New building in Cernay (Alsace, France) provides greater proximity to customers and better production conditions

Since the beginning, Endress+Hauser has put a high value on customer satisfaction. “The new building is another step towards optimally caring for several thousand visitors per year”, points out Gerhard Jost, Managing Director of Endress+Hauser Flowtec AG, one of the global leaders in the production of flowmeters.

The cornerstone for the Customer Center was laid in March of last year. After one and a half years of construction, the building is now complete and can fulfill its purpose. In addition to a personnel restaurant, the 820 square meters of floor space was outfitted with an auditorium and additional rooms for the over 3000 annual visitors to the factory. “This new building removes a spatial bottleneck in production and makes it possible to provide our customers and visitors optimal service”, explained Gerhard Jost. Endress+Hauser invested 1.3 million euros in the new building.

On October 14th, 2011, the Customer Center in Cernay was inaugurated in the presence of Klaus Endress, CEO of the Endress+Hauser Group, as well as Gerhard Jost, Managing Director of Endress+Hauser Flowtec AG. Among the honored guests were many representatives from politics and business, such as Michel Sordi, Deputy Mayor of Cernay; Anne Laparre-Lacassagne, Subprefect, Arrondissement of Thann; Jean-Paul Omeyer, Vice President of the Conseil Régional (Regional Council) and First Deputy to the Mayor of Cernay; Charles Buttner, President of the Conseil Général du Haut-Rhin (Alsace Region Council); Pierre Vogt, Conseiller Général (Departement Councillor) for the Canton of Cernay as well as Jean-Pierre Lavielle, President of the South Alsace Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Swiss Consul General, Beat Kaser, was also present.

Rapid growth since 1991
The desire for high-quality flowmeters in the process industry has continued unabated for decades. This is not surprising, since the liquids being transported through pipelines in massive quantities every day need to be collected, measured and billed with increasing accuracy. Among other things, this is caused by legal provisions that constantly define stricter and stricter quality requirements worldwide. Therefore, for Endress+Hauser the consistent expansion in Cernay was never in question despite the financial crisis. At its founding in 1991, the location had 16 employees; 20 years later, there are already 265.

Since 2001 Endress+Hauser has operated in Cernay one of the worlds largest and most modern calibration rigs. On this rig, the finished flowmeters are subjected to rigorous testing and adjusted for maximum accuracy before being delivered. Many customers would like to be present in person for these tests and to be assured of the high measurement quality of the devices on the spot. “Our Customer Center offers optimal conditions for such factory witness testings. In the new facility we can also carry out instruction and training and thus provide our visitors the best possible service”, said Matthias Aschberger, the factory manager in Cernay.

Optimized production
Thanks to the new building it is possible to remove existing offices from the production hall and to better utilize the actual production space. “Thus we are more flexible in our manufacturing processes and can react even faster to the needs of the market and customers”, noted Aschberger. This policy has already paid off for Endress+Hauser. The threshold of producing one million magmeters was crossed two years ago. A record that could only be reached through polished production logistics.