The Jungheinrich Lift Truck Corp. (Richmond, Va.) will move its U.S. corporate headquarters to a new, larger location not far from its previous site in Richmond. The new building offers Jungheinrich a 70,000 sq. ft. increase in floor space and accommodates a 20% increase in headcount over 2006. Jungheinrich also expanded some existing departments
and created new ones--all with the aim of broadening its product support and training programs to the distribution network.
John Sneddon, president of Jungheinrich, says, "Because of our substantial growth in the U.S. over the last 12 months, we simply outgrew our existing facilities in Richmond. So it made perfect sense to consolidate everything into one building. We've now brought all our sales and administrative people, as well as our spare parts operations, warehousing and technical workshops under one roof."
"With consolidation, our goals were to achieve more operational efficiency and get a synergy from departmental proximity, but we also wanted the new headquarters to make a positive impact on our corporate image in the U.S. as well as to improve communications between Jungheinrich professionals and our customers."
The first phase of the relocation took place last year and entailed moving the warehouse and spare parts operations into the new building. This initial move expanded the company's warehouse capabilities and ensured rapid parts delivery. After some interior remodeling to suit their specific needs, Jungheinrich recently completed the corporate and administrative move, making the new headquarters 'open for business.'
Jungheinrich has enhanced its ability to carry out technical training in the new Richmond location. Training and Technical Support added significant personnel, and the new location contains a technical skills training center,
with a fully-equipped classroom environment. Students and technicians can easily move from classrooms to an area where they can participate in hands-on training on all Jungheinrich products. Every two weeks a different service training class is held at Richmond, and, upon dealer request, service trainers go out to the dealerships to train technicians.
The company's new site has a sales training environment. Classes are now held approximately once every two months in Richmond, and about three times every two months at key dealer locations. The company is currently building a product-demonstration area where sales personnel from across the country can come to learn about product features and benefits, and actually drive the vehicles themselves. In addition, customers will be able to visit Richmond to try the products first-hand in environments reflecting their own applications.
"Jungheinrich is fundamentally a European manufacturer, but one with a substantial--and growing--global presence. The U.S. share alone makes up about 25% of the global market, so it's clear a lift-truck manufacturer like us needs to be very active here. Our corporate strategy is based on our growth in the U.S., and our investment of resources in this new and expanded U.S. corporate headquarters demonstrates our growing capability here, and confirms our commitment to this important marketplace."
Source: Jungheinrich Lift Truck Corp.
