Major expansion at headquarters
“We are growing faster than the market,” is how Sales Manager, Karl Großalber, accurately describes what is currently going on at starlim-sterner headquarters in Marchtrenk, Upper Austria. Because at present building work and expansion are in progress in every corner of the company.
The addition of another storey to the existing administrative building has just been finished thus creating an extra 1,100 m2 of office space. Work is also continuing on the enlargement of the production building and when this is completed, 1,800 m2 of office, manipulation and production equipment space will result. Karl Großalber stresses the pace of the building plan: “We intend to be finished during this summer”, which is remarkable in view of the fact that the production area in the adjacent Works II was already virtually doubled by 3,500 m2 in the autumn of 2015. Karl Großalber: “For us, all the extensions mean greater capacity and thus an additional increase in order flexibility.”
Apart from the investments on these three expansion phases amounting to EUR 11 million, spending has also taken place on a range of machinery, equipment, tools and automation.
Thinking ahead
starlim-sterner is the world’s leading manufacturer of silicone components and produces technical, moulded parts for the automotive and life science industries, as well as a variety of industrial applications. As Karl Großalber points out, his branch necessitates forward thinking: “For us, the challenge pertaining to new products emanates from the differing project run-up
times amongst our customers. Once a mould has been made, depending on the branch, it can take three to five years before a product goes into serial production.”
The parent company in Austria houses mould-making activities and over 200 injection moulding machines for the production of silicone components. In addition, the company operates further locations in Canada, Germany, Italy, China and Austria, which specialise in surface treatments, the manufacture of rubber and special elastomers, and the development of electronic components.
