Inside the restructured Norderstedt facility

Jungheinrich AG has completed the EUR40 million (USD56.4 million) upgrade of its Norderstedt reach truck plant, claiming it could be the world's largest factory of its type.

The major restructuring of the facility started in 2006 and was completed last month (Forkliftaction.com News #272).

Norderstedt's production line was completely reorganised, a new test and development centre was built and environmental improvements were made.

The environmental improvements include a new low-energy lighting system that is expected to halve the company's lighting bill and a new printed circuited board production area that uses a water-based cooling system, significantly reducing energy use, Jungheinrich says.

Jungheinrich UK Ltd sales director Bill Goodwin says the company gave considerable thought to improving its business's internal structure to increase efficiency.

"Our restructured reach truck facility enables us to achieve the highest flow rates while the build quality, for which Jungheinrich is recognised, has been improved further."

Newly implemented cell-based manufacturing techniques are expected to result in additional quality checks as each forklift moves along the production line.

Instead of traditional operation-based factory layouts, the Norderstedt plant has been rearranged into process-based cells. Forklifts pass from one production stage to the next on wheels and workers perform their part of the assembly process before the forklift moves to the next "cell". This method, commonly used in the automotive sector, is thought to promote a smooth production flow and eliminate waste.

The plant upgrade has also increased its production capacity by 30% to meet increasing forklift demand.

Jungheinrich has 20% of the European forklift market. Its turnover was EUR1,748 million (USD2,463 million) in 2006. It expects its share of the global forklift market to reach 9% and its turnover to top EUR2 billion (USD2,818 million) this year.

Globally, the company produces about 82,000 forklifts a year.

Norderstedt will produce battery-powered pedestrian trucks, reach trucks, horizontal order pickers, stackers and battery chargers. Vertical order pickers are produced at the company's factory at Moosburg, near Munich, and not at Norderstedt as Forkliftaction.com News previously reported.