make him buy.

But exactly this should lead today in our generation to a change of mind, because one could change so much immediately, if one only wanted. E.g. collect the plastic parts or cardboard / paper, aluminium cans and glass consistently, possibly provide with a deposit and reuse. The same applies to all electronic waste from televisions, radios, cell phones, etc. This could successfully prevent the pollution of the world's oceans with plastic parts or thus waste dumps.

The sad thing is that the awareness of the value of these products has been lost in our generation. Yet tricky solutions could contribute a great deal to waste prevention.

To name just a few examples: a general deposit requirement for all packaging containing glass or metal. A few decades ago, there were very imaginative solutions, e.g. numbering the crown corks of bottles for which prizes of some kind were offered, i.e. a lottery.

But you could print information on the inside of cardboard packaging, which is not printed anyway, for example for older people, e.g. puzzles of any kind or instructions for use or cooking recipes, explanations on how to operate or program your TV or cell phone properly. This is already done on Norwegian AQUAVIT bottles.

Decades ago, there were booklets, albums, comics or books on and about various topics that were eagerly collected. And today - as I said - ex and hop. TIKTOK, YouTube, Instagram send their regards.

I understand, of course, that our mass society is dependent on generating mass consumption, because otherwise the required turnover with corresponding profits would not be feasible or labour would be released. But - we also have to stop pollution and the consumption of resources!

Why is it not possible to develop a feeling for resource conservation in our schools, but unfortunately also among many adults?

Ideas are needed now to get us consumers to change our thinking in general.

I believe that only if it costs something, it does have some value for the consumer; admonitions are pretty ineffective. But resource conservation must now become the goal of our society. Clever ideas are needed!

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• endrich NEWS - April 2023 en

Don't talk, but act!

Yes, we managed to make three liquefied gas terminals on our coasts ready for service within the shortest possible time. The speed was spectacular. Despite laws, regulations and concerns. The impossible became reality. But what about the many laws and regulations that makes our daily lives almost unbearable? We constantly get reports on TV about new unnecessary laws and regulations. For example, think of the whistleblower law, which is now on hold for the moment, the supply chain law, the dispute over whether to support highways or rather federal railroads, the problems with applications for new solar and wind energy parks, which make investors almost hopeless due to a wall of possible lawsuits, and then the processing times until approval. In Berlin, they say, it takes months before you can get married!

Our politicians, including the previous government, had promised to clear this jungle of laws. Unfortunately, nothing has been done until today. Or another example: If an investor has two buildings and the roof of one building is covered with solar power cells, the opposite building, which is only separated by a road, is not allowed to be supplied with the same solar power, or if one wants to install a floating solar power system on a small pond, this is also not approved because there is no experience yet how the fish underneath would take it! Ha, ha! Kidding? No, sadly true.

You cannot avoid a good thermal insulation in a new building, even though you would have the damage anyway due to higher energy costs. Or the speed limits on the highways, forgetting that we are now supposed to switch to electric cars, which do not produce any CO2. Where is the motivation then, with all that horsepower? The sense of logic is missing here.

The social problems are also there. Yes, we have many citizens who are living in a poverty situation. We can't target them and support them because there is no database about them. Or, for example, our tax numbers. We all have at least two numbers. Why is it not possible to harmonize this and streamline administration through a digital process? We don't know which student doesn't need help because he has rich parents and which one can't study because he doesn't have the money, or the apartment rents are too high.

We have plenty of ministries. The question you have to ask yourself is: what are these people doing? What is shameful is that the German armed forces procurement office would really deserve another name: that is, order-preventing-institution. Because of this, we are missing clothing, weapons, and even warm socks and bulletproof clothing for our soldiers.

Every CEO would be fired if his company were in such chaos as our administration.

Nothing against our civil servants, who hardly dare to make their own decisions because they might be punished for it. They prefer certificates drawn up on the lines of protection, which cost the taxpayers billions.

