The points are in the port
The Geis Group is building a EUR 25 million logistics and technology centre covering 17,000 m2 at its site in the inland port of Nuremberg. The first half opened in April, and the pencil manufacturer Faber-Castell is set to move into the second half in 2022.
The company Faber-Castell, a pencil-maker founded in 1761, is investing a seven-figure sum in the automation of its logistics and packaging processes over the next three years, in order to further improve and expand global customer services. Its logistics partner Geis is currently in the process of establishing a modern warehouse and delivery centre in the German inland port of Nuremberg. Around 80 Faber-Castell employees will move there early next year. At the moment the company still picks, packs and dispatches its goods from its centre in Erlangen-Frauenaurach.
Hans-Kurt von Werder, Faber-Castell’s CTO, is looking forward to the new logistics centre, as “ it will enable us to live up to our holistic production and logistics strategy.” He is happy that the compound is “ideal for our warehousing and picking and packing needs, and we can also easily integrate fully automated packaging machines into the facility.” The manufacturer will also engage in what management-speak calls ‘late customising’ on site, to meet customers’ individual packaging and labelling requirements.
Activities returning to Germany
Packaging services are still carried out mainly in Faber-Castell’s Czech branch, near Ceské Budejovice. In future they will be shifted to the new German site. The firm underlined the fact that it is carrying out these logistics process optimisation measures without outsourcing work to a services provider, or transferring jobs to low-wage countries. René Günzel, head of personnel, underlines how “important it us to us to not only to offer all of our distribution centre employees a job at the new site, but to create additional new positions there too.”
A basis for future growth
Hans Kostka, Faber-Castell’s head of logistics, adds that “there’s plenty of scope for expansion in the port of Nuremberg. On top of this, the planned move will bring our logistics and automated packaging activities under one roof – which represents another step towards making our processes easier to manage, shortening throughput times and further optimising our delivery performance.”
Faber-Castell’s centre in Erlangen-Frauenaurach fulfilled approximately 1.7 million orders for the three enterprises Faber-Castell, Eberhard Faber and Faber-Castell Cosmetics in 2020. This corresponds to approximately 30,000 pallets shipped out, and to no less than 158,000 parcels. The company exports its goods from Germany to 117 countries.
