On 25 May, Linde Material Handling officially opened its new development centre in Aschaffenburg in a ceremony attended by around 100 invited guests. Dr Stefan Rinck, spokesperson for the management of Linde Material Handling, said the building would be a future source of success for the company.
　　Linde Material Handling has invested around EUR 10 million in three new buildings and the integration of an existing one. After just under one and half year's construction, employees moved into the new premises at the end of 2006. The buildings provide around 10,000 square meters of space for offices, test stands, workshops, assembly shops and the prototype workshop. Most of the rooms can be used for a variety of purposes and the development department can be linked to other business divisions involved in the development process. At the same time the investment is a commitment to the hightech-industry site Germany and the county Bayerischer Untermain.
　　Today, the development of industrial trucks at Linde Material Handling is a process that involves not only development engineers, but also employees from the production, purchasing, quality assurance, customer service and marketing and sales departments from the very start. "In this way, an idea's market success and feasibility can be assessed at an early stage of development, and its implementation decided upon", explains Rinck. The iPEP programme ("innovativer Produkt-Entwicklungs-Prozess" = innovative product development process) acts as guideline for all new developments. Its designated aim is to reduce the development time, bring forward development capacities and to reduce the product costs at start of production. "We want to conduct more research and tests during the initial stages of development, as conceptional modifications are relatively cheap during this period", adds Rinck. According to the spokesman, the new process structures have proved successful during the development of the E12 to E20 electric forklift trucks and the H14 to H20 diesel and LPG trucks, the first vehicles developed according to iPEP.
　　Linde Material Handling intends to extend its position as leading provider of technical solutions for increasing economic efficiency with the largest single investment since the comprehensive modernisation and reorganisation of its production and assembly facilities between 2000 and 2002. At the same time, the company is preparing for an extension of its product range in order to comply even better with the requirements of the growing North American, Asian and Eastern European markets.