WITRON development 2019: 10% more turnover, 500 additional employees

As an innovative lifetime partner - from design, realization including IT, controls, and mechanics, through to system operation and service - WITRON succeeded again in 2019 to receive numerous demanding projects in the central sales regions Europe and North America. The orders come from the entire retail range - food and non-food - stationery store business, as well as online business. For the first time, WITRON will realize two logistics centers for an Australian customer. In addition, the signing of a contract for an omni-channel distribution center of the Swedish retailer, Axfood located near Stockholm, is the largest single order for WITRON in its almost 50-year company history.

Competitive advantage as basis for a high number of incoming orders

The result of the good order situation was an increase in turnover from 546 million Euros to 600 million Euros. The number of incoming orders could be even increased by 50 percent from 2018 to 2019. WITRON sees its technological competitive advantage in the logistics of food retail business as well as the timely and secure implementation of customer projects as the basis for success. Moreover, WITRON was successful in actively approaching leading-edge topics and embedding them holistically into the WITRON systems. This includes multi-functional omni-channel platforms, end-to-end integration of ecosystems, the use of AI applications, as well as sustainability - starting with workstation ergonomics, optimal demand-related store supply, waste reduction along the entire supply chain, and through to a significant CO2 reduction.

Record number of trainees

500+ additional jobs have also been created nationally and internationally so that the family-owned company already employs 4,000 people worldwide - approx. 1,800 of them are located at the company headquarters in the northern Upper Palatinate. In order to successfully meet the lack of skilled personnel, training is and remains an important pillar of the company's philosophy. For this reason, WITRON employed 100 new trainees in the past year - a record number. In total, WITRON employs approx. 300 trainees in 18 apprenticed professions.

Strategic investment - doubling of the production capacities

The high demand for WITRON solutions over many years as well as an extremely positive view into the future, are the reasons for a strategic investment decision. Since the end of 2019, excavators have been on the move to expand the production area in Parkstein by an additional 120,000 square meters / 1.3 Million square feet. The Winkler family, the owners, are thus setting another significant sign for the location and the region. The investment for this amounts to approx. 160 million Euros. After the planned completion - just in time for the 50th anniversary of the company in 2021 - the complete WITRON production area will then cover more than 212,000 square meters / 2.3 Million square feet.

Johannes Meißner strengthens WITRON management

In addition, the management board of the systems integrator has been expanded. On January 1, 2020, Johannes Meißner joined the WITRON management board. As technical managing director, the 53-year-old graduated engineer, specialized in communications engineering, who has been working for the company for more than 30 years, is responsible for the project processing including the WITRON IT and PLC systems within the WITRON GmbH. The central motivation for this decision was the enormous company and employee growth in all business areas of the WITRON Group as well as increasingly complex customer demands regarding the end-to-end integration of logistics centers into a holistic and intelligent supply chain. Many WITRON innovations have also been implemented into the IT environment: consistent continuation of the platform idea, intelligent interfaces, web and mobile apps, interactive dashboards, cloud solutions, leading-edge service tools, as well as the permanent optimization of usability.

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