Thursday 14th September 2017 saw the official opening of a new specialty packaging plant in Kielce, Poland by DS Smith. The 5,000 sqm facility includes a production and office area and was built in just seven months. The associated overall investment was around PLN 10m (€2.3m). The investment will expand the group’s production capacity and create additional jobs in the region.
The plant is home to a Specialty Packaging Department, which has catered to the needs of customers in assorted industrial markets, including automotive, white goods and logistics, for the past 12 years. Its offer encompasses a wide array of bespoke packaging solutions for products as diverse as car engines, aircraft components and bulk chemicals.
“The new facility specialises mostly in the production of sophisticated corrugated packaging for the automotive industry. The opening of the new plant will enable us to boost production, until recently restrained by the lack of necessary area. The previous facility had been in use since 1971 and was just over half the size of the new facility,” said Krzysztof Sadowski, Managing Director of DS Smith Poland & Baltics.
The new plant constitutes the first entirely new investment since the establishment of the Kielce location 46 years ago and was erected on the site of a former building. The previous facility was dismantled and some 4,500 tonnes of the recovered concrete elements were thoroughly ground and reused as an input for the neighbouring escarpment and access roads. Special effort has been made to ensure that the plant is environmentally friendly and that it complies with most stringent thermal efficiency standards. A special variety of glass windows installed in the office area allows for a 70% reduction of heat loss, while the roof is insulated with 130 tonnes of mineral wool and 1,900 sqm of thermodynamic panels.
