Trumpf Opens Logistics Centre, Acquires Laser Manufacturer

Ditzingen, Germany: Industrial machine tool and lasers for manufacturer Trumpf recently opened a new logistics centre at its headquarters in Ditzingen at an official ceremony attended by some 200 invited guests and Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut, Baden-Württemberg’s Minister of Economic Affairs.

The company invested around 40 million euros in the new facility to provide customers worldwide faster access to consumables and spare parts. Covering 13,000 square metres, the new building with 20-meter ceilings is divided into office space and a warehouse area. With more than 30,000 items in stock, the central warehouse in Ditzingen is the main hub of the company’s worldwide logistics network. The company dispatches around 60,000 items from the warehouse every month, for a combined total of some 270,000 packages a year.

Digital processes were deployed not only to manage the stocks on the shelves, but also to control the overall flow of materials to and from the warehouse. An automatic small-parts store currently accommodates 23,000 tote boxes for fast-moving parts. This is supplemented by a manual shelving system on four levels to store slow-moving products, as well as various pallet racks for large and bulky items.

Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller, chief executive officer of the Trumpf Group, said, “Our plan is to have all our locations digitally connected within the next five years in order to manufacture our products more efficiently and offer even better service to our customers.”

In addition, an 85-percent stake in Access Laser was also recently acquired by Trumpf. Headquartered in the US state of Washington, the company produces high-precision, low-power CO2 lasers that are notably used to fabricate microchips in extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV). In this application, the light generated by the low-power CO2 laser serves as a beam source that is deployed together with Trumpf’s laser amplifiers in EUV systems.

Founded in 1999, it employs some 60 people in the US and China and also caters to applications in the medical, electronics and scientific markets.