The family-run company is one of the leading suppliers of vacuum technology in the fields of automation and manual handling[3] and is also active in the energy storage business area.

[9] In 2017, Schmalz acquired all shares in Stuttgart-based Gesellschaft für Produktionssysteme GmbH (GPS), which was founded as an offshoot of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation.

[13] The company entered the Australian market in 2018 with the acquisition of Millsom Hoists, who had been their distributor in the area for thirty years previously.

[15] Two months later, Schmalz acquired the Swedish company Binar Handling AB and its subsidiaries in China, France, Germany and Turkey.

[1] Schmalz is represented by trading partners and 31 locations in over 80 countries[18][19] in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North America.

[1][11] In addition to Germany, Italy, Eastern Europe, the United States, China and Japan are among the most important markets for Schmalz.

[3] The technologies and products developed by Schmalz are primarily aimed at the logistics, automotive, wood, electronics, food, plastics, and furniture industries.

Schmalz uses redox flow battery systems for this purpose, which use liquid media in external tanks to store energy.

[30] At this point, Schmalz was already generating around 80% of its energy from wind and hydropower, photovoltaics, solar parks and wood chip plants.