GF Piping Systems invests in Schaffhausen

GF Piping Systems will invest a total of CHF 21 million in its Schaffhausen location in order to expand distribution and production. About CHF 14 million of this amount will be invested in expanding the current distribution centre and improving its efficiency, while CHF 7 million will be set aside to increase manufacturing capacity of plastic products in the Schaffhausen plant. The investments will be made to satisfy the surge in demand, to eliminate delivery bottlenecks and to substantially improve operating processes.

The consistent steady growth of GF Piping Systems has led to several delivery issues and it has impacted on working conditions at the Schaffhausen distribution centre. The lack of space for storage and for handling operations has forced GF Piping Systems to rent additional space in remote locations with consequent complicated logistics process, unnecessary environmental emissions and much higher costs. The Schaffhausen distribution centre, in operation since the late 1980s, will be brought up to the current more demanding market standards with new additional infrastructures: automatic high bay warehouse for additional 15,000 pallets storage, expansion of the shipment-handling area by about 2,000 sq. metres, additional 3,000 sq. metres of storage capacity for pipes and big size fittings. The construction is expected to begin by July 2009 and the expanded logistics centre is planned to come on stream in spring 2010.

At the same time, the production capacity for plastic products in the Schaffhausen plant is being increased in order to meet the steep rise in demand and to improve the service to customers through better products availability and on time shipments. A big part of the new investments is related to the realization of full automatic production cells for the manufacturing of plastic fittings and accessories, mainly used in the utility and industrial piping applications. It is planned to have the new production units in full operation by June 2009.