Hydroline’s new factory in Poland
Due to the increased demand in manufacturing in Hydroline’s Poland factory, the project for Hydroline’s new factory to Poland kicked off already in 2016. The original idea of the work group was to build an expansion to the already existing factory as only half of the rented land was in use. However, it was soon discovered that it would not work and a better option would be to build completely new facilities specifically designed for our needs.
In March 2018 as the markets started growing rapidly, we made a decision of a new factory. It was the next month when we already had first illustrations of the new facilities in our hands and Panattoni started taking things further. The facilities were designed in a way that in the future, we will be able to expand if needed. At the moment, the new factory is already in the same size category as our main facilities in Vuorela.
Things started moving rapidly. It took only a few months to make the final design for the new factory and we were ready to sign the contract. The city of Stargard made a new land subdivision for us as we needed one and a half plots of land. Even though there are a lot of examples how Polish bureaucracy can make things quite difficult, we must say everything worked unbelievably quickly and smoothly during the whole project.
The construction work for the new factory started early January 2019 and the facilities were ready for early access in June. All machines have been transferred to the new facilities and our staff has started their work under the new roof. All in all, the whole process was done in just 15 months from the moment we signed the contract to the moment the new factory building was completed. There is still a lot to do but we are excited for what the future beholds at our factory.
Our builder in the project was Panattoni which also chose the main contractor for the job. We were very impressed by the work they did: everything was done correctly at the first time. Our team had a meeting with them each week about where are we now and what happens next. We were constantly aware about what was going on. Of course, there were some problems with the project but all in all in a big picture, they were relatively small issues. Problems cause extra work for the whole organization, however, with a clear goal in mind, our personnel did an amazing job throughout the project. The new plant serves the Middle-European markets even better than the old one. We have already signed up to delivering cylinders to Ireland as well as to Sweden and Denmark. Logistically Hydroline Poland only moved a couple of hundred meters as Stargard is located right next to German border and there is a straight autobahn from Stargard to Berlin. The location is excellent as our two major customers also have their factories right next to ours.
At the moment, our factory in Poland employs around 70 people and we have the need for approximately 90 which we will start recruiting shortly. The recruitments depend on the arrival of some of the new machines we have ordered. As the number of machines increases so does the need for labour force.
The city od Stargard has been an amazing partner in this process. As stated before, the bureaucracy was really fast the city has been supportive along the way. The schedule for the project was fast and there was no time for delays. Even though at one point the project was delayed by 18 days, our contractor got the work done in time.
For further information about our operations in Poland, please contact our VP Production, Jussi Maksimainen.