"We're ramping up our capacity by 60%"

Over the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain crisis have led to significant disruptions at many companies, including B&R. We sat down with B&R's Global Operations Development Manager Robert Perperschlager to learn how the company is preparing for the future.

Robert Perperschlager: One of the lessons that the industry has learned from the disruptions in global supply chains is the importance of producing closer to the consumer – also known as reshoring. These new production facilities require automation technology. So, while we're working full speed through the backlog of orders that resulted from the component shortage, we're also dealing with a strong increase in demand for our products. Investment in automation is at the top of the agenda in many of our customers' industries. Not only is it one of the keys to making supply chains more robust and sustainable, it also helps address the skills gap and create meaningful, future-proof jobs.

Perperschlager: Now it's a matter of ramping up production as quickly as possible. And that's exactly what we're doing. Going into the second quarter of 2023, we will have increased our production capacity by 60%. We began laying the foundations for this back in 2021.

Perperschlager: Last July, we opened our new innovation and training campus in Eggelsberg. As we migrated offices to the new campus, we were able to fully convert 7,000 square meters for production. That's an area the size of a football field. We've also invested heavily in new equipment to reduce our throughput times.

Perperschlager: On top of the permanent expansion of production capacity, we have also introduced a temporary weekend shift in production and logistics in order to work through our order backlog as quickly as possible. It's important to emphasize that this measure is limited to one year and is 100% dedicated to reducing lead times. This is really an extraordinary program we are proud to have developed together with the trade union and the works council. We're hiring a total of around 500 additional employees for this weekend shift – 300 of them have already started work at the beginning of March.