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Customers and dealers check out Manitowoc's recent Germany expansion. |
October 9, 2008 • Manitowoc's factory in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, showed off its recent expansion work at a customer day this September. About 300 people attended the event at the factory and toured the new manufacturing hall for Grove mobile cranes, the new dedicated production facility for the GTK1100 and the new customer handover area. The guests were also given a working demonstration of the latest GMK all-terrain cranes from the factory.
Philippe Cohet, executive vice president for Manitowoc in EMEA, said the company was excited to show off the latest developments at the plant. “We are delighted that so many important customers and colleagues have taken the time to visit with us and see the improvements and expansions we have made at our Wilhelmshaven plant,” he said. “Our expansion work here is designed to increase capacity, improve quality and shorten delivery times. We believe this newly expanded facility will achieve all three of those goals, and our customers will soon notice the improvements.”
The largest part of the expansion is an almost 29,000-square-foot production hall with an adjoining office block of 4,300 square feet. Manitowoc has invested several million Euro in this phase of the expansion which will manage the complete assembly process for superstructures on the GMK range of all-terrain cranes. It features two production lines, an engine assembly area and two new cells for boom assembly. This new building frees up capacity at the facility and means all completion work can now take place in a dedicated hall. Construction started on the new hall in July, and crane production started in early September.
Another new manufacturing base at Wilhelmshaven is the GTK hangar where Manitowoc's Grove GTK1100 is assembled. The size of this crane combined with its unique design mean the crane requires a separate assembly facility. The GTK hangar is a more than 21,000-square-foot hall and there is a further 129,000-square-foot paved area around the hall for testing and storage. Some components for the GTK are also constructed in the main GMK manufacturing facility. In total, there are 15 people working full time on GTK construction.
Also new at the Wilhelmshaven site is a customer handover area. This area is designed to enhance the buying experience and allows customers to collect their cranes in person as soon as they are ready for delivery. The area covers more than 75,000 square feet with more than 5,300 square feet undercover with a variety of meeting rooms.
Frans Vanwinkel, senior vice president of sales and marketing for Manitowoc in EMEA, said the new area was an important part of the expansion project. “Many customers choose to travel to Wilhelmshaven to collect their Manitowoc crane in person, and this dedicated handover area makes the whole experience more enjoyable,” he said. “As we grow our manufacturing presence, we feel it's important to grow all aspects of our facility here. We want our customers to feel as welcome as possible, whether it's during a factory visit to check on progress of an order or a handover visit to collect the finished crane.”
