Machinery maker Schuler has announced the closure of two of its production sites in Germany and that it will lay off 474 people, in an effort to react to declining demand from automotive suppliers.
It will close its southern German production sites in Weingarten and Gemmingen, Kallanish learns from the maker of machinery for sheet processing and forming. “The economic environment for our customers in the automotive industries has kept deteriorating, and so it has for builders of plants and machinery,” says Joachim Schönbeck, chief executive of Schuler’s parent, Andritz. Schuler earlier announced it is offering production facilities in Erfurt for sale.
Separately, the company has announced the development of a compact rotary furnace for the production of side walls and base assemblies, together with BSN Thermprozesstechnik.
The furnace has a length of 14 metres including loading unit and centring, a width of 6 metres including heating and drives, and a height of 7 metres. It thus requires only around a quarter of the space compared to a conventional roller hearth furnace, Schuler explains. The minimum cycle time per part is 12 seconds. The furnace runs on both electricity and gas, and can save around 1,200 MWh of energy per year, the company notes.
Christian Koehl Germany
