11.09.08
The future of Stadler Winterthur
Stadler Rail is building the Winterthur location into the Bogie Competence Centre for the whole Stadler Group. For this reason, Stadler is building a new factory in Oberwinterthur and will be investing at total of almost CHF 28 million in buildings, machinery and equipment. Today, Peter Spuhler, CEO and owner of Stadler Rail and Jürg Gygax, CEO of Stadler Winterthur AG, together with Ernst Wohlwend, Mayor of Winterthur, Bruno Sauter, Head of the Cantonal Office for Economics and Labour and other guests attended the ground-breaking ceremony for the new building. With this re-alignment within the overall group, the future of the Stadler location in Winterthur and the jobs there will be secured over the long-term.
Re-alignment of Stadler Winterthur AG
Stadler Winterthur AG has been a subsidiary company of the Stadler Rail Group since 2005. It was formed from the manufacturing operation of the former SLM (Swiss Locomotive and Machine Factory). SLM’s manufacturing operation was continued from 1998 under the name Sulzer Winpro AG, and Winpro was taken over in steps by Stadler from 2004, and has appeared in the market under the name Stadler Winterthur AG since 2006. With the decision of Stadler Rail to build up the Winterthur location into the Bogie Competence Centre for the whole Stadler Group and to simultaneously build a new building, the future of this company, which is rich in tradition, will be secured over the long-term.
A production capacity of 600 bogies a year will be available in the new factory in Oberwinterthur, and can be increased up to 1,200 if required. Before deciding on this investment, Stadler examined a number of different options, such as the use of other Stadler locations in Switzerland or obtaining bogies externally from abroad. The main precondition was that the complete bogie production should take place at competitive prices. Various criteria were ultimately decisive for Winterthur, including the availability of potential employees with expertise and that this would be a good area for recruiting. A reason to celebrate for Peter Spuhler: „I am very happy that, after extensive and detailed investigations into locations, including some in low-wage countries, Winterthur has been chosen as the location for the new Bogie Competence Centre. Thanks to state-of-the-art manufacturing techniques, the cost disadvantage with regard to the cheapest bidders from the East is relatively small. This makes me very happy for the future of Switzerland as a workplace.“ City Mayor Ernst Wohlwend also expressed his satisfaction: „I am very pleased that Stadler has decided in favour of Winterthur as a location, is investing here and is thereby guaranteeing jobs here in the long-term.“
The new building
Stadler has invested CHF 22 million in buildings and land purchase, with a further CHF 6.1 million for machinery and equipment. The workshops have a total length of 119 m, a width of 95 m and a surface area of 10,761 m2. Production will commence in the fourth quarter of 2009. At least 120 – 140 employees will work at this location, and this could rise to up to 200 employees in case of an increase in production capacity. The service departments for vehicles and sub-systems will remain at the old location on the Sulzer site in the city centre. In parallel to the building project, a bogie production has also been set up in the old factory for some time now. In this way, processes can be tested and the employees can be prepared for their new tasks.
Stadler Rail Group, the system provider of customised solution in rail vehicle manufacture, has locations in Switzerland (Altenrhein, Bussnang and Winterthur), in Germany (Berlin-Pankow und Velten), in Poland (Siedlce), in Hungary (Budapest, Pusztascabolcz and Szolnok) and in Algeria (Algiers). The whole group has more than 2,200 employees. The best-known vehicle families of the Stadler Rail Group are the GTW articulated railcar (437 trains sold), the RS1 Regio Shuttle (364 trains sold), the FLIRT (514 trains sold) and the DOSTO double-decker S-Bahn train (50 trains sold) in the complete train sector, and the Variobahn (235 vehicles sold) and the newly developed Tango (90 vehicles sold) in the streetcar sector. In addition, Stadler also manufactures passenger coaches and diesel-electric locomotives, and is the leading manufacturer of rack-railways vehicles worldwide.
If you have any further questions, please contact:
Stadler Rail Group
Tim Büchele, Media Spokesman
Phone: ++41(0)71/626 31 57
tim.buechele@stadlerrail.ch
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