With a symbolic groundbreaking, drive manufacturer Flender has officially started construction work on the expansion of its German site in Voerde on the Lower Rhine. A new logistics and storage hall for the assembly of large gear units for the wind and industrial businesses, including mining and minerals, is being erected on almost 8,000 square metres of open space on the company’s premises. The 200 m long and 40 m wide new building is scheduled for completion at the end of 2022 and will be home not only to storage areas but also to goods receiving, incoming goods inspection and a cleaning area with a large-parts washing machine. This will allow large components to move from truck unloading to large gear assembly under roofed and short logistics routes.

With this expansion, Flender says it is responding to the increased demand in the wind and industrial business and is redesigning its logistics concept at the Voerde site. Gearboxes and drive systems assembled in Voerde have grown continuously in size and weight in recent years. Flender has also been producing complete drive trains consisting of gearbox and generator with very large and heavy components for wind energy drives under its Winergy product brand for some time. The components, which were previously stored de-centrally, can now be stored in a central spot and made available for assembly more quickly with optimised transport routes. The drive specialist is thus further reducing its CO2 footprint in logistics and assembly.

Part of the new logistics concept is also the lease of an additional logistics hall covering 11,200 square metres in the direct vicinity of the Flender plant in Voerde. Flender has concluded a lease agreement for this with the project developer Panattoni. The hall is also under construction and is scheduled to be ready for occupancy in August 2022. “I am very happy that the expansion of our site in Voerde will allow us to centralise our logistics activities, bringing us another step closer to our goal of operating in a completely carbon neutral fashion by 2030. With the new warehouse space, we are making our logistics processes sustainable and thus reducing a significant part of the previous transport routes and the associated CO2 emissions,” says Flender Group CEO Andreas Evertz. At its Voerde site, Flender manufactures gearboxes and drive systems for the wind sector and industrial business. With 276,000 square metres of space in the future and around 1,500 employees, it is the largest Flender site in Germany.