Black muller bets on eltmann

Rough plans the austrian black muller group has with its new location in eltmann. As a german hub for the sale of new vehicles, around 50 million euros in sales are to be made this year, the company announced on wednesday. From eight employees at the time of the takeover, the workforce will be expanded to 30 by the end of 2019. This was announced by the head of the austrian manufacturer, roland hartwig, at the company’s headquarters in freinberg (upper austria).

At palm

Last october, the schwarzmuller group took over an existing service and repair workshop in eltmann on the maintal autobahn (A70) between bamberg and schweinfurt. The land is located opposite the palm paper mill. The entire land has been adapted for the new purposes. Now the conversion is reportedly complete. 27,000 square meters available, of which 10,000 square meters will be used as parking space for the collection of new vehicles. More than half of all vehicles to be delivered to germany will be made available at the eltmann site in 2019. Around 1500 construction vehicles will be transferred to eltmann and handed over to customers, mainly from the czech plant in zebrak near prague. Hartwig therefore expects sales of around 50 million euros at the french site this year.

All services

"As a premium manufacturer, schwarzmuller relies not only on the best vehicles, but also on a comprehensive range of services", hartwig emphasized. In order to be able to offer customers all vehicle-related services throughout the entire life cycle, eltmann is being expanded to become a fully-fledged maintenance, repair and service location. For this, hartwig is planning a significant increase in the number of employees. "We need specialists for the workshop and also want to make rental and used vehicles available here", announced hartwig.

This pleases not least the mayor of the town of eltmann, michael ziegler: "for eltmann, this takeover is very gratifying. Because the city also benefits from the dynamic that has been created here in the form of new jobs and additional tax revenue."

Heading north

From the new location in eltmann, the market will be served beyond franconia to thuringia, saxony and saxony-anhalt, says hartwig. According to his information, germany has been the largest sales market for the schwarzmuller group since 2017. Here, the market share has doubled within five years, explained the head of schwarzmuller. In 2018, the company sold 2800 vehicles in germany, which is one-third of the total of 9306 vehicles manufactured in the past year. Since 2015, this has meant an increase of 59 percent in the german market (2015: 1762; 2018: 2800).

Growth targets

According to the company, the current regional distribution of sales in germany underpins further growth targets: more than 90 percent of the vehicles are currently going to bavaria, baden-wurttemberg and hesse. "That’s why we want to grow from our current market share of around five percent to a double-digit share in germany, hartwig said.

In germany, the austrian manufacturer is "particularly successful" with complex, high-quality construction and waste disposal vehicles such as dump trucks, low-loaders and walking floors, according to the company itself. They account for around two-thirds of total sales, followed by long-distance vehicles with just under one-third.

Innovations

Accordingly, the schwarzmuller group has expanded the product range for germany. The fully insulated thermo trough, which is mainly used in trench construction, is a successful first step. In the meantime, a box body has also been developed for the north german market. According to the company, further innovations will be presented at the trade fair "bauma 2019" presented in munich