Established in 1952, Sennebogen celebrates turning 71 this year with a special event held at its headquarters in Germany on 19-22 September, attended by more than 2,500 guests from around the world. Themed ‘We Show 71’, it featured an in-house exhibition showcasing the company’s latest technological developments and various key investments globally.
Global presence
Sennebogen currently has 2,200 employees at five locations in Bavaria, Germany; two steel plants in Hungary; and branches in the US and Singapore. The sales and support for the company’s material handlers, cranes and telehandlers from Straubing and Wackersdorf (in Germany) are carried out by a comprehensive network of dealers, with over 180 sales and service partners at over 300 service centres worldwide.
In the past few years, Sennebogen has not only recorded an average sales growth of 16% to now more than €600 million in annual sales, but has also seen continuous investments in existing and new locations. At the same time, the company’s workforce grew dynamically to its current size.
However, despite this significant growth, one thing has stayed the same: Sennebogen is and remains a family business – now managed by the second generation Erich and Walter Sennebogen as well as the third generation Anton and Sebastian Sennebogen. The two other grandchildren of the company founder are already in the starting blocks and are involved in all the important appointments and events.
“Our customers are amazed by the dynamic approach and agility of the company, and we are sure that the investments will have a very positive impact on further development,” said Erich. “The business areas have become more diverse and customer demand for quality products and services is growing constantly. To stay ahead of the competition, we invest in our product portfolio and locations every year."
Major investments
One of Sennebogen’s largest projects in recent years was its customer service centre in Steinach, Germany, which opened in September 2021 and bundles all activities from the areas of spare parts, customer service, as well as rental and used machine fleet of Sennebogen Vertriebs GmbH & Co KG. Covering an area of 87,000 sq m, there are now two office buildings, spacious halls and a modern spare parts warehouse with automated warehouse technology and optimised logistics processes.
Expansions also took place at the Wackersdorf site, added Sennebogen. Besides the new shipping area, a new 1,000 sq m electrical test centre was built, which is used specifically for testing and finishing the electric machines.
Meanwhile, a second steel plant has been built in Litér, Hungary. A 29,000 sq m production hall and an office building occupy an area of over 13 ha. This new plant is designed for handling large and heavy components up to approximately 30 m in length and 25 t in weight, and offers a capacity for 20,000 t of steel structures per year in the current expansion stage. “With this investment in Hungary, we are not only expanding our capacities for steel structures to meet the growing demand, but also building reserves for the future,” explained Walter.
In addition, the new product development campus at the Straubing/Port site consists of a new 1,200 sq m prototype centre, a 1,300 sq m research and test centre, and a 3,000 sq m design and technology centre. Here, new machine development, testing and prototype construction are brought together in a central place to enable a more intensive focus on the development of new technologies. This was accompanied by the establishment of a separate department for prototype construction. According to Sennebogen, the open concept of the new buildings creates synergies between the research halls and offices and enables an agile and innovative response to the increasingly complex requirements on technology.
“Modern control systems, electromobility, battery technology and innovative drive systems are topics that employees can focus on even more intensively in the future,” said Erich. “This is because continuous expansion of our own development work in the company and an ever-increasing focus on new drives, automation and digitalisation of machines require not only innovative power, but also space to optimise processes and fulfil the increased order volume.”
Sustainable future
Moving forward, Sennebogen affirmed that the company is committed to its goal of becoming climate neutral by 2030. As such, the ecological mindset is a key focus in its construction projects.
All new buildings are built in accordance with the KfW 55 standard (reduces energy consumption by 45%) and are therefore energy-efficient and environment-friendly. Energy-saving LED lighting, heating buildings with low-temperature heating via concrete core activation and environment-friendly cooling using groundwater play a role here, as does the extraction of renewable energies at the sites themselves. In recent years, investments have also been made in photovoltaic systems with more than 4 MW of output and woodchip heating systems with 4 MW.
Note: This article has also been published in the Nov/Dec issue of Southeast Asia Construction (with more images). Click here to read online or here to download the PDF file (pages 54-56).
