Gear manufacturing can start in a new, modern plant in Kaposvár

The new hall for Szabó Fogaskerékgyártó Kft. has been completed in the Northern Industrial Park in Kaposvár, and the plant will soon be able to commence operations. The greenfield investment was carried out by Weinberg ’93 Építő Kft.

Founded almost 50 years ago, Ferenc Szabó's gear manufacturing company started in a garage and has since grown into an internationally successful company. In the meantime, the company had outgrown its 3,500 square metre hall, so dynamic progress required expansion: the company built its new plant on a five-hectare site on Füredi út. The founder's son, Krisztián Szabó, the current managing director, told us that the property development was also necessary to expand capacity and competence. "We intend to develop our own heat treatment business at our existing site, and we will move our machining as a product production to the new hall. This is also where we will move the old and newly acquired machines, which will be used to start manufacturing proprietary gearboxes for the agricultural machinery industry, among others.

We are also active in new market segments: in the near future we would like to open up to the automotive industry, but we need to be able to operate in a larger space, with the same principles of regularisation as before."

The new production hall will be capable of employing 100 people instead of the current 50, so the company will double its production capacity.

The area is being developed in several phases. The first phase consists of a hall building with a surface area of 5,300 m2. Within this, the hall and warehouse total 4450 m2, the office and changing area 600 m2, and the electrical and mechanical rooms 250 m2.

The 10.5 metre high building can accommodate storage up to a height of 6 metres. Future plans include the installation of a bridge crane, but the first phase has already included the construction of the frame structure to accommodate the crane.

Workshop also operates in the new plant

In cooperation with the local secondary school and the Kaposvár Campus of the Hungarian University of Agricultural and Life Sciences, Szabó Fogaskerékgyártó Kft. is involved in dual training: it currently provides a work placement for several vocational school and engineering students. "We would like to take this training to a higher level. This is the purpose of the workshop we have set up, where students can apply the knowledge they have acquired on production lines that they would not have had the opportunity to do at school. Our aim is to keep these young people in the profession and we are confident that some of them will have a long-term career in our company", the CEO explained.

Design and implementation - success lies in complexity

Weinberg was also responsible for the design and construction of the facility and the associated road network.

The Sárospatak-based general contractor and steel structure manufacturer completed the building's frame structure, roof structure, façade cladding, layering, mechanical, power and low-voltage systems, complete drainage, on-site drainage and all the building and technical works.

As Dániel Czank, the project manager responsible for the construction of Weinberg told us, the site was taken over in January 2024, but as the preparatory works could have been carried out earlier, the construction was started with great momentum at the beginning of the year.

"We were able to start quickly with the delivery of the temporary facilities, excavation and foundations, and by the end of March we had assembled the prefabricated reinforced concrete frame structure. The roof and facade of the building were then clad. The roof was built in layers, with trapezoidal sheeting, thermal insulation and waterproofing materials", the project manager explained.

The Weinberg leads the way in hall construction

The company has completed hundreds of hall buildings in its 30 years of existence. So it is no question that the best technologies have been used here too. The façade is clad with 10 cm thick IPN sandwich panels, the infill masonry is made of Porotherm 25NF polished masonry units, the internal partition walls and the smoke-roof walls in the hall are of plasterboard construction. On the façade, the steel supporting structure is clad with strip metal sheet cladding.

The building has no gas, and is heated and cooled by modern fan coil radiators and air handling units, with the installation of an external liquid chiller. The installed electrical power is 1100 kW and the lights are LED. Rainwater is channelled into a drainage ditch within the plot and 2 metal tanks of 100 m3 have been installed adjacent to the building to store fire water.

The deadline is the deadline

"The biggest challenge was that the planning was done in parallel in the first months. We wanted to have the designs completed by March, but due to the client's change requests - which we were happy to accommodate - this was delayed until May. Meanwhile, the end date for construction remained unchanged, so the final phase was very tight. We had many discussions with the client and the subcontractors, but in the end we managed to finish the above-mentioned works on time, in just nine months" - summarised Dániel Czank.

By September 2, 2024, Weinberg was completed with all the internal specialist works and the construction of the external road and utility network, which is a real feat. The handover and commissioning process has now started.

According to Krisztián Szabó, the managing director, Weinberg represented a professional and high level of professionalism from the very first meeting.

"They did the work objectively, accurately, with attention to detail, and we were able to make changes to the design process itself in a cooperative and collaborative way. They helped us with aspects that were drawn from Weinberg's many decades of experience"," the CEO summarized the positive collaboration.

Development is the key to the future

Finally, project manager Dániel Czank highlighted the green investment's geographical location, which greatly supported the implementation, as the tight work schedule meant that no attention had to be paid to landfills. All the necessary equipment and materials were available on the site, so there was no need to spend time on scheduling deliveries.

Szabó Fogaskerékgyártó Kft. plans to use the remaining land to build a company-wide logistics hall and, later on, a manufacturing plant specifically for the new product.