Wittmann Continues Upward Trend in 2016

According to a statement released today by Austria’s Wittmann Group, the period of unbroken growth exhibited by the group since 2009, continued in 2016. Sales increased 5% year-over-year to reach € 377 million – solidly reaching the target set for last year.

While a 5% rise is admittedly a less stellar result than the record 19% growth achieved in 2015, Michael Wittmann, Managing Director and CEO of Wittmann Kunststoffgeräte GmbH, is more than satisfied. Moreover, with an exceptionally high order intake in the second half of 2016 and at the beginning of 2017, the order books are already full well into the autumn of this year.

“An expansion in the order of almost 20% is, of course, an exception and not possible every year. We are proud that we could add yet another 5% in 2016 to that impressive rate“, he commented.

The ongoing increase of the company’s workforce, which currently stands at 2,165 employees worldwide, continued last year, while the group also made significant investments in corporate machinery and infrastructure.

As demand for Wittmann’s automation systems and robots remains robust, the company is currently expanding the robot production area in Vienna, which, when completed, will bring total capacity at the group’s four robot production plants to 4,800 units per year – all of which, say Wittmann, are urgently needed.

More investments are planned for this year, too, including construction of a 2,200m2 addition to the production facility in Kottingbrunn, Austria.

The company’s global sales activities were also further strengthened in 2016. A new Slovakian subsidiary opened in September, while more to the east, the group took over its agency in Korea and made it a part of its own sales and service network, following the positive development of the Korean market. The integration was completed in November of last year.

The Wittmann Group introduced a host of new products at the K 2016, including new injection moulding machine models, several new robots, a new robot control system and various types of peripheral equipment.

All new products from Wittmann can be connected to the B8 machine control system via “Wittmann 4.0” software and router technology.

The main challenge for 2017, said the company, is “the consolidation of all these novelties”.

“2017 has got off to an excellent start for us, and we will be very likely to exceed 400 million EUR in sales this year,” said Michael Wittmann. “We are looking forward to an exciting year with a great variety of challenges and tasks.”