Kion Group starts forklift production in new Polish plant.

The Kion Group has opened a cutting-edge industrial truck plant in the Polish town of Kołbaskowo, near Szczecin. The site will produce counterbalance trucks for all brand companies within the Kion Industrial Trucks & Services segment. This includes model series previously produced at sites in western Europe, with the aim of enhancing the degree of automation and digitalisation at those sites. In order to speed up delivery times, model series that are currently only produced in Xiamen, China, will also be manufactured in Kołbaskowo as of next year.

The new plant in Poland adds to the Kion Group’s existing European-wide production sites and will focus on products for customers in the EMEA region with less demanding applications. “The new site in the heart of Europe will allow us to make further inroads into this fast-moving, high-potential market segment,” says Gordon Riske, chief executive officer of Kion Group AG. “The location near the German-Polish border has the additional benefit of easy access to an excellent network of suppliers.”

Through its three brand companies, Linde Material Handling, Still, and Baoli, the Kion Group is looking to do even more to support its customers with the growth of the intralogistics market in the EMEA region. It has invested a total of around €80 million in the new plant to achieve this goal. Kion plans to create up to 400 jobs at the Polish site by the end of 2023.

Works manager Tomasz Maleszka said, “The new employees will benefit from an attractive, state-of-the-art working environment, and the site also comes with engineering capabilities that will pave the way for further growth perspectives.”

The site, of about 18 hectares, incorporates a cutting-edge production facility designed along sustainable principles and an administrative centre, which together provide nearly 44,000sqm of space. Kion has also made provision for future growth, with the new site incorporating an expansion option for another (production) building of around 20,000sqm.

Kion’s brand companies have had a successful presence in the Polish market for many decades, and have made the KION Group one of the country’s leading providers of industrial trucks and warehouse technology. More than 25,000 new trucks were ordered in Poland last year, of which around 30% were purchased from Kion Group brand companies.