Well equipped to meet future requirements

Together with over 200 guests, Engel opened its much extended and modernised subsidiary in Hannover on 9 and 10 May. The Austrian global market leader in injection moulding machines and integrated injection moulding system solutions invested around 5 million euros. Construction continued into March 2017 and lasted twelve months. The entire Engel Hannover team had moved to a free adjacent industrial building since the refurbishment was very extensive, resulting in a doubling of floor space. A total of 2,400 square metres is now available for the office wing, training centre and the technology centre.

The technology centre and the training centre were extended and totally refurbished with new equipment. From now on, Engel will present the very latest machines, robots and technologies at the technology centre and place them at customer disposal for them to carry out their own tests. There is even space for large machines with clamping forces up to 7,000 kN. In addition to alternating the exhibits, two themes are a standard fixture in the new interactive technology centre: inject 4.0 and lightweight construction.

Engel is already an important partner in the development of lightweight construction solutions for large automobile manufacturers, some of whom have their plants in the immediate vicinity of Hannover. For example, Engel equipped the Open Hybrid LabFactory with a v duo machine for research into lightweight construction. The Open Hybrid LabFactory is the lightweight construction campus at the Braunschweig University of Applied Sciences and started up by several companies including Volkswagen.

With a current work force of 80 employees, Engel Hannover is globally the second largest sales and service subsidiary of Engel Austria. "Our plans foresee further increases in staff to cater for the requirements of our customers", says Vitz. "Germany and international German companies have a major share in our turnover," emphasises Stefan Engleder, CEO of the Engel Group, during the opening ceremony. "In the past few years, we have succeeded in increasing our strong position in Germany across all branches of industry. The current trends in the injection moulding sector also offer us even greater potential for the future on a market that is already very highly developed".