On June 19, Dörken held a double event, celebrating both the opening of its new office building and the beginning of the extension works of its construction foil unit in Hagen-Vorhalle.
A double event on 19 June 2020 saw Dörken celebrating the successful conclusion of one construction project and the beginning of another one. In fact, following the ceremonial opening of the new office building in Herdecke a symbolical spade was passed on for the official groundbreaking for the extension of the construction foil unit at the Hagen-Vorhalle site.
The new modern office building, located in Wetterstraße, Herdecke, occupies approx. 2,730 square metres and features around 100 new office workplaces, meeting rooms, open communications areas. The new building is connected to the existing company headquarters through walkways on all floors.
The new office was completed after 18-months, in spite of the difficult circumstances resulting from the current pandemic. In fact, construction continued with all the safety measures needed, without disruption or accidents and without major impairment for the employees and neighbouring residents at the Herdecke site.
Dörken CEO Thorsten Koch and the mayor of Herdecke, Katja Strauss-Köster, were subsequently able to cut the ribbon for the official opening ceremony on 19 June 2020. The celebrations were held on a very small scale, with face masks and the now standard social distancing rules.
"We are open and tolerant, inviting and generous. We are transparent, modern and colourful, whilst at the same time functional. We are different and surprising, we challenge those that observe us and encourage them to explore", said Thorsten Koch in his opening speech.
The visitors were guided through the building in small groups to see how the "new work philosophy" had been consistently realised.
"Its aim is to invite employees, customers and partners to explore together, establish further expertise, get the best out of ourselves, motivate and stimulate us - to simply keep us on the move", explained Koch.
The office will become operative starting from mid-July.
The new project
After the inauguration of the new offices, Dörken immediately set out to work on what will be the biggest construction project in the history of the Dörken Group thus far, in which the company invested around 50 million euros.
Symbolical spades were Dörken shareholders and supervisory board members Ute Herminghaus and Karl E. Dörken, Dörken CEO Thorsten Koch, Ingo Quent and Christian Harste, both managing directors of Dörken GmbH & Co. KG, and Hagen's mayor, Erik O. Schulz.
"Our plans for this site are no less than to become the cost, technology and service leader in the field of intelligent construction physics," said Thorsten Koch in his address. "From here we aim to enter new markets with new technologies, driving on a culture of change."
All future production activities of Dörken GmbH & Co. KG will be relocated to the Hagen-Vorhalle site, establishing a flowing manufacturing capacity with new plant and technologies, lean processes, workflows and modern, safe workplaces. This requires the construction of several new halls, to be joined onto the existing production area. Hagen-Vorhalle will welcome around 300 people starting from spring 2022.
"What we aim to achieve here is maximum value added, by focusing firmly on the productivity of our plant, maximum flexibility of manufacturing through digitalisation of all value-adding processes and maximum sustainability for the use of energy, raw materials, buildings and machines," said the Dörken CEO.
The product and production-relevant areas such as development, logistics and process engineering, product management and production planning at Dörken GmbH & Co. KG will also be moving to the site.
"The Hagen-Vorhalle site will become a centre of excellence for construction foil intelligence," commented Thorsten Koch.
Process concentration at the Vorhalle site will also give sister companies Dörken MKS-Systeme, CD-Color and Protec Systempasten the opportunity to use the site in Wetterstraße, Herdecke wholly for their growth plans and further expand the Coatings centre of excellence. This will involve the demolition of old buildings and improvement of route logistics on the topographically difficult site.
The Dörken Group works council was involved in the planning of the new production facility in Hagen-Vorhalle from the very beginning. The members of the "New Plant Structure" project team were also able to design their workplace of the future themselves.
Architektur.Generalplanung.Projektmanagement office from Duisburg will be acting as general planner. "New buildings provide a home for strategies, ideas and visions," says Thorsten Koch. "However, to achieve this they need to be brought to life by those that inhabit them."