Recaro breaks ground on expansion project at HQ
Photo – from left to right: Jochen Wohlers Bauleiter - construction manager LEONARD Weiss GmbH & Co. KG, Peter Müller - Executive Vice President Finance & Administration Recaro Aircraft Seating, Martin Putsch - Shareholder and CEO of the Recaro Holding, Hermann-Josef Pelgrim - Mayor of Schwäbisch Hall, Maja Djordjevic-Müller - architect mdm Architekten BDA, Martin Löffelad -Head of Facility Management RecaroAircraft Seating, Mark Hiller - CEO and Shareholder of Recaro Aircraft Seating, Gerhard Bauer - county commissioner, Siegfried Müller - architect mdm Architekten BDA, Joachim Ley - Executive Vice President Supply Chain Recaro Aircraft Seating.
Recaro Aircraft Seating has broken ground on its latest expansion project, which features a new customer service area, a flame lab and a crash facility.
Recaro acquired additional 45,000 square meters and is investing €40 million (US$44.4 million) in the new buildings on 24,000 square meters.
The area under construction at Schwaebisch Hall, Germany, features 19,000 square meters of building construction, approximately 190 parking spaces, and a rack for 60 bicycles. The new expansion was designed by Maja Djordjevic-Müller and Siegfried Müller of Bürogemeinschaft mdm Architekten. Construction kicked off in December and is slated for completion in summer 2021.
The customer service area will improve operational processes by connecting all production, administration and logistic areas via a central meeting axis. The new flame lab will ramp up the facility’s testing capabilities by integrating the fire test chambers with the flame certification tests.
By 2021, the new crash facility will be able to run 300 dynamic crash tests per year. Additional technical features include: an Instron crash catapult, with a 40-meter track. There will be two preparation rooms for the setup and post processing of test seats. A dummy laboratory will have 10 crash-test dummies with integrated sensors to analyze possible injury criterion. Finally, a pyrotechnical static inflation test room will be built for development of modern retention systems
The new building will be designed as a KfW-Effizienzhaus 55-standard for sustainability. This will be achieved through measures including energy-efficient solar shades and the integration of the district heating to improve the end-use of energy.
“We are proud to be a family-owned company with a long-term corporate strategy,” said Dr. Mark Hiller, CEO and Shareholder of Recaro Aircraft Seating, in today’s announcement. “For us, this means repeatedly identifying investment opportunities for the future in order to secure and sustainably expand Recaro's growth. Our expansion strategy space2grow strengthens our commitment to our Schwaebisch Hall headquarters.”
