End-to-End Logistics
In the past, we successfully built storage systems and automated warehouse processes. We are still doing this today, but something has changed. Therefore, our knowledge about the technology and the processes helps us even more today. Because we develop end-to-end solutions across the entire supply chain for our customers around the globe. The logistics center has meanwhile become the hub of our customer's business. Our experienced employees have the process and machine understanding, and the technical competence in mechanics, PLC, and IT.
Furthermore, we know our customers’ markets. We design, realize, and operate logistics centers economically successfully with our OnSite teams and integrate the logistics solution into the customer’s ecosystem (end-to-end). WITRON is a system integrator, operator, and logistics service provider for our customers, to whom we promise a delivery service. We keep this promise, also thanks to our employees. Together with our customers, we develop systems and processes that convince in economic and ecologic aspects. This is what pioneering logistics in the 21st century looks like.
Successfully on the market for more than 50 years
More than 50 years ago, Walter Winkler and his wife Hildegard founded WITRON. It is his life's work. With him, we develop systems for the retail business, e-commerce, and the industry that generate competitive advantages for our customers. Designing and implementing the best solutions requires a wide variety of factors. Our down-to-earth nature as the basis for credibility and commitment, however, plays a central role. Our customers understand that we are working diligently to fulfill the trust placed in us. Being faster and better than the competitors, assuming responsibility, being predictable, fulfilling promises, and being committed with passion. These are the supporting pillars of our corporate culture.
A signpost is a good visual image of what WITRON is all about. Dependable, firmly anchored, always purposeful and forward-looking, and never self-serving, but embedded in a greater whole. Like a signpost, WITRON gives its clients confidence and leads them to the best possible outcome. For us, being embedded also means: acting economically, ecologically, socially, and strategically. These four points define a sustainable company for us. Since the outset, our goal has been to devise the optimal solution to every problem, and to do so from our base here in the Upper Palatinate. We started out as an industrial control systems company, and began implementing machine controls for corrugators worldwide in the 1980s. With our entry and specialization in the field of logistics controls, we then set the decisive course for WITRON. We are very proud that we have been able to set milestones in the industry along the way. Most importantly, we are delighted to have worked with many of our customers for decades.
Our home is Parkstein in the Upper Palatinate. We produce our systems in Germany. More than 2,000 employees work at the headquarters. We are committed to our homeland. In 2019, WITRON invested more than 200 million euros in new local manufacturing capacities. Once these buildings are completed, the WITRON production area will then amount to more than 220,000 square meters. Moreover, we are also represented on our customers’ markets: France, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Canada, USA, Australia, and Singapore. From our office in the Netherlands, we also serve the markets in Benelux and Scandinavia.
The WITRON foundation model ensures continuity, stability, sustainability, and stands for common public interest. Walter Winkler: "It is my firm belief that the foundation structure ensures maximum reliability and predictability for employees and customers as the basis for a long-term partnership. Basically, I consider a company to be a social institution. To me, this means: The people who are employed here shall receive the reward for their work. The long-term maintenance of the company is important, i.e., specifically, leaving the generated profit in the company and devote it to the service of the employees".
Challenge: Supply chain and warehouse intelligence
“We are logistics service providers - not in the classic sense, but we design warehouses and complete value-added supply chains. The logistics center coordinates the material flow, which is why new tasks are coming our way with new technology”, explains Helmut Prieschenk, CEO of WITRON. He and his team want to continuously optimize the machines, but the much greater efficiency gains are achieved between transportation, the logistics center, and the end customer.
“We can get goods ready in the warehouse very quickly, but that doesn’t benefit the customer if the trailer is not yet at the loading dock. That makes no sense economically and ecologically. Intelligence in the processes will save money, increase flexibility, and help us run our processes more sustainably. Based on the above-mentioned example, we do not have to run the system at maximum capacity, but can work in an energy-saving manner”, says Prieschenk. You will find out in the podcast how this is going to work.
