€21m Investments at the Grafenau Site
Ready, steady, go! With the ground-breaking ceremony for expanding the logistics centre at the Elsenthal plant, Knauf Ceiling Solutions marks another step of its extensive investment program.
Throughout 2021/22, €21 million is invested at the Grafenau site, leading to 83 new jobs.
The new building is another unmistakable sign of reliability, continuity and growth for our company here in the region. With this, we continue the investment program we started in 2021.
Last year €8.2m had already been invested into expanding ceiling tiles and suspension system production.
With three additional production lines, the production capacity for grids has been doubled. Furthermore, with the Knauf decision to develop the ceiling business as another essential pillar for the company, the Group acquired Armstrong Building Products in 2019.
Consequently, the two leading ceiling system producers, Knauf AMF and Armstrong Building Products merged into the newly established Knauf Ceiling Solutions division in 2020.
The visionary principle of the market image "Stronger Together" loosely translated means 'the best of both worlds' – a strategy Knauf Ceiling Solutions is successfully implementing in its current form.
The Knauf Ceiling Solutions ceiling division is divided into two large business segments: EMEA/LATAM and APAC. Grafenau represents the heart of the EMEA/LATAM business, with nine production sites and 1.400 employees. The largest of 12 production sites in Knauf Ceiling Solutions, Grafenau-Elsenthal has the broadest product ranges.
The new development brought a wide range of new products leading to additional volumes for Grafenau. As a result, further expansions of the site became necessary.
We are increasing our logistics centre storage and finished goods loading capacity by 5,100m² to a total area of 20.500m². This €5.5m investment will help us provide first-class service to our customers.
The remaining €12.6m invested in 2022 will flow into the development of the canopy production, installation engineering & digitalisation, and the expansion of social facilities for the employees.
"Innovative technologies and sustainability play a leading part in the new logistics building ", explains Daniel Burghart. "The internal organisation in the new logistics area will be driven by mobile, using driverless technology, and the entire roof equipped with photovoltaic panels."
The construction period is estimated to take seven months and will be operational this year.
Managing Director Karl Wenig (left) and Plant Manager Daniel Burghart (right) are shown together with local representatives and planners at the ground-breaking ceremony.