POLOPLAST Celebrates 60th Anniversary with Investment in Innovation and Technology Leadership
POLOPLAST, a leading supplier of plastic pipe systems for domestic utilities management, sewage, water supply, and compounds, celebrates a round birthday! The 60th anniversary coincides with a restructure of the company which intends to continue on its growth path while strengthening its position as a technology leader. The company plans to increase its sales by 30 million euros to 130 million euros by 2020. To follow up a 20-million-euro-investment during the 2010 – 2015 period, another 25 million euros will be spent on new equipment and technologies, a customer visit centre, and quality assurance measures over the next five years. This investment will be entirely financed through the company’s cash flow and create 50 new jobs. A key component in R&D will remain the close cooperation with universities and technical colleges.
Already today, POLOPLAST provides 150,000 households and businesses with pipe systems every year. Reference projects include Frankfurt Airport, the Music theatre of Linz and the Conference Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi, to name but a few. The new 25-million-euro investment also relates to these noise-insulated above-ground drainage pipe systems, and especially to the company’s premium product POLO-KAL®, of which the Upper Austrian company has sold more than 100,000 km of piping and 200 million fittings since 1957. Jürgen Miethlinger, General Manager Technology of POLOPLAST, says: ‘With our new generation of POLO-KAL XS®, we are setting future standards.’ Wolfgang Lux, General Manager Commercial of POLOPLAST, adds: ‘Our new product sells extremely well on the market! In developing this product, we have focussed on making installation easier while optimising the product quality.’ POLOPLAST’s status as an industry benchmark is also reflected in its complaint statistics: only three items out of one million fittings are reported as being unsatisfactory which is very close to the rates achieved in medical technology.
In its two business locations in Leonding, Austria and Ebenhofen, Germany, POLOPLAST has meanwhile created 350 jobs. In 2014, the company reported consolidated revenues of 94 million euro – a new all-time-high – and an export share of over 60%.
FLTR: Dr. Jürgen Miethlinger (GF POLOPLAST), Wolfgang Lux (GF POLOPLAST)