Groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a new production hall: HUBER SE expands the company headquarters for its 150th anniversary

The groundbreaking ceremony took place on Wednesday, 6 April, with the participation of District Administrator Willibald Gailler, Berching's Deputy Mayor Christian Meissner and the responsible architect Hans-Jürgen Distler (Distler Architekten + Ingenieure GmbH). The entire HUBER management board in the person of CEO Georg Huber, Dr.-Ing. Oliver Rong (Deputy CEO and Director Engineering & Production), Dr.-Ing. Johann Grienberger (Director Technology) and Rainer Köhler (Chief Sales Officer) started the expansion of the headquarters together with the members of the HUBER supervisory board Alois Ponnath (Supervisory Board Chairman), former State Secretary Hans Spitzner (Supervisory Board Deputy Chairman) and Johanna Rong (shareholder and Supervisory Board member).

CEO Georg Huber: “A very special day in HUBER's 150-year history”

The two existing production halls are being expanded in the southern direction of the company premises. In a first step, the parts manufacturing shop area will be expanded by around 7,000 m² of production space including social and office space.

In the course of this alteration, the existing halls can be relieved and thus the other process areas can also be expanded. In addition, employees will have the opportunity to gradually reduce shift work and thus enjoy significantly improved working conditions. The new production hall will close an existing free space on the site between the HUBER Global Service hall and the P2 hall, thus making optimal use of the vacant land in this area in the future.

“Today is a very special day in HUBER's 150-year history, because with the groundbreaking for the construction of the new production hall we are committing ourselves to our headquarters in Berching,” said CEO Georg Huber before the official groundbreaking ceremony. “It is very pleasing that we have to expand the production capacities at the company headquarters again because of the very good business development.”

Exactly 30 years after the construction of the first production hall at the Berching-Erasbach site, HUBER is taking another step towards a successful future. At that time, in 1992, the company was based in the town centre of Berching and relocated its production to the site of today’s company headquarters. In the following years until today, the production facilities were expanded several times.

Dr.-Ing. Oliver Rong: “We are underpinning the very successful development and positioning ourselves powerfully for the future”

“In addition to the strategic establishment and expansion of production capacities in important international target markets, our headquarters in Berching remains the largest production site of the HUBER Group,” emphasises Dr.-Ing. Oliver Rong, Deputy CEO and Chief Engineering & Production Officer. “By again expanding production capacities in Berching in HUBER’s anniversary year, we are underpinning the very successful development and positioning ourselves powerfully for the future. Not least during the Corona pandemic, the high vertical range of manufacture of our production proved to be very successful and impressively demonstrated HUBER’s resilience.”

Over the past decades, HUBER has continuously developed new markets and served them centrally from the company headquarters in Berching. As a result of the positive developments also in the USA and China, the sales subsidiaries there have in the meantime developed into fully-fledged production sites and are increasingly successful in serving the demand in their respective home markets. Nevertheless, even the existing production halls in Berching are now no longer sufficient to cope with the steadily increasing order situation.

“HUBER is active worldwide, but at home in Berching,” emphasised District Administrator Willibald Gailler in his speech. “It is phenomenal what has been created here at HUBER over the last decades. You are one of the world market leaders in your industry and the district of Neumarkt is proud of that.”

13,000 m² of new space for around $35 million: production at the USA site expanding to full vertical range of manufacture in 2022/23

On the occasion of the company's 150th anniversary, the American subsidiary HUBER USA is also taking another big step towards completely independent local production in Denver, North Carolina. With capacities in parts manufacturing (welding) and final assembly, the production there currently only represents a part of the necessary process chain. In the course of 2022 and 2023, the location will expand to the complete vertical range of manufacture, including its own pickling hall, cutting and machining. Approximately 13,000 m² of new production and office space will be created with a total investment volume, including machine technology, of around 35 million US dollars.

New process technologies and business fields

In addition to completely new process technologies in water and sludge treatment, which require new products, HUBER is also successively opening up new business fields. For example, the company is currently developing a range of products for the Intake segment (e.g. water extraction and intake for power plant cooling) and machines in the Cloth Filtration segment for advanced wastewater treatment.

“We are very positive about the future and look forward to the steady development of the company,” says Dr.-Ing. Oliver Rong. “Strategic production planning is already looking at additional future expansion steps, which are expected to start as early as 2023.”