SEW Eurodrive has moved to a purpose-built high-tech building in Normanton, West Yorkshire. The new site will not only be used for production, but is an open-house for customers, featuring a permanent working exhibition demonstrating all of the company’s products. It also has training and meeting rooms.
The new 10,000 square metre plant allows the lean assembly of standard product in a controlled environment, with increased capacity of about 50% over the previous site. A storage area with over £2.8 million in computer controlled stock enables SEW Eurodrive to despatch orders quickly and efficiently. According to the company, the whole operation functions with such speed, and with such a turnover, that two container loads of goods are coming and going every day.
The move to the new plant was driven in part by a planned expansion of the service and repair division. With the extra space, SEW Eurodrive has installed two 10 tonne gantry cranes and can now offer repairs to bigger industrial gearboxes of up to 20 tonnes in weight. The company has also invested in a 300 tonne press, the size of a single decker bus, that has the capability to press gears 2.5m in diameter with shafts of up to 10m long.
Mark Holmes, SEW Eurodrive’s managing director, who headed up the management team that oversaw the move, said: “We’re actively encouraging customers to come and see us here and to use our facilities. A whole section of the building was designed with customers in mind so that they can see our products on show in a dedicated demonstration area, and make use of our training facilities and meeting rooms.”
Karl Rigg, SEW Eurodrive’s UK service manager, added: “Our reputation has been built on our ability to repair gearboxes cost effectively, reliably and quickly. At the end of the day we don’t want a customer’s gearbox in our plant for any longer than necessary and every day there will be gearboxes coming in and then going back out again repaired on the same day. Now we’ve got the capability to easily provide a service to customers with extremely large gearboxes, in sectors like steel, mineral extraction and aggregates. The ability to assemble and load test large industrial drive packages is also a big advantage in the new facility.”
