Investment in the future: WISKA builds new company headquarters outside Hamburg, Germany, on 36,500 square metres

‘With this new building, we are laying a foundation stone for the future, further development and long-term growth. I am particularly pleased that we can celebrate this special milestone in the year of our 100th anniversary’, says Ronald Hoppmann, who is the third generation of his family to manage the company along with his sister Tanja Hoppmann.

The 36,500 sq. m space will comprise of state-of-the-art logistics and production areas, office space and quality control areas. The first construction phase will focus largely on the building of the logistics and production facilities, which are to commence operation as early as 2021 and will enable WISKA to expand its capacity in this area by 50 per cent.

‘It is good for Kaltenkirchen and the region that the family-run company WISKA continues to invest in the future even after 50 years in this location. With this 36,500 sq. m plot they have found the right place for expanding their production and logistics facilities. The example of WISKA shows how important it is for the town to provide commercial land’, says Hanno Krause, mayor of Kaltenkirchen.

The new building has been planned and designed to ensure optimal material flows. It impresses with a significantly higher level of automation and digitalisation, both in logistics and in manufacturing. This will enable WISKA to establish completely new processes and considerably increase the level of service they offer to their customers.

‘By integrating cutting-edge software solutions into the warehouse and production areas and with the help of automated processes, we will be able to manufacture and ship individual customer orders on the same day. This underpins our claim of guaranteeing our customers constant high availability of our products across our entire product range. We will be able to be a lot more transparent about the shipping status of our goods, similar to what you see in the e-commerce segment. When you look at it in this way, we are constructing this building very much with the interests of our customers in mind’, explains Björn Heyna, Supply Chain Management and project manager for the new building at WISKA.

The building has been designed to ensure it can be further developed over the next 30 years. The overall concept will ensure that the separate WISKA sites of today, which are two km apart as the crow flies, can be merged together to form one German headquarters in the new location. This will be implemented over the course of further construction phases in the coming years.

‘With this new building, WISKA will be absolutely future-proof. The concept provides sufficient scope for us to develop in line with the market at a later date and adapt time and again whenever the framework conditions change. The building “breathes” with customer needs, regardless of whether this means that an even broader product portfolio, larger batch sizes or processes that integrate business partners are required. Overall, we will be quicker, more flexible and able to offer even more quality’, says Heyna.

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Image 1: „New building at WISKA: Representatives from the town of Kaltenkirchen, construction project partners and WISKA at the groundbreaking ceremony – (l.t.r.): Sven Hammann, Myleanfactory.de; Björn Heyna, Supply Chain Management and Project Manager for the new building at WISKA, Anne-Kristin Meisterjahn, Economic Development; Viviane Kovermann, viastore SYSTEMS GmbH; Viet Breckwoldt, Engineering Office; Jochen Stocker, Implenia Kühllagerbau Bielefeld GmbH; Ronald Hoppmann, WISKA General Manager; Hanno Krause, Mayor of Kaltenkirchen; Hans-Jürgen Scheiwe, Citizens Head; Alfred Vahl, Economic Development a. D. ©Photoclub Hamburg

Image 2: „The groundbreaking ceremony for the new WISKA headquarters was attended by (l.t.r.): Sven Hammann, Myleanfactory.de; Björn Heyna, Supply Chain Management and Project
Manager for the new building at WISKA, Anne-Kristin Meisterjahn, Economic Development; Viviane Kovermann, viastore SYSTEMS GmbH; Viet Breckwoldt, Engineering Office; Jochen Stocker, Implenia Kühllagerbau Bielefeld GmbH; Ronald Hoppmann, WISKA General Manager; Hanno Krause, Mayor of Kaltenkirchen; Hans-Jürgen Scheiwe, Citizens Head; Alfred Vahl, Economic Development a. D. ©Photoclub Hamburg

Image 3: „Start of construction of the new WISKA headquarters on 2 September 2019: (l.t.r.): Sven Hammann, Myleanfactory.de; Björn Heyna, Supply Chain Management and Project Manager for the new building at WISKA, Anne-Kristin Meisterjahn, Economic Development; Viviane Kovermann, viastore SYSTEMS GmbH; Viet Breckwoldt, Engineering Office; Jochen Stocker, Implenia Kühllagerbau Bielefeld GmbH; Ronald Hoppmann, WISKA General Manager; Hanno Krause, Mayor of Kaltenkirchen; Hans-Jürgen Scheiwe, Citizens Head; Alfred Vahl, Economic Development a. D. ©Photoclub Hamburg

Image 4: ‘With the new building WISKA can increase its production and logistics capacity by 50 %’. ©Implenia Kühllagerbau Bielefeld GmbH