Topping-out ceremony at Scheuch LIGNO GmbH

Less than half a year after the ground-breaking ceremony at the end of March, the topping-out ceremony was held at the Scheuch LIGNO GmbH site in Mehrnbach, Upper Austria, on 18 September. The Scheuch Group is investing around eight million euros in the modern office and production building for the subsidiary that was newly founded on 1 March 2015.

Ing. Alois Burgstaller, Managing Director of Scheuch LIGNO GmbH, welcomed the many guests in attendance at the topping-out ceremony – which included people from the companies involved in the construction, business partners, the company founders Alois and Anna Elisabeth Scheuch, as well as media representatives – in the shipping area of the new production site. DI Stefan Scheuch and DI Jörg Jeliniewski, Managing Directors of Scheuch GmbH, also turned out for the occasion.

The architect of the new build, DI Andreas Matulik, was on hand to provide information on the building progress and the remaining construction stages. Ing. Birgit Mayr, Managing Director of Bau Mayr GmbH, also quoted some impressive figures: 28,000 m³ of earth excavated for the new build, 3865 m³ of concrete and 412,000 kg of structural steel processed, and 15,000 man hours put in by her team made up of almost 30 individuals at peak times.

The first lot of machines will be moved into the new production halls in Mehrnbach as early as the middle of October and the production site move from Aurolzmünster, Austria, to Mehrnbach is scheduled for completion by the end of October. The office staff are expected to move into their new facilities at the end of February.

LBH GMBH WOODWORKING DIVISION SUCCESSFULLY INTEGRATED IN A VERY SHORT SPACE OF TIME

Two strong partners join forces to form Scheuch LIGNO GmbH: the Wood Processing Industry division of Scheuch GmbH and the Woodworking division of LBH GmbH. “The LBH GmbH Woodworking division has been successfully integrated into Scheuch LIGNO GmbH in a very short space of time. The LBH sales team is already based in Mehrnbach and the assembly team was integrated on 1 July. All LBH Woodworking division orders already go through Scheuch LIGNO. Having said that, LBH manufactures products, such as dedusters or grinding tables, for Scheuch LIGNO at its Wolfsegg site and will continue to do so,” reported Alois Burgstaller.

POSITIVE ORDER SITUATION – HIGH SALES TARGET ON TRACK TO BE REACHED

The order situation and the sales development have been extremely positive so far. “We have already set ourselves a very high target for our first year. And despite enormous drops in Russia, it looks as though we’ll be able to achieve this high sales target. There are two factors to our success: new, innovative products and a splendid, dedicated team,” explained Burgstaller. “In the starting phase, the very positive order situation meant that we hit our limits every now and again. As a result, we are currently adapting our resources in line with this. This will gives us much bigger production and storage capacities in the new production hall here in Mehrnbach that we will also use accordingly. It also means that LBH will also be able to produce some products and parts for us more flexibly and quickly.”

SCHEUCH LIGNO GMBH CREATES MORE JOBS

Scheuch is also employing more staff as a result of the new structures and the good order situation. “Scheuch GmbH has taken on 87 staff members. On 1 August, we employed nine additional staff members plus ten colleagues from LBH. By 2 March 2016, we want to employ even more staff members in the Project Engineering and Service divisions, which will bring our total workforce to more than 110 people – that’s an increase of around 25 staff members here at the Mehrnbach site,” says Burgstaller.

ITS OWN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AREA

The advantages of the new site with its own big production hall is that it has room for a Research and Development area of around 300 m². “This is where we will carry out tests on various products and materials. Our customers can see and learn about our innovative products in this Research and Development area directly,” says Alois Burgstaller.