Extending its customer support programme for punch press and press brake tooling, Wilson Tool International Europe has built a customer support and technical centre near Hannover, Germany.

Extending its customer support programme for punch press and press brake tooling, Wilson Tool International Europe has built a 960m2 customer support and technical centre at Rodenberg, just 25 Km west of Hannover in Germany. The inaugural 'first dig' was performed by Mr Ernst August Meir, Mayor of the town on 22 May with Colin Blackwell managing director European Operations and Klaus Ludwig Neumann European Sales Manager. Set on a 5,000m2 site purchased by Wilson Tool, the new 960m2 facility will include a 320m2 technical centre and is due to be opened in December to service Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, the East of Europe and former Russian areas.

Wilson Tool set up its current customer operations in Germany in 1987 under Klaus Ludwig Neumann, European Sales Manager.

Since then, the market has grown at a rate of 15 per cent each year.

There are no current plans to manufacture tooling at the facility, instead customers will benefit from the fast and well-proven next day service from the UK for standard tools and the fastest currently available for specials.

Says Colin Blackwell Managing Director of Wilson Tool International Europe: 'The objective of the Rodenberg facility is to build closer relationships with customers, perform seminars on tooling, tool management and tool service and provide front line problem solving.

A further benefit of the technical centre which will feature installations of punch presses and press brakes from leading manufacturers will be to and stage a permanent tooling exhibition.

The site is within a 25 minute drive of Hannover airport and close to the important trunk road network providing quick access to service the whole European mainland.

Also, with major exhibitions being staged at Hannover Messe, this will provide a vital communication link for Wilson Tool.

Maintains Klaus Neumann: 'Our customers demand production flexibility and ever higher levels of service to support the growing installations of punch presses.

Growing use of automation and new machine designs, the need to run around the clock and problems in obtaining and retaining labour capable of running ever smaller batch sizes, means we have to be slick, professional, proactive and competitive to meet customer needs.' The move to the new premises will take place between Christmas and New Year which will mean no loss of customer service.