Interroll is taking the next step steps in the Asia Pacific region: Growth markets there—especially in China, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, Korea, and Australia—show a good demand for Interroll products and provide significant potential for growth in the long term. Moreover, an increase in the base of installed material handling systems at customers is expected to provide additional service opportunities within the region. In 2019, about half of the output of Interroll Suzhou was delivered to destinations outside of the People’s Republic of China, with large-scale projects for the Korean e-commerce sector, as an example. Production at the new factory is scheduled to start in early 2022.

The new location will be fully owned by Interroll and is located in the Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP) development zone, around 12 km southwest of the existing location. With about 22,000 square meters of floor space, the available capacity will be doubled.

“We are preparing for running a state-of-the-art location with improved capacities and new production processes here, which also puts emphasis on the needs of customers and employees,” says Ben Xia, Vice President Asia Pacific of the Interroll Group. “The concept for our new factory includes a training center as well as showrooms and testing facilities.”

Automation and digitalization

Production processes will cover the full range of the product portfolio. On top of that, the Suzhou facility will also become a Regional Center of Excellence for Technopolymers and Subsystems.

“We will seize a number of opportunities for increased productivity by implementing more automated and semi-automated processes when we start the new production,” says Xia. “The new plant will also enable us to shorten delivery times for our customers in the region.”