Anniversary celebration
Festo's largest site turns 50
Festo opened cylinder production in Rohrbach in 1968. Around 2,800 employees now work here, and around 40 million euros are to be invested in the site in the coming years.
The Rohrbach site is Festo's largest production and logistics center worldwide and comprises the plant, the CSC logistics center and the Saar learning center in St. Ingbert as well as Festo Polymer in Hassel. Around 2,800 people are employed here. The anniversary was celebrated with a ceremony on September 26 with around 200 invited guests and on September 29 with the employees at the site.
In 1968, Festo purchased a production hall on a 43,000 square meter site in Rohrbach. On September 28, 1968, the production of cylinders began in Rohrbach with around 50 employees. By October 1969, there were already 230 colleagues. A separate training workshop was set up in 1969. In the 1980s, the Rohrbach plant was greatly expanded: a production hall for the production of the cylinder series, an assembly hall with canteen and additional social rooms, a computer-controlled high-bay warehouse and a third hall were built. In 1993, the plant was also expanded on the other side of the A6 highway and the two parts of the plant were connected by a tunnel under the A6.
Today, electric and pneumatic drives as well as cylinders and specific customer solutions are manufactured in the Rohrbach flexibility factory. At the end of 2017, the newly built in-house anodizing plant went into operation. In addition, tens of millions of euros will be invested in the expansion of production in the coming years.
Maik Glutting has been managing the plant since September 2012: "The most important products are our standard, compact and round cylinders in combination with our pneumatic and electric linear axes, which we manufacture here at the site, as well as our speed control valves."
Service, training and further education
The Customer Service Center (CSC) logistics center was established in 1994 to supply customers directly throughout Europe. It was expanded several times in the following years. Today, the logistics center dispatches more than 40,000 order items or 15,000 packages all over the world every day. The CSC has been undergoing expansion since 2017 with an investment volume of over 30 million euros and is set to gradually enter the utilization phase over the coming year. Global growth and increased demand make the conversion and expansion necessary.
In the 1990s, the idea was born to open up internal training to the general public and to offer vocational training and further education externally. Lifelong learning is one of the basic philosophies of the Festo family business. In 1994, the Festo Learning Center Saar was opened, which today covers the industrial training and further education needs of the region. Seminars, but also IHK examination and certificate courses as well as courses to become a state-certified technician are part of the training program. Today, 121 trainees are being trained at the site, and 19 of the graduates have been recognized as the best in the state by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce over the last ten years.
In 2015, the former performance center for the production of rubber-plastic parts was transferred to Festo Polymer with its own plant in Hassel. Plastic parts are manufactured here using the injection molding process. as
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