Tognum subsidiary L’Orange opens new manufacturing facility in Glatten

• Largest single investment in L’Orange’s history
• New production facility for common-rail injectors for mtu Series 4000
• State-of-the-art transport and logistics center

Friedrichshafen/Glatten, 4 May 2009. Tognum subsidiary L’Orange officially opened its new production facility in Glatten (Black Forest) today. Here is where common-rail injectors for mtu’s Series 4000 will be manufactured. The new building also serves as a state-of-the-art transport and logistics center. L’Orange has invested approx. € 8 million in the extension of their manufacturing capacities in Glatten, making the new building the largest single investment in the history of the company. Another € 3 million was invested in the equipment for the new manufacturing facility.

More than anything else, the new production facility provides for leaner production processes. One example is the fact that L’Orange managed to integrate the nozzle element processing operations for mtu Series 4000, which were previously located at the company’s Wolfratshausen location near Munich, into the process line in the new production hall. All manufacturing processes at the new location are geared to suit the objective of “Lean Production” principles, i.e. by assigning them to independent manufacturing cells, facilitating significantly shorter process cycles.

The new transport and logistics center also optimizes shipping and incoming goods operations for all facilities in Glatten. A fully automated pallet transport system facilitating a continuous and quick flow of goods from all the individual manufacturing facilities is proving particularly useful.

“The optimized processes enable L’Orange to significantly raise their overall efficiency“, explains Christof von Branconi, member of the executive board and COO of Tognum AG with responsibility for the business unit "Onsite Energy & Components". What is more: the environment benefits from the overall facility structure, since “we are using the test stand exhaust air to recover heat, thereby actively contributing to climate protection. “

The construction of the new facilities took nine months. After manufacturing was started in January, the logistics center was taken into operation in April. Once run up to full capacity utilization, the new building will provide workstations and social facilities for a minimum of 220 staff.