Until now, MinebeaMitsumi has manufactured ball bearings, mechanical parts, small-sized motors, electronic components and systems in large quantities and efficiently by setting up a large-scale integrated production structures in Asia, specifically Thailand and China. Meanwhile, the company positions the Slovak plant as a strategic highly automated assembly site that will also develop special motors, drive systems, sensors and components mainly for automotive, industrial appliances and power tools. These quality products are marketed mainly in the European Economic Area. Within Europe the company has factories and R&D centers in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Czech Republic, and Slovakia, but all of these factories are small in size. The company therefore needed a highly technologically capable plant to expand the business in the European region. The new plant will be built near the international airport of Kosice on an area initially consisting of 50,000 square meters, with an option for adding 50,000 square meters for a possible second construction phase. The MinebeaMitsumi Group, along with its European subsidiaries, aims for high volume production. Kosice is the second largest and most important city in Slovakia after the capital city Bratislava. The MinebeaMitsumi Group is eager to minimize the risks of exchange rate fluctuations, but also to realize savings in logistics through shortened transport routes, less inventories and elimination of import duties. Furthermore the service to its customers will be optimized, particularly for the automotive industry, by closer proximity to the customer and increased flexibility.
Mr. Hoffmann, Manager of Regional Affairs for MinebeaMitsumi Europe, said: “our new MinebeaMitsumi Factory in Kosice will be a multi phase approach. Today we break the ground for phase 1, a 20.500m² modern factory building, with a production area of around 11.000m², a 4.000m² warehouse, 2.500m² offices and around 3.000m² canteen, social and technical rooms. Today we break the ground for our production factory but as we mentioned before, Kosice will not only be the place for the new MinebeaMitsumi manufacturing base in Europe. Kosice will also be a place where we will do Research and Development. We will initiate the first R&D activities in the main factory but soon we will also start with the construction of our new R&D building next to the factory, giving home to up to 100 development engineers. Hiring 1.000 people is quite easy in Asia, we can actually do it over a weekend but we certainly know that the situation is different in Europe. During the last couple of weeks we already received many high quality job applications, this makes us really confident that we can achieve our goal and fill our factory with the people we need.” Mr. Hoffmann also asked for the support of the participants and recipients. “We are an international company and always happy to work with different cultures and people.”
The first products in the new plant will be manufactured in the first quarter of 2018.
