Trodat opens Walter Just Technical Centre in Wels
After a construction period of only 10.5 months, the new Walter Just Technical Centre opens at Trodat’s headquarters in Wels today. The globally active group of companies is also celebrating the 110th anniversary of its founding in 1912 with a party for the employees and their families.
Wels, 16 September 2022. "Our training workshop and the toolmaking and production equipment design departments have found a new home in the Walter Just Technical Centre. The fact that we were able to keep to the construction schedule despite the difficult general conditions, like limited availability of building materials, is a great achievement by the project team," says Managing Director and project client Norbert Almhofer, who is proud of his team.
More than 2,000 m2 of production and training space was built on two floors on a building footprint of around 1,600 m2. The project team paid special attention to using resource and environmentally friendly construction methods. In addition to a photovoltaic system on the greened flat roof, the new building has an adiabatic cooling system that reduces CO2 emissions by up to 90% compared to standard commercial refrigeration machines.
Investment as a commitment to Upper Austria as business location
The building project on the company premises where Trodat Wels founder Walter Just formerly had his private residence was completed with an investment volume of around € 4 million and over a construction period lasting only 10.5 months. The building is named the Walter Just Technical Centre in his honour. Throughout his life, Just attached great importance to the training and further education of his employees. Actively taking responsibility for people is still firmly anchored in the company's DNA. So it’s only natural that apprenticeship training has found a new home in the Walter Just Technical Centre.
"The new training workshop offers 30 apprenticeship places, twice as many as previously. We want to counteract the shortage of skilled workers by training our own and hope that in future, we’ll be able to inspire more young people than ever before to do an apprenticeship with us", says Trodat Managing Director Roland Rier. In addition to apprenticeships in the fields of mechatronics, plastic moulding, electrical engineering, construction and metal technology, it is also possible to train in IT technology.
The investment in the Wels site is a clear commitment to Upper Austria as a business location. "In addition, the machinery will be modernised and brought up to the state of the art by 2023. We’re also working intensively to optimise the entire production and material flow against a backdrop of digitisation and automation," Almhofer emphasises. In the future, there will be a renewed focus on insourcing high-quality development and production processes from the DACH region for the manufacture of injection moulds, in order to increase local added value.
110 years of Trodat
The opening of the Walter Just Technical Centre coincides with the 110th anniversary of the company. Franz Just and his wife cooked stamp inks on the kitchen stove and filled them into glass bottles until in 1912, they had saved enough money to open a small stamp manufacturer business in Vienna. In 1960, his son Walter registered the Trodat product brand and laid the foundation for today's globally active group of companies. Walter Just founded today's headquarters in Wels in 1951, where the largest Trodat production site as well as the technology and development centre are located to this day.
"The successes of the past are also our mission to lead the company successfully into the future," says Trodat Managing Director Roland Rier, clearly setting the course. "Every few seconds, a Trodat stamp is picked up somewhere in the world − our products are being used by millions worldwide. With our current workforce of around 1,150 employees, we want to continue the company’s successful development and grow further." Growth in the traditional area and innovations in related business areas are the two main pillars of Trodat’s growth strategy.
