Trelleborg, an R&D facility in Stuttgart

Trelleborg Sealing Solutions, a business area of Trelleborg Group specialized in the production of sealing components, has inaugurated a new R&D centre. The ribbon cutting took place in September in the city of Stuttgart, Germany. With a total surface area of 14 thousand square metres, in addition to the research and innovation department, the new plant also houses the headquarters of Trelleborg Sealing Solutions and the German headquarters of the Trelleborg Group. Thanks to this plant, the business unit of the Swedish company has considerably increased the space dedicated to R&D activities, plus a 300 square metre showroom. “The new centre - explains Konrad Saur, director general of the research department of Trelleborg Sealing Solutions - will allow us to increase the development and launch times of innovations, and to reduce the number of projects and prototypes that precede the debut of a technology”. The Stuttgart plant also marks a new philosophy for the Swedish multinational in the subdivision of spaces, with a strong focus on non-work activities. “The architecture of the factory - explains Carsten Stehle, General Manager of Trelleborg Sealing Solutions in Germany - is inspired by what we might call a “Work and Live Space concept”, where the spaces build an ideal environment not only for the optimization of the actual production processes, but for the streamlining of internal and external communication flows. In other words, we will be able to increase and improve the time spent on partnerships with customers and suppliers”. Furthermore, there was bound to be great attention to the environment, because - as Carsten Stehle points out - the new Trelleborg plant was designed to meet and exceed the strictest environmental protection standards.