27.02.2018

Hobby invests millions into new production facilities

Hobby is taking huge steps towards the digital age. This is not only true of the equipment packages for its leisure vehicles, but also of motorhome and caravan production at the company's site in Fockbek. For around six million euros, the owner-run company has constructed a new prefabrication warehouse where the production processes are fully automated thanks to a whole ensemble of state-of-the-art machinery.

Fockbek, February 2018 - Around the clock, the powerful yet energy-saving LED lights on the high ceiling bathe the warehouse in bright light. Light for the three-shift system that operates at the new prefabrication warehouse at Hobby's site in Fockbek. Parts for caravan and motorhome interiors have been produced here for a short while now. What's more, the production is fully automated and carried out by an ensemble of finely tuned machinery. Each one of these high-performance machines is monitored by a single machine operator, since the processes have been digitised in great detail. The machinery is controlled on the basis of design data records that have been pre-programmed.

The amount of processed material alone is enormous: 28 tonnes of sheet material are processed every day, and approx. 170,000 parts are cut to size every week. The machines are "fed" from a storage area, which was specially set up in the entrance area and has 230 pallet spaces for sheet material. From here, fork lift trucks are used to feed the machines. The exact quantity of the respective material that must be fed into the machine is displayed on a monitor for the fork lift truck driver. The cutting-edge machines are able to process whole stacks of sheet material. They can also make simultaneous longitudinal and transverse cuts in a single operation.

In addition to the cutting of sheets to size for furniture construction, the grooving, milling, chamfering and rebating of parts is carried out by other machines. Furniture connectors can also be press-fitted at any given location in a fully automated process, or up to 30 holes can be drilled in a single operation, for example.
Despite all of this technology, people have not been forgotten. Meticulous care has been taken, for example, to ensure that the workstations of the machine operators have an ergonomic design. Amongst other things, this is made clear by the fact that all of the movements required to operate the machinery are carried out at a single working height. A great deal of importance has also been attached to efficient ways of working.

By building the new prefabrication warehouse, Hobby has not only taken a major step towards the digital future, but has also made a lasting contribution towards securing the production site in Fockbek and the jobs that are associated with it. With around 1,200 employees, the market leader Hobby is one of the largest employers in Schleswig-Holstein.