In fact, only the consulting firms and lobbyists get the benefit of this, and it doesn’t help to increase legal certainty either. Ludwig Erhard is regarded as the father of the social market economy, and he led Germany on a free-market course, resulting in the so-called economic miracle.

If we had had the restraints in the economy as they are today, this miracle would not have happened. Individual initiative must be supported, and prudence must be given priority. Besides that, our EU lawmakers in Brussels also play a major role in the jungle of laws.

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• endrich NEWS - March 2023 en

endrich NEWS - March 2023

Supply Chain Act: QUO VADIS?

The Supply Chain Act means that all importers with a headcount of 1,000 or more will be required to engage with their foreign suppliers. For example, in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, to ensure that employees are working under humane conditions in safe workplaces and that a fair salary is paid. Occupational health and safety laws are in short supply!

But if you know the situation in the Far East better, you know that in numerous instances these are almost impossible demands. Suppliers feel that their freedom is being restricted, and in some cases, they also have sub-suppliers, so that it is almost impossible to fulfill the requested information according to the law. It is felt to be improper to publish such company data and to allow strangers to control their own company.

We know, however, that there are very regularly lacks in the compliance with safety regulations and sometimes chaotic conditions exist in the factories’, furthermore often famished wages are paid. Of course, these are completely unacceptable conditions for us and our standards. But the local governments probably see things differently.

Perhaps we should look at this situation from the other side: We, that is, the consumers from Germany, but also from Europe or the USA, want low prices, for example in the textile and electronics industries. That's why Apple manufactures its cell phones in the Far East, or why we buy cotton from Kazakhstan and have it worked and even made up there. In other words, we have deliberately shifted production from Europe to the Far East, where it is nice and cheap. And these countries are on the drip of exports and need export income.

Since colonial times, where England, Spain and Portugal, exploited the countries in South America and India, not too much has changed. Our prosperity is at the expense of these supplier countries.

In my opinion, this is called exploitation. Our argumentation, on the other hand, is quite simple: by this transfer of industry to the Far East, we are giving the people who live there an opportunity to earn an income in the first place, thus helping them to avoid hunger, infant mortality, boundless unemployment and hopelessness. But the rights of the women are still limited.

And we appear as good people and demand, for example at the Olympiad in Doha, more rights for the women. Do we want to delight the whole world with our know-it-all attitude?

Because Asia is different! Other religions, very old rites and customs still determine life there, and we should learn to understand and respect that.

The old teachers of economics like Keynes and others were right about "change through trade". But crises, like Corona and war, were not included. Added to this was the shutdown of air and sea transport. Many containers of Christmas products are still stored in Chinese ports today. And now we feel our total dependency on Far East supplies, such as medicines, raw materials and others.
"Cheapness is just not cool!!!" Politics and business have finally woken up. The "turn off the times" has changed many things.

And what about the supply chain law? The EU had much better recall it. No one will miss this law. Neither is the global economy doing any better.

One thing should become clear to us: we will have to make cuts from the level of living standard we have enjoyed so far because the consequences of previous policies are now becoming painfully clear.

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• endrich NEWS - February 2023

endrich NEWS February 2023

TURNING POINT

The almost two-year Corona crisis taught us that "business as usual" could no longer continue. And since the start of the Ukraine war in February this year, we have painfully felt that Mrs Merkel's policy of "business as usual" has come to an abrupt end. The guiding principle of "change through trade" turned out to be a big mistake. Suddenly we only had crises. Starting with semiconductors, then with gas supply, housing shortage, refugees and so on ...

We have unfortunately allowed ourselves to be "lulled" far too much in recent years with the "business as usual" policy. The hope, that it will go on as usual, and we don't need to worry about anything was disastrous for all of us. Our government team was not outstanding, but we were doing relatively well and unfortunately did not realise the global dependencies we had placed ourselves in. Namely, in terms of energy and raw materials from Russia and from China and India, for example, for primary materials for vaccines and medicines. We either didn't see the dangers or didn't want to see them, because Putin had already spoken publicly about his great visions many years ago, but we didn't really take them seriously, because everything was going so well.

