With nearly 200 full-time employees in 4 countries on 3 continents, the Groupe celduc® and its subsidiaries celduc® transfo and celduc® relais is a leading player in the global market for industrial automation, magnetic proximity sensors and power transformers. Founded and located in Sorbiers in the department of the Loire, we are recognized in nearly 60 countries with an established network of sales subsidiaries, specialist distributors and experienced representatives. At celduc® relais, we are the experts in solid state relays and magnetic sensors, and every year, we are proud to manufacture more than 1 million relays which are sold worldwide, helping to promote French industrial expertise and “100% made in France” quality.
We are proud that the notion of excellence has been our driving force since 1964. It’s a continuous cycle: never being fully satisfied, always curious: in a word, we want to make progress and seize the opportunity! Excellence is the only goal that is never reached. The notion of excellence is the only course to maintain to avoid getting lost. We have used traditional, proven methods to get the results we wanted.
Our aim is to cultivate a sense of family. At celduc®, 15 years is the average length of service and yet we continue to hire new employees every year! Currently 15 years is also the average length of our commercial relationships, a figure that gets revised upwards every year because customers refuse to leave us… . The great Celduc family is a rock, a pinnacle, the solid ground in an economic quicksand.
Faithful to our heritage as hard-working people from St-Etienne, we consider modesty and honesty to be our best qualities. We know that the ascent is much safer if we climb on the backs of our glorious elders instead of burning our bridges. And if we see further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants!
To defend our freedom against the two foes of our credit-based world: the fickle stockholder and the devious banker. Both of them push and shove each other in front of our door but we keep it closed, only opening it to welcome long-term and sustainable strategies. Fiercely independent, “trust your own instincts” is our motto.
Founded in 1964 in Sorbiers, where we are still located, by Michel Guichard, an engineer with a passion for electricity, Constructions Electriques du Centre started out by manufacturing electrical coils of all sizes, from the smallest for the telecommunications industry, to the largest for the power generation sector.
In 1965 we rapidly developed a new range of products with “Reed” relays, small low-current switches which were popular at the time for their unrivaled service life. The appearance of semiconductors at the turn of the 1980s challenged this economic success and the company, which in the meantime had become Celduc Group and Celduc Relais for its electronics division, which opted for magnetic sensors for which the use of “Reed” technology proved to be a decisive advantage. Today, celduc® relais is the only remaining French manufacturer of “Reed” relays, and one of the world’s leading experts in magnetic proximity sensors.
If the development of semiconductors had a negative impact on celduc’s historic business, Michel Guichard understood the amount of interest these innovations had from the outset and the first solid-state power switch was invented in 1971: the famous “Reedac”, which was not a great success, of course, but was the catalyst that lead to the triumph of solid-state relays at Celduc!
Since then, success has continued unabated and our factories are expanding, at an average rate of once every five years. Two symbolic dates: in 2002 the launch of the iconic okpac range, which has since been available in various versions with more than 500,000 units manufactured per year, and in 2012 the automation of our welding operations, a process that is unique in the world of solid-state relays. Despite the increasing amount of competition, today, and for many years to come, Celduc Relais is and will be the world specialist in solid state relays.
Because a beautiful history comes from a beautiful place, celduc® has always been located in Sorbiers in the heart of the St-Etienne region, one of the oldest and most active industrial areas in France thanks to the large presence of mining and coal deposits. This is why Saint-Etienne had the first railway line in France which was built at the beginning of the 19th century! Today, our region is home to many automotive businesses (various equipment manufacturers supplying the world’s major brands), for the textile sector, and finally for its football team, also known as Les Verts, which has won many medals in major competitions during its long history. We are extremely proud to be part of the great industrial history of our region.
Every year, innovation in solid state relays and magnetic sensors represents 15% of our turnover, thanks to the complete and independent management of our R&D, our test laboratory, our marketing team and our manufacturing, with most of the equipment developed by our processing planning department.
Our quality control is guaranteed by a 100% testing of all our products, using automated test solutions developed by our own engineers. Of course, we comply with the usual standards (CE, UL, CSA, VDE, TÜV) and others (ATEX, MIL-STD, EAC, S-Mark).
Phone : 312-420-0519
434 E. Main Street, #429
Centerport NY 11721
USA
