ILLIG to build thermoforming lines in Romania

Machinery assembly at ILLIG's Heilbronn plant in Germany

Plastics thermoforming and packaging machinery specialist ILLIG Maschinenbau GmbH. is to construct a new European production plant near Sibiu in central Romania.

Next year, ILLIG Maschinenbau SRL, a local offshoot set up by the group is due to oversee the project’s initial building phase on a 60,000m2 site in the ?ura Mic? industrial park, located just north of Sibiu.

This stage will include the construction of the first office buildings along with new production halls.

Heilbronn, Germany-based ILLIG, which supplies a variety of moulds, thermoforming lines and packaging machinery, plans to manufacture a range of machines at its first plant outside its home country.

“ILLIG will be manufacturing thermoforming lines from its product range to ensure increasing market demands can be met,” ILLIG group managing director Heinrich Sielemann added as the latest expansion plan was unveiled.

ILLIG announced that those machines being assembled on the Romanian site will include its higher output IC-RV 74d thermoforming line.

The family-run machinery manufacturer made clear that it had chosen to locate its new facility in the Sibiu region which has developed into one of the fastest growing economic centres in Romania.

With a population of 150,000, Sibiu city has good infrastructure and is directly linked by road, rail and air to long-distance destinations, the firm pointed out.

ILLIG has already begun local personnel recruitment with the aim of preparing new employees at the group’s central site in Heilbronn. It added that it means to continue training qualified staff on site taking advantage of Romania’s existing dual vocational training system.

ILLIG also expects to work in cooperation with Sibiu University in order to maintain a flow of suitable potential employees, it said.

The old established German supplier, with more than 70 years of operation, serves customers around the globe through a network of branch offices, service centres and sales agencies in more than 80 countries.