CPT International 04/2015

The ae group’s Sole Director Klaus
Eichler (right) with the new chairman
of the board Dr. Michael Militzer in
front of the works grounds in Gerstungen
(Photo: René Dupont)
Die-casting plant in the old hall: The furnaces were renovated with new linings
and maintenance spraying (Photos: Andreas Bednareck)
safety reasons announcing their presence
long in advance by shining a cone
of blue light onto the floor, as is usual
in Gerstungen – commute backwards
and forwards between the new and the
old halls to supply the plants.
The new works area and the tasks
it takes will offer 140 additional employees
a new professional future until
2018: new machine operators, specialist
maintenance staff, mechatronics technicians,
quality controllers and project
managers already control production
in the hall with its two 40-t overhead
cranes, while new sales staff in the administrative
wing are responsible for
marketing and delivery of the castings.
The workforce at the site will thus rise to
over 500 in the next two years.
About 12 million euros were invested
in building the hall and roughly
53 million euros have been spent on the
die-casting and processing machines to
make this vision a reality. The total cost
of the capacity expansion thus adds up
to an impressive 65 million euros.
Foundry alongside Germany’s
‘Green Strip’
Change of scene to the construction
works in early 2015: only the external
An ae employee processes castings
façade, a few foundation trenches with
reinforced concrete wire mesh, and the
partially covered roof of the new works
hall can be seen. Some way away, beyond
a half-finished outer wall, one can
see a relic from the past: an old East German
border tower in a dilapidated condition
25 years after reunification – located
on the edge of Germany’s ‘Green
Strip’, the 1,400 km green band that follows
the path of the former border between
East and West Germany. Behind
it one can see the residential houses
that already belong to the German federal
state of Hessen. A view to the west
– now without barbed wire as during
the Cold War. “For us here, the old border
is blurred, not just because we drive
across it every day but also because,
particularly now, we work very closely
with our colleagues in Nentershausen
in Hessen,” explains Klaus Reinbold,
managing director at the ae group’s site
in Gerstungen. The close proximity to
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