German car industry upswing drives mould shop expansion

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Time to beef up production by building a new shop

The shop has enjoyed many successful years. It started out making injection moulds for automobile air filter housings, which is still one of its main product areas along with cylinder covers and intake pipes. At the moment, company tooling is making the parts for the current Volkswagen Golf platform, and did for the four before it, according to Kellerman. Other final stops for components manufactured with company tools include models from Land Rover, Jaguar, BMW, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz.

But after more than 30 years in the same building, which sits next to her childhood home, Kellermann decided to move the company across town and start from the ground up. Just over a year ago, the shop broke ground on a plant with 1,800 square metres of production area. It also added around 500 square metres of space for common areas and offices, more good news for the some 25 workers at the shop.

Seven months later, in October 2013, the company moved to its new home, which is on a road that has yet to be added to some GPS systems. Along with extra headroom that allows for more purchasing freedom on the equipment side, the new plant has two 20-tonne cranes for the big tools, and three 3.2-tonne models to ease the wear and tear on workers in the assembly area.

A new site deserves some new equipment

The change in locations to another part of town also seemed a good opportunity to increase the company’s range of machine tools and accessories. From GF Machining Solutions, the company sourced a 5-axis HPM 800 U centre with a 7-pallet changer and a tool changer with 115 slots, and a VCE 1200 3-axis milling unit. The shop also added a 121-pallet ERC electrode changer from Erowa to serve its Exeron EDM units.

Even though all these machines had become part of the production line, Kellermann wanted to wait until the final piece of the mould building puzzle was in place before the official opening of the plant in March 2014: a Mil 203 try out press from Italy’s Millutensil.

“It was the last major investment,” Kellerman said. “We wanted to have it up and running for the opening.” She noted that the press was very easy to set up, an operation that was completed in only an hour. “It worked like a dream.” Plus, now it provides a safer alternative to the cranes for checking tooling.

Once all the expenditures were tallied up, the mould house spent a total of €4 million on the new building and equipment, Kellermann said. However, it was money well spent, she noted, explaining that the relocation and expansion was a “very important step”, one that allows the shop to increase the size of the tooling it produces in order to meet car industry demands.

(ID:42549057)