Wacker Neuson last week held an official ground-breaking ceremony for its new plant in Hörsching, Austria. Work can begin right away as foundations have already been laid. According to the current schedule, the first compact equipment should roll off the production line as early as May 2012.

“We are delighted to see construction work get underway,” said Martin Lehner, deputy chairman of the Wacker Neuson SE executive board and head of the compact equipment segment. “Growing demand for our products has clearly stretched capacity at our Leonding plant to the limit, and this is accentuated by our strategic alliance with Caterpillar for the manufacture of excavators weighing up to 3 tonnes.”

The new production plant is being built on a 160,000-square-meter plot of land, giving Wacker Neuson huge scope to expand production capacity as needs evolve. It will also bring new jobs to the region. “Our company is growing — not just in terms of revenue but also headcount,” said Johannes Mahringer, general manager of Wacker Neuson Linz GmbH. “We currently employ 350 people and will be creating many new job opportunities with the new plant.”

Wacker Neuson is investing around €65 million (about U.S. $93 million), including purchasing and developing the site. The 40-acre site in Hörsching is located next to the airport and will be home to a state-of-the-art production hall, with testing grounds and an administrative building. The buildings will stretch across approximately 50,000 square meters.

“Optimized production processes and the latest technologies – such as a paint line with powder coating und a sand-blasting facility – will further increase the quality of our products and create additional efficiency gains,” Mahringer added.

Wacker Neuson SE is a global manufacturer of light and compact equipment. Manufacturing activities are distributed across three German, one Austrian, two American and one Philippine production sites.