As part of an official ceremony, the Directors of MULTIVAC Hans-Joachim Boekstegers (CEO), Guido Spix (CTO and COO) and Christian Traumann (CFO) turned the first spadeful of earth for the construction of a new building complex in Wolfertschwenden.
It is intended primarily for the new Slicer Business Unit. The floor space of more than 17,000 square metres will also create 180 high-quality office workstations as well as conference and function rooms, which will be capable of being used very flexibly. The investment amounts to around 35 million euros. Completion is planned for 2020.
“The new building complex is designed as an Application Center for our Slicing Solutions Business Unit, which is now seeing very encouraging development in our new business sector. In future automated packaging lines will be commissioned here as well,” explains Hans-Joachim Boekstegers. “We have successively expanded our product range in recent years to include process equipment upstream and downstream of the packaging procedure. By founding the Slicer Business Unit, we have taken an important strategic step in the direction of 'Better Processing'.”
The production space on the ground floor of the new Building 16 will be around 7,500 square metres. Building 17 will house the new Slicer Application Center as well as a reception area and an additional company restaurant, which will extend over two floors. In addition to this, a total of 180 high-quality office workstations will be created on the third floor, while versatile conference and function rooms will be housed on the top floor.
In the Application Center the range of services on offer for slicers will be similar to those in the existing Training and Innovation Center (TIC), namely sample production and machine demonstrations as well as a wide range of training programs for the MULTIVAC slicers and slicer lines. “We have designed the Application Center in such a way, that our customers will find themselves in an environment, which reflects the real conditions in their own production sites,” says Hans-Joachim Boekstegers. “There our customers will be able to experience the complete process chain live: this will extend from the demonstration of the various slicers handling a wide range of products, through to the presentation of different loading solutions downstream of the slicer, and right up to the actual packaging procedure itself. It will be possible to carry out individual trials with customers' own products as well as testing the slicing solutions for feasibility, output, return on investment, give-away and other critical factors.”
A large number of guests took part in the ceremony, including Karl Fleschhut, Mayor of Wolfertschwenden. The MULTIVAC Group has approximately 5,600 employees worldwide, with some 2,100 based at its headquarters in Wolfertschwenden. The production site in the Allgäu region of Germany currently comprises more than 72,000 square metres in total. In the early part of 2018 new production areas for the Traysealer Business Unit were completed, as well as additional office space for the Control Technology department, covering a total of around 4,000 square metres.
