After the completion of the second plant expansion within seven years, the entire production and logistics area of the Chinese GROB plant has grown to 32,400 m². The additional space will mainly be used for pre-assembly and final assembly.
The GROB plant in Dalian has not lost any of its dynamics. Two years after its foundation in 2012, the first expansion was successfully completed and the plant was enlarged from 12,000 m² to 27,000 m². At that time the goal was to increase the production area by 70 percent, to grow the logistics area by 2.5 times, to double the pre-assembly and to almost triple the final assembly area. Investments that have contributed to securing the then three-year-plan.
Second expansion stage to secure major contracts
Four years after the first expansion stage, GROB has again invested in its Chinese plant and enlarged the production and logistics area again to increase the production flexibility. Completion was, as planned, exactly one year after the start of construction in May 2019. The expansion in the form of a 6,700 m² building extension was executed in a multifunctional design so that all GROB products can be assembled in the additional production space. Now, following the example of the Mindelheim plant and meeting the expectations of Chinese customers, all projects, including automation, linear gantries, and transport systems, can be set up directly in the plant, and initial acceptance can be completed according to customer requirements. An important decision in order that major contracts such as from SAIC-GM, VW, BBAC or BBA can continue to be realized in parallel to those of our GA350 and GA550 customers.
Expanded product range to secure the market position
This second expansion stage presents the additional possibility to expand the product range and increase flexibility. The plan is to gradually expand the product and production range to include assembly machines and in the medium-term to include e-mobility. Large, connected areas must be created for this since the space requirement for assembly machines is up to 2.5 times larger than for machining lines. It is also a good thing that this new assembly line will effectively shorten the cycle times in the Chinese plant even further, enabling customer requirements for delivery dates to be better met. With this successful plant expansion, GROB is making another contribution to securing the technological lead and its presence in the important Chinese market.
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