The Endress+Hauser Group’s (Reinach, Switzerland; www.endress.com) Flowtec, a manufacturer of flowmeter technology, has expanded its Cernay plant in Alsace, France to take advantage of this growth. “By adding 10,000 square meters of production space, we are strengthening the Cernay location for the long haul,” emphasizes managing director Bernd-Josef Schäfer.
Endress+Hauser has recently started producing vortex flowmeters in Cernay, as well. In addition, the space requirements continue to increase for the production of electromagnetic flowmeters and their measuring tubes of up to 2.4 meters in size. “This is why we have bought up an existing factory building right next to our site,” says Schäfer. A total of €4.2 million has been invested in the purchase and renovation of that building and its 9,000 square meters of floor space.
A new building with nearly 1,000 square meters of space at a cost of €1.2 million euros was also needed to relieve the bottleneck from lack of space in the existing production line. “This means we can now handle significantly higher part volume and design our production processes with greater autonomy and less dependence on other production processes,” explains Matthias Aschberger, plant manager in Cernay. The new building has been equipped with separate loading docks for delivery trucks to help with this.