The trailer manufacturer Schmitz Cargobull is reinforcing its commitment to its Vreden site and investing more than 50 million euros in expanding its production capacities for refrigerated and box body semi-trailers. The wide range of measures are aimed at further enhancing the company’s competitiveness.
The trailer manufacturer Schmitz Cargobull is reinforcing its commitment to its Vreden site and investing more than 50 million euros in expanding its production capacities for refrigerated and box body semi-trailers. The wide range of measures are aimed at further enhancing the company’s competitiveness.
September 2024 – The investments are centred around the construction of a new 4,500 m² production hall, within which vehicle assembly will be completely restructured. Cutting-edge technology will be installed with a view to significantly increasing production capacity. According to current plans, the number of refrigerated vehicles produced per shift is due to be increased to 40, while the increased use of automation and digitalisation will reduce the cycle time per trailer from the current 15 minutes to just 10 minutes. This will result in a huge boost to efficiency and productivity at the Vreden site.
A central component of this project is the intensive use of digital tools to plan the new buildings and machinery. By doing so, the design of work processes can be optimised and the planned measures can be implemented in an efficient and future-proof way. For future production workflows, digital simulations will be used to test and validate the new processes at an early stage.
In addition to the new production hall, a new logistics concept will also be introduced to refine internal workflows
The Vreden site is also one of two flagship factories within the “Datenfabrik.NRW” promotional project, a regional project aimed at crafting data-based factories. As such, Schmitz Cargobull is taking on a pioneering role in the development of digital factories in the local area and creating a new benchmark for digital transformation within the industry.
In addition to the new production hall, a new logistics concept will also be introduced to refine internal workflows. What’s more, measures will be taken to gradually upgrade components production to make the Vreden site more future-proof. All of the main measures will be implemented at the main refrigerated vehicle production plant in Südlohner Diek.
In addition to expanding production capacity, the existing supply centre at the Große Mast site will be increased. The existing parking capacity is due to be doubled by expanding into a neighbouring brownfield site, which will accelerate and optimise the vehicle delivery process. By ceasing to rent external parking areas in the local area, this measure will also reduce strain on local traffic and cut costs. The increased use of electrically powered tractor units will further increase the efficiency and sustainability of logistics processes.
With the measures taken, Schmitz Cargobull is making an important contribution to the achievement of in-house environmental objectives and actively helping to improve ecological and economical sustainability.