Factory of the future

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The year is 2030. In the Haslbach dis­trict of Regens­burg, pro­duc­tion at Maschi­nen­fab­rik Rein­hausen is run­ning at full speed. There is a bus­tle of activ­i­ty in the state-of-the-art fac­to­ry cov­er­ing an area of 90,000 square meters: around 1,800 employ­ees work at the site, almost twice as many as five years ago. Dri­ver­less trans­port sys­tems autonomous­ly bring the com­po­nents from the sig­nifi­cant­ly expand­ed mate­ri­als man­age­ment cen­ter to the work­sta­tions, where skilled employ­ees assem­ble them into finished on-load tap-chang­ers. Robots are also at work, man­u­fac­tur­ing the ECOTAP^® VPD^® on semi-auto­mat­ed pro­duc­tion lines.

This sce­nario is not yet real­i­ty, but this future is already being active­ly built today. “We want to dou­ble our pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty in the next few years and also upgrade our tech­nol­o­gy sig­nifi­cant­ly,” says Thomas Kien­berg­er, who, as plant man­ag­er, is joint­ly respon­si­ble for the expan­sion of the tap-chang­er fac­to­ries world­wide. After sev­er­al con­struc­tion phas­es, the entire Regens­burg pro­duc­tion is to take place at the Haslbach site. “This is also much more effi­cient from a logis­ti­cal point of view, because we save on trav­el between the two plants,” says Kien­berg­er. The main plant in Regens­burg will be expand­ed into an agile head­quar­ters where, among oth­er things, new inno­va­tions will be devel­oped. In addi­tion, there will be a spa­cious cus­tomer cen­ter to show­case the lat­est prod­ucts, ser­vices, and solu­tions.” 

First expansion stage completed 

The first stage of expan­sion has already been com­plet­ed. In Octo­ber 2025, a new 7,200 square-meter hall was opened which will ensure the con­tin­ued mas­sive expan­sion of capac­i­ties for VACUTAP^® VM and VR next year as well. In addi­tion, ECOTAP^® VPD^® is to be pro­duced in this hall in the future–where many thou­sands of units per year will be pos­si­ble thanks to a semi-auto­mat­ed line. “In the next step, for which we will start con­struc­tion in 2026, we will mas­sive­ly expand the mate­ri­als man­age­ment cen­ter because our ware­house is burst­ing at the seams in view of the increase in pro­duc­tion.”

But there is even more in the pipeline: a new two-sto­ry assem­bly hall is also to be built to cre­ate even more space for pro­duc­tion, with com­ple­tion of the largest con­struc­tion phase planned for 2028. But it is not only the expan­sion of space that will help to mas­sive­ly increase pro­duc­tion; new and mod­ern equip­ment and the automa­tion of process­es will fur­ther increase man­u­fac­tur­ing effi­cien­cy. For exam­ple, a new paint shop will be built where robots will take over a sig­nifi­cant part of the work in the future: “This will not only make pro­duc­tion more effi­cient, but also takes us one step fur­ther in terms of qual­i­ty,” says Kien­berg­er. 

Significantly shorter delivery times 

In addi­tion to these long-term invest­ments, MR has already shift­ed into high gear over the past two years and mas­sive­ly increased pro­duc­tion on the exist­ing premis­es with fast-act­ing mea­sures. “In the last four months alone, we have reduced deliv­ery times by 25 per­cent,” says Kien­berg­er. This has been achieved, among oth­er things, by intro­duc­ing three-shift oper­a­tion, addi­tion­al pro­duc­tion equip­ment and new staff. In pro­duc­tion alone, the work­force is grow­ing by 20 per­cent per year.

Johannes Gebauer, Sales Direc­tor Europe at MR, can also confirm that the mea­sures are work­ing: “We are now much bet­ter able to again meet cus­tomers’ desired deliv­ery dates and, with a few excep­tions, we again have nor­mal deliv­ery times for almost all prod­ucts.” In order to process cus­tomer inquiries more quick­ly and reduce the effort in-volved in order pro­cess­ing, the sales teams have also increased staff. Gebauer empha­sizes: “We have always met our promised deliv­ery dates, and we will con­tin­ue to do so in the future.” 

Global expansion 

The high­est qual­i­ty stan­dards in pro­duc­tion are also essen­tial for glob­al expan­sion. In the US, new pro­duc­tion facil­i­ties were put into oper­a­tion last year at the Hum­boldt, Ten­nessee site. This was fol­lowed in August 2025 by the ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny for the next plant expan­sion. In Chi­na, pro­duc­tion of the VACUTAP^® VM is being expand­ed so that, in the future, our col­leagues in Suzhou will not only assem­ble a larg­er vol­ume, but also more vari­ants of this on-load tap-chang­er, which is very pop­u­lar with ener­gy sup­pli­ers. “Our mar­kets are inter­na­tion­al, and we want to be clos­er to our cus­tomers and make our pro­duc­tion net­work more flex­i­ble,” says Kien­berg­er. 

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More high voltage in Dresden 

With the ener­gy tran­si­tion, demand for HIGHVOLT sys­tems is also increas­ing. The Rein­hausen sub­sidiary is there­fore expand­ing rapid­ly. 

The Rein­hausen sub­sidiary HIGHVOLT is also expand­ing, as the demand for test­ing, mea­sure­ment, and mon­i­tor­ing tech­nol­o­gy is grow­ing enor­mous­ly with the glob­al expan­sion of renew­able ener­gies. A new pro­duc­tion site has there­fore been built in the Klip­phausen indus­tri­al park near Dres­den, which will be fur­ther expand­ed in the com­ing years. Part of the pro­duc­tion takes place in the four halls, which cur­rent­ly cov­er a total of 10,500 square meters, and sys­tems ready for ship­ment are also pre­pared for deliv­ery here.

By the end of 2025, 50 employ­ees are expect­ed to be work­ing at the new loca­tion. The expan­sion in Klip­phausen also means that there is more space for increased pro­duc­tion and new, mod­ern facil­i­ties at the head­quar­ters in Dres­den. Michael Fröschke, Head of Pro­duc­tion and Plant Plan­ning, explains: “With the scal­able loca­tion in Klip­phausen and the many expan­sion stages already imple­ment­ed today, we have more than laid the foun­da­tion for long-term sales growth. We are con­tin­u­ous­ly opti­miz­ing our process­es, becom­ing more effi­cient, and adapt­ing to mar­ket con­di­tions. The plant struc­ture plan­ning shows that HIGHVOLT is in the midst of an excit­ing and chal­leng­ing trans­for­ma­tion process.”