Construction work has started in Hagen, Germany as Engel automation looks to expand. The production area in particular will benefit from significant extension, with a new hall to be added by next March.The expansion will provide an additional 1,000 square metres in total. Of the new floor space, 750 square metres will be devoted to the assembly of robots and other automation solutions whilst new office space will account for 250 square metres: the staffing level at Engel automation in Germany will also be increased from the current total of 45 to over 60 employees. This means that more than 90 staff members will work at Engel's base in Hagen in the future.
“The market share of Engel in the field of automation technology is growing all the time, and we've reached the limit of our capacity”, says Jörg Fuhrmann, Managing Director of Engel Automatisierungstechnik Deutschland GmbH, explaining the reason for the investment.
Two factors are driving this development. Firstly, system solutions from a single source are becoming increasingly important: “For a lot of our customers, integrated automation is the main reason to purchase”, stresses Rolf Sass, Managing Director of Engel Deutschland GmbH in Hagen. “Almost half of automated manufacturing cells sold by a European producer of injection moulding machines now come from Engel.
Clearly, Engel is leading the way when it comes to the automation of injection moulding machines.” The second aspect is the fact that since the launch of the Engel viper linear robot series, Engel has been selling an increasing number of robots for use with machines made by other firms: already, Engel provides a quarter of the robots purchased by the injection moulding industry in Europe.
Engel Automatisierungstechnik Deutschland is set to celebrate its 10th anniversary in April 2012 – by when the new hall and offices should be up and running.
