The 5,400m² facility, which will be equipped with storage systems, will be completed by the end of 2015.
Retrofitting
The company also recently completed a 3,200m² production hall for retrofitting, spare parts and chamber machines also in Germany.
"The investment will further optimise the spare part provisioning of our 17 European affiliates," said Hans-Joachim Boekstegers, director/CEO, Multivac.
“The distribution centre will be the first step in the redirection of our distribution concept, with additional centres in other regions being planned."
Multivac has approximately 4,300 employees worldwide, with about 1,600 based at its headquarters in Wolfertschwenden.
It supplies semi-automatic or automatic packing machines for SMEs, as well as automated packaging machines and packaging lines for industrial-scale producers. It also manufactures tray sealers, vacuum chamber machines, chamber conveyor machines, labellers and quality control systems.
Meat processing
Largely applicable to the meat-processing industry, the firm primarily has two customer segments: the first is local manufacturers, who have developed from hand-production companies to mass-production processors, and who generally produce small to medium-sized volumes.
The second segment is the industrial-scale processors, who have been involved in recent years in a powerful process of consolidation.
“One of Multivac’s attributes to its success is we take care of the spare part supply of installed machines worldwide. By implementing the distribution centre we are able to further optimise the availability and lead time for our spare parts,” added Boekstegers.