Insight

With a total amount of €15 million the Evotion 2016 Project involves GESIPA® investing the highest amount ever since the company was founded and, at the same time, involves the biggest construction project in the business’ 61 year history.

Evotion combines the terms ‘evolution’ and ‘motion’, which is to be supplemented by a huge portion of ‘emotion’ while the project is being realised. ‘Evolution’ describes GESIPA’s development into a perfectly organised, modern company that focuses on its core competences. ‘Motion’ means the development, the flow the company is currently in – many things have changed, the business has become better, faster, and more organised. Last but not least, ‘emotion’ is always involved when people join their forces to create something new.

Evotion will combine a variety of projects, with the main and core part involving the consolidaton of the entire European blind rivet production at the existing plant in Thal/Thuringia close to Eisenach, Germany. Once construction work is finished, GESIPA states that its plant will be the most modern one in its industry sector. By creating 80 new jobs mainly in the technical area, GESIPA will also remain one of the biggest employers in the Wartburg region.

As a next step, the entire space that will become available in the company’s headquarters in Mörfelden-Walldorf, close to Frankfurt, will be used to extend production capacities for GESIPA tools.

All of GESIPA’s tools, which are used worldwide, have been produced in this plant since the 1960s. However, increasing sales numbers and a wider range of tools offered also meant that the company had reached its space limits in the headquarters. Now GESIPA plans to build a new big canteen and, in addition to the existing Demonstration Centre for setting tools, a new showroom for fasteners. Plus, the research and development department will also be extended.

In the tool and services sector GESIPA is also putting a special focus on connecting setting tools to the internet, which will help GESIPA customers close the gap between the real and virtual world. In the future, tools will be able to register for maintenance, request service or place an order for new fasteners “totally on their own”. All these project related measures guarantee that GESIPA will develop innovative and market oriented high-quality products also in the future.

The groundbreaking ceremony took place on 23rd September 2016 in Thal/Thuringia. Marking the start of the construction work to extend production and warehousing facilities to a total of approximately 15,000m². Construction work will take approximately one year.

The management and all staff were very pleased to welcome Wolfgang Tiefensee, minister of economic affairs of Thuringia, and Landrat Reinhard Krebs, district administrator, to join them for the ceremony. In all speeches it was pointed out unanimously that Thal as a production location provides some valuable advantages.

The most important criteria in favour of Thal were and are the well trained and motivated members of staff, a highly developed infrastructure, as well as efficient concentration of production volumes in the future.

After the speeches, and a lot of praise and recognition for the employees, the symbolic turn of the sod in bright sunshine marked the start of a party with food and drinks. During his stay Minister Tiefensee was also given a deeper insight into the secrets of blind rivet manufacturing.

“With the commitment to this project we are making GESIPA ready for future challenging requirements and to strengthen and extend its competitiveness substainably,” said Thomas Bamberger, managing director of GESIPA Blindniettechnik GmbH. “Concentrating the entire European blind rivet manufacturing at the Thal site and focusing on tool manfucturing in Mörfelden-Walldorf, as well as expanding R&D, will continue to guarantee decisive advantages in the market in the future.”