Around 1,000 guests attended the opening ceremony of the Liebherr Group's new logistics center on June 19, at Oberopfingen, Germany. From the district of Kirchdorf an der Iller, the family-run company will in the future supply customers around the world with spare parts for earthmoving machines.
The logistics center is the new central hub from which Liebherr customers around the world will be supplied with spare parts for wheeled and crawler excavators, wheel loaders, crawler tractors and other earthmoving machines. Until 2013, the management of spare parts supplies was more decentralized. In view of the growing product range and increasingly complex material flows, Liebherr decided to centralize its system, initially organizing it from smaller, existing warehouses. In mid-2013, the company finally began to build the new, larger and more modern logistics center.
Liebherr Invests in Spare Parts Logistics Center for Earthmoving Equipment
“Our customer now get their spare parts faster,” explains Martin Barth, managing director of the operating company Liebherr-Logistics GmbH. “This important step guarantees that we will remain competitive in the future.”
Around 1,000 guests at the opening ceremony – including the Liebherr family – were given an insight into the technology, proportions and processes. In his address, Dr. Heiko Schmid, district chief executive of the Biberach district, stressed the importance of the Liebherr Group for the region and welcomed the decision to strengthen existing commitments with new logistics center.
The new central warehouse has an area of 47,000 m² – about the size of six football pitches – space for about 100,000 different spare parts for the Earthmoving Equipment division. Parts are taken into and out of stock in the automatic warehouse areas - which can be up to 36 m high - by energy-efficient operating machines. The responsible persons at Liebherr-Logistics GmbH employ extremely short throughput times.
“Our modern warehouse technology and order picking systems make it possible to ship 1,600 individual orders to many European countries – almost all of them on the day the order is received,” explains Martin Barth.
Redundant IT systems, the ability to conduct preventative maintenance work during ongoing operations and modern fire prevention measures guarantee maximum supply reliability.
The location at Oberopfingen is directly next to the A7 autobahn, and is also in the immediate neighborhood of the major production site for Liebherr earthmoving machines at Kirchdorf an der Iller. Other plants from the construction machinery and components divisions in France, Austria and Switzerland are also not far away.
In the final expansion phase in a few years’ time, the site should grow to a total of 360,000 m², or more than 50 football pitches, and hall space will be created to secure the logistics processes for the decades ahead. In the long term, the Liebherr Group is planning to merge the spare parts logistics of other construction machinery divisions in Oberopfingen.
