Weiss Technik inaugurated the new logistics center in Balingen-Frommern with a ceremony attended by representatives of the public and business partners. 13 million euros was invested by the Schunk Group, to which Weiss Technik belongs.
"Our investments in the Balingen site have a clear objective: we want to further strengthen Weiss Technik here in Balingen, orient it to the future and enable further growth here in this way," said Dr. Arno Roth, CEO of the Schunk Group.
"Balingen is already one of the Schunk Group's largest locations. This is where we manufacture our world-leading standard equipment for environmental simulation. And we want to continue to grow in this segment in the future," emphasized Peter R. Manolopoulos, Member of the Executive Board of Schunk and Managing Director of Weiss Technik. The new building was made possible by the acquisition of neighboring commercial land, which has significantly increased the available space and opened up completely new perspectives for Weiss Technik's site development.
New level for logistics
The new building takes Weiss Technik's logistics to a whole new level - both in terms of space and logistics technology. A total of around 6,000 square meters of usable space has been created there. The almost eleven-meter-high logistics hall with 3,700 square meters houses, among other things, the sheet metal warehouse, a pallet warehouse with 3,650 storage spaces, and a small parts warehouse. In the latter, Weiss Technik relies on the latest automated storage technology: the small parts are stored in a so-called Autostore with 6,200 bins and are stored and retrieved by nine robots and brought to the warehouse staff. A further 2,300 square meters are taken up by the incoming and outgoing goods areas, which are connected via four dock levellers for loading and unloading to a 1,400 square meter delivery yard, some of which is covered. This yard is deliberately oriented toward the rail line so that the noise level for the adjacent residential development is minimized.
"The new logistics building is an important building block for site development and provides the prerequisite for optimizing routes and processes in production and thus significantly improving productivity," Manolopoulos continues.
Sustainability is particularly important
However, the new logistics center not only cuts a fine figure in terms of capacity, handling and automation. The topic of sustainability was also very important for the new building: Here, Weiss Technik has taken another big step in the direction of sustainable energy supply.
A combined heat and power plant has already been in operation in Balingen since 2021, supplying electricity and heat at the same time and thus covering about a quarter of the site's heating requirements. The new logistics center has now been equipped with a large photovoltaic system, for which every square meter was used. The system has an output of 440 kilowatts peak - equivalent to the annual electricity requirements of around 100 households.
Weiss Technik feeds the climate-neutral electricity produced by the sun completely into its own company grid. This covers around 45 percent of the company's own electricity requirements. Most of the electricity in Balingen is used by the company's own climatic chambers, because each one is put through its paces in the test bay before it goes out to the customer.
Climatic chambers and cabinets for every field of application
Weiss Technik develops and produces high-quality and reliable climatic chambers and cabinets for almost every field of application in Balingen-Frommern. Within the worldwide production network of Weiss Technik, Balingen is the competence center for standard equipment for environmental simulation. Whether temperature, climate, corrosion, dust or combined stress testing, Weiss Technik's equipment and systems can be used to simulate various environmental influences, especially with different temperature and humidity conditions.
Until 2021, the Balingen-based company was called Vötsch Technik and was then renamed Weiss Technik together with its Hessian sister company Weiss Umwelttechnik in order to have a better presence with higher recognition value on the international markets. Weiss Technik employs over 430 people in Balingen, making it one of the largest industrial employers and training companies in the region. The Schunk Group, as the parent company, is based in Heuchelheim in central Hesse and employs around 9,000 people worldwide.
