Page 6 - Miele D The Magazine 2018

NEWS
Factory under construction in Poland
Miele has laid the groundwork for further growth with a second production plant for washing machines. The new factory will be built in the town of Ksawerów, only a few kilometres away from the city of Lodz, Poland's third-largest city with a popula- tion of 700,000. “Our neighbour has a good infrastructure and offers considerable lo- gistical bene ts compared with countries further a eld”, says Dr Stefan Breit, Ex-
ecutive Director Technology, of the choice of location.
Building work began in July 2018 with the laying of the foundation stone. The start of production is planned for the end of 2019/beginning of 2020. After an initial start-up phase, up to 400 employees working in three shifts should produce ap- proximately 250,000 front-loader washing machines there per annum. Investments in
excess of 50 m Euro have been earmarked for this rst stage of expansion.
“With the new plant we will not only generate additional modern capacity, we will also strengthen Gütersloh in its func- tion as lead factory for the Laundry Care Di- vision”, says Breit (see also the interview on this page). Ksawerów in turn would make an important contribution to ensuring competi- tiveness in an ever more price-driven market.
Second plant for sustainable growth
In the interview Stefan Breit explains why a second factory for washing machines is necessary.
Dr Breit, is Miele now giving up “Made in Germany” for washing machines?
Stefan Breit: For many years we have been manufacturing successfully in a consortium
of factories both at home and abroad. Therefore the formu- lation “Made by Miele” seems better to me anyway. The second plant in Ksawerów is an important component of our growth strategy. We will con- tinue to produce the models of the middle and upper class in Gütersloh and also our WT1
Laying the foundation stone in Ksawerów: Stefan Breit (2nd from left) focuses on a growth strategy for laundry care.
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washer-dryer, that inciden- tally is currently showing a higher unit growth than any other appliance. Furthermore Gütersloh will remain the lead factory for the Laundry Care Division – which will then have three locations.
But still no growth arising from it per se ...
No, but we will create the conditions to enable us to
also offer attractive prices in the particularly hard-fought area of our entry appliances in
the future, and so to increase our share of the market. That helps us to interest younger customers in a Miele washing machine too. Experience with our reasonably-priced Active dishwasher has shown that new customer groups can be opened up, so the additional unit sales go “on top”.
Does the Miele guarantee
of quality still apply for the Polish appliances?
Yes, I can absolutely reassure you of that. In all plants of the
Miele consortium we manu- facture with the same produc- tion systems and to the same stringent quality standards. The same applies for proven components. So all the motors for our washing machines, tumble dryers, dishwashers and vacuum cleaners come from our factory in Euskirchen. Also we develop and produce the electronic controls for our ap- pliances ourselves in Gütersloh and Bras˛ ov in Romania. And
of course our appliances are all tested to last up to 20 years.