R?chling invests €35m in Thuringia, Germany

Photo by R?chling Ground-breaking ceremony at R?chling-HPT: Architect Eberhardt Hebig, Christine Zitzmann, District Administrator of Sonneberg rural district council; Ludger Bartels, CEO of the R?chling Group, Karl-Heinz Sladek, Managing Director of R?chling-HPT and Marianne Reichelt, Mayor of Neuhaus am Rennweg (left to right)

German plastics processor R?chling has held its ground breaking ceremony to expand its R?chling-HPT, part of R?chling Group’s medical division, Neuhaus am Rennweg, Germany plant. The company is investing €35m in the expansion and says it will create around 70 new jobs.

Ludger Bartels, CEO of the R?chling Group, said: "The expansion will enable R?chling-HPT to be a strategic partner for integrated packaging systems. HPT already enjoys great success supplying its customers with a broad range of bottles and containers. In future we will be able to offer complete systems from the bottle through the closure to the administration device."

The project will take place in four stages, the first beginning with the expansion of the existing production building which will create space for the products created by the new injection moulding and assembly facility for closures, as well as space for administration devices in the clean room, states R?chling.

The existing extrusion blow moulding line in the clean room will also be expanded. A new four-storey office will be built in 2019 and the production of closures and administration devices will be expanded with the addition of several injection moulding machines, automatic assembly systems and extrusion blow moulding lines. A further increase in capacity and an expansion of the office building are planned by 2023, says R?chling.

The Managing Director of R?chling-HPT, Karl-Heinz Sladek, said: "Our business volumes have grown constantly over the last few years. The planned investment will allow us to broaden business relations with our customers. That in turn will enable us to ensure the sustainable, long-term growth of the company in Neuhaus and create some 70 additional jobs."

R?chling says 30 additional jobs will have been created by the end of the first investment phase in mid-2018, with a further 40 jobs being created successively from 2019, giving R?chling-HPT a total workforce of around 350 in Neuhaus in 2023.

The R?chling Group contains 77 companies and employs around 8,500 people in 22 countries around the world.