Construction at Arburg in the USA

Feierlicher Spatenstich für den Arburg-Neubau in Rocky Hill: Friedrich Kanz (2.v.r.), President Arburg Inc., mit seinen Mitarbeitern Robert Arace (2.v.l.), Vice-President & CFO, und John Adamowicz (l.), Service, sowie dem verantwortlichen Architekten James Becker (Mitte), Tecton Architects, und Donald Swanson (r.), Vice President AZ Corp / Construction Management. (Foto: DFphotography (Daniel Ferrari)) / Groundbreaking ceremony for the new Arburg building in Rocky Hill: Friedrich Kanz (2nd from right), President Arburg Inc., with his colleagues Robert Arace (2nd from left), Vice-President & CFO, and John Adamowicz (left), Service, with the responsible architect James Becker (centre), Tecton Architects, and Donald Swanson (right), Vice President AZ Corp / Construction Management. (Photo: DFphotography (Daniel Ferrari))

•    Ground-breaking ceremony marks start of construction of new Arburg Inc. building in Rocky Hill, Connecticut
•    First-class customer support on an area of 27,000 square feet (2,500 square metres)
•    Machine warehouse for short delivery times

In October 2013, the start of construction for the new Arburg building in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, was celebrated with a traditional ground-breaking ceremony. This investment in the US underscores the significance of the North American market, in which Arburg is extremely successful. In addition to the high-end technology, customers value the excellent pre and after-sales service. This will improve even more with the new building. With a useable floorspace of 27,000 square feet (2,500 square metres), the new premises will offer sufficient space to include a showroom, machine and spare parts warehouses and will cater to the growing turnkey solutions area.

Arburg Inc. President Friedrich Kanz invited a high-level delegation, including Rocky Hill Town Manager Barbara Gilbert and Mayor Timothy Moriarty, the architects Jeff Wyszynski and James Becker from Tecton Architects, as well as Vice President Don Swanson and Project Manager Eric Morse from AZ Corp / Construction Management, to the ground-breaking ceremony, which officially marked the start of construction for the new building.

During the occasion, Friedrich Kanz emphasised that, “The new building to house Arburg’s US headquarters represents a further important milestone for our activities here in the USA.” The company has been present with its own organisation in the country since 1991. In addition to the current Arburg Inc. headquarters in Newington, two further locations have also been established: The Arburg Technology Center in Irvine, California opened in 1993 and later moved into a new building in 2007, while the Arburg Technology Center Midwest in Elgin, Illinois, opened in 2007. The company is consequently very well represented in the US and its success there demonstrates that the long-term investments have paid off. Currently, 65 employees work at the three locations, of which 25 are involved in Sales and 32 in after-sales service and application technology consulting. This underscores the high value that Arburg places upon intensive customer support beyond the machine sales per se.

New building in Rocky Hill for even better and more intensive customer support
Arburg’s future US headquarters is conveniently situated only six miles from its previous Newington location. The new, 27,000 square feet (2,500 square metre) building offers all the facilities for further intensifying cooperation with the customers, which is becoming increasingly important in light of the ever more challenging technical requirements. Consequently, everything will be housed under one roof at Rocky Hill: numerous Arburg experts with many years’ experience and comprehensive know-how, as well as a modern machine fleet. The central area will be the showroom offering space for up to seven Allrounders, which will be available both for customer-mould testing and training purposes. Adjacent to this there will be rooms for training and technical seminars, for example.

Large storage area to ensure fast machine availability
Furthermore, there will be an extensive warehouse area for Allrounders which will merely require customer-specific adaptation prior to their rapid delivery. With a 38 tonne gantry crane, the necessary logistics will be provided for all machine sizes and large unit numbers. Moreover, there will be a large centralised spare parts warehouse for all Allrounders on the US market in order to ensure even faster deliveries.

Expansion of the project business
A further important area which is gaining significance in the US are turnkey systems, which Arburg supplies as a general contractor: from design and implementation through to commissioning and after-sales service. Sufficient space will also be available in the new building for the assembly and acceptance testing of customer-specific production cells of this type.

Ready for occupancy in around one year’s time
Like all Arburg buildings world-wide, Arburg Inc.'s new home will also reflect the company’s corporate identity, the most evident feature of which are the large glass facades. The facility management technology will be state-of-the-art to ensure that customers and employees feel completely at ease in the new building. “The new building will provide us with everything we need to offer our customers comprehensive, first-class support in a pleasant environment,” says a delighted Friedrich Kanz, looking forward to the move from Newington to Rocky Hill following the construction period, which will extend to around 12 months.