The awakening from this sleepiness was terrible and our new government already had its hands full in the first hours of its activity in order to somehow avert or mitigate crises. Perhaps we have not been critical enough all these years to at least consider the crises as a possibility and make appropriate provisions or safeguards.

Our traffic situation on the roads and the railways, in digitalisation, environmental protection and awareness, the education of our children and finally in the health system are serious failures that could perhaps have been mitigated or even avoided with a look abroad. The Corona crisis, for example, has ruthlessly shown us how old-fashioned our administration still works today.

We have had alarmists for decades who have foreseen climate change, but we have only acted half-heartedly, and it took disasters from flooding, drought and forest fires etc. for us to realise that it was getting serious. For years we have been asleep and have not wanted to see the consequences. Just think of the oceans covered by plastic waste, the poles melting, the glaciers in Europe too. We have failed to massively promote wind energy and solar energy. Power lines from the North and Baltic Seas to Bavaria have been rejected by the people. The authorities have also contributed to this by approving applications only slowly and sometimes only after years.

Even the health insurance companies have forced the pharmaceutical manufacturers to have the medicines produced abroad through a wrong pricing policy. These are only a few examples of our failures and now we have suddenly been jolted out of our lethargy unprepared. All this certainly hurts tremendously, but it is good to be woken up at last.

What we need now is a spirit of optimism and the will to change and to spit vigorously into our hands. We have had it too good for the last 10 to 20 years. We have learned from those lessons. That is why we must now thoroughly change all that has been neglected in recent years. "MAKE GERMANY GREAT!"

In this spirit, we wish you all a good start, much success in the new year, but also the optimism that with diligence and perseverance a desirable future can be achieved for us and for our children!

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• endrich NEWS January 2023

REVIEW OF ELECTRONICA 2022 IN MUNICH

For endrich the electronica 2022 trade show was a very positive experience. In view of interrupted supply chains, rising energy prices, inflation, war and climate change, it was important to finally meet again our customers and suppliers. After four years it was time to directly see new technology trends and to exchange ideas in person again. We saw great interest from the customers for our presentation of newly customized projects like an e-paper room thermostat as well as room control units, a charging station for e-cars with a large touch display.

Our visitors were also very interested in the Endrich Smart-Board, which is the latest board in the Endrich IoT family. With this central WLAN-LPWA gateway, sensors can now be connected wirelessly via the Sub Gigahertz module from Neocortec (868 MHz). The sensors can be networked via the Neo-Mesh network. The mesh property means that there does not have to be a direct connection from each sensor to the gateway, as only the connection between the "smart sensors" is possible. Thus, the range between sensors and gateway can be significantly increased. Via the LTE-M/NB-IoT module from Fibocom (MA510), which is also located on the Endrich smart board, all data from the sensor modules is collected and sent to the Endrich cloud. For more details, see the following article "e-IoT in practice".

Another highlight at the electronica was the topic of wireless radio communication. „Smart devices" or so called "connected devices" can actually be found in all market segments. In the areas of Smart Industry and Smart Building, the latest Bluetooth and WiFi modules from Panasonic Industry Europe PAN1770 and PAN1781, as well as from our new manufacturer Feasycom, including the 5.4 x 5.8 mm small FSC-BT690, could be examined.In addition to Bluetooth and WiFi, the radio technologies LTE-M/NB-IoT and LTE-CAT1bis were in demand. Here, the current modules of the world's second largest supplier Fibocom were on display. The portfolio was complemented by antennas, and we had very interesting discussions about customer-specific solutions in the automotive and wearable sectors.

So we are pleased to have been there and to have met all of you!

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• endrich NEWS December 2022

endrich NEWS December 2022