New subsidiary in Poznan – A1 enters second round: Wirtgen Polska has its finger on Europe’s pulse

Towards the end of 2008, the team of Wirtgen Polska moved into a new subsidiary in Poznan, in order to step up its presence in a major European market and be better able to take on further orders for the road construction sector. The new building was officially inaugurated in early April.

Subsidiary offers „that little bit more“ in customer service

As the competent partner for innovative road construction technologies, the Wirtgen Group has been represented with its own subsidiary in Poland since 1999.

In order to remain competitive in this growing market, the company erected a completely new building with additional facilities for sales and service on an 11,000 m² site in just seven months. „The new premises now afford us many advantages, allowing us to respond to our customers‘ wishes more effectively. One such boon is the advantageous location alongside the highway to Warsaw, as well as a large spare parts store with 300 m²,“ reports Managing Director Michal Stanislawski. What‘s more, an entire floor has been reserved for product training. With an area of 100 m², the new training rooms offer ideal facilities for customer training, as well as for in-house training for the company‘s own staff.

More than 200 guests came to celebrate the subsidiary‘s inauguration. „The customers‘ reaction was thoroughly positive. Particularly the increase in repair shop capacity was perceived as a clear advantage. We now have four repair positions with a total area of roughly 700 m²,“ explains Mathias Pichler, Managing Director of Wirtgen International GmbH, whose subsidiaries in the economic area of Eastern Europe, Russia and the CIS also include Wirtgen Polska.

Kleemann strengthens its market presence

So far, the Wirtgen Group has primarily proved successful on the Polish market with its brands Wirtgen, Vögele and Hamm. For Kleemann‘s international Sales Manager Markus Wörner, it is clear that Kleemann GmbH, the specialist for processing natural stone and recycling materials with its mobile crushers, will also win this market over: „At the moment, we have a stable market for road construction in Poland and we are confident that it also holds considerable potential for Kleemann crushers.“ To exploit that potential, Wirtgen Polska will focus on presenting the Kleemann technologies at exhibitions in 2009. The jaw crusher MC 110 Z and the impact crusher MR 130 R have already been presented to the trade public at Poland‘s largest local exhibition, the Autostrada fair in Kielce, in May. „This will be followed by further demonstrations of the machinery to arouse the customers‘ interest in the Wirtgen Group‘s mineral technologies as well. In Poland, Kleemann stands for quality,“ explains Lutz Regel, Kleemann‘s Sales Manager at Wirtgen Polska.

Europe‘s largest construction project resumes

The A1 highway in Poland is still the largest construction site in Europe. Over a distance of 582 kilometres, it will link Gdansk in northern Poland with the Czech border in the south. The highway is part of a pan-European traffic corridor. Machines built by the Wirtgen Group proved their worth in the first phase of construction and now more than 70 machines from Wirtgen, Vögele and Hamm will consequently be used by the contractor Skanska to complete the roughly 65 kilometre stretch from Nowe Marzy to Czerniewice in the second phase of construction – an excellent reference project for Wirtgen Polska and especially for the efficient on-site customer service. Three service technicians and a service coordinator are continually present directly on site, as the Wirtgen Group is one of the primary suppliers. Moreover: all machines must be ready and operational day and night. With its additional facilities, the new subsidiary ensures ideal conditions for providing professional support for the new phase of this major project. And further promising projects are already in the offing, for Wirtgen Group machines are also to be used for the expansion of the eastwest A2 motorway from Germany through Poland to Belarus which is to start in 2011.

Investing in the new subsidiary is a clear sign of the Wirtgen Group‘s longterm strategy in Poland. This was also emphasized by Jürgen Wirtgen when he addressed the guests and spoke with great optimism of Poland‘s future after joining the European Union in 2004: „We have already accomplished a great deal together. But we still have a great deal to do here. We have not yet reached the end of the road here.“