WIKUS celebrates its 60th birthday and inaugurates new corporate center

October 2018 - Openness in space and mind - this is a guiding motif for the new “WI.com” corporate center for the Wikus saw factory in Spangenberg. The building was opened to celebrate the 60th anniversary on Friday.

A world market leader in sawing metal “Made in Northern Hesse” celebrated its birthday - and prepares itself for the requirements of the future. The company brand has stood for quality and innovation worldwide in the production of high-performance band saw blades with “precision at the interface” for 60 years.

WIKUS employs 750 members of staff at its head office in Spangenberg and at the subsidiaries in the USA, Sweden, France, Spain, Austria, China and India. Another 50 representatives are active for the company in the most important industrial countries.

We provide the right product for a wide range of applications - irrespective of whether this involves sawing steel, aluminium, copper or titanium. We also have the correct sawing solution for silicon, quartz glass, refractory materials and granite. Utilising innovative software tools and training in the WIKUS sawing center enables us to compliment what we can offer as a technological, full service provider. The company's in-house development is firmly anchored in its corporate strategy. Our technologists always work closely with customer service and external scientists.

The family-managed business always feels particularly responsible for Spangenberg and the North Hessian region. WIKUS promotes many initiatives in the fields of sports, social and ecological matters as well as in education and culture.

The newly opened “WI.com” corporate center now creates the prerequisites for lean administration With the “openness in mind and space concept incorporating high levels of transparency and flexibility, WIKUS consciously goes new ways in order to remain sustainable and future-proof. This thereby continuously generates new impulses on the way to becoming an META (Most Efficient Technology and Administration) Company.

The new “WI.com” corporate central is completed

In the last weeks, the new WIKUS “WI.com” saw factory corporate center on the Melsunger Straße in Spangenberg was completed. Just in time in order to provide two reasons to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the company on the 1st of October 2018.

The official anniversary and opening events were planned for the 19th of October 2018 with a ceremony for guests from politics, business and society. All the WIKUS staff and their partners were invited to an evening event afterwards. The company provided a family day for all the staff and their relatives on the 20th of October 2018.

WIKUS invested a total of 20 Million Euros in the structural implementation and technical equipment.

The new construction and conversion works are an important step towards the future. 120 of the approx. 600 staff at the location relocated into the new working environment. Their everyday office life will alter there completely because it will not be the office which now determines the workplace, rather the work to be done.

About the WI.com corporate centre

The new construction for the WI.com comprises the undertaking for the following main objectives:

Architecture

• Conscious integration into the structure for the existing production location by utilising integration into the existing parts of the building. No building positioned on a greenfield site.
• Signalisation transparency and openness, also to the outside world - a conscious fusion between inside and outside.
• Reflecting the technical precision of WIKUS products in the façade design
• Different spatial offers for retreat, relaxing, teamwork and communication for everyone as equals

The office of Bieling from Kassel/Hamburg presented the winning design within the scope of the architecture competition organised by WIKUS. The striking outer façade dominates the building line in its perception and is thereby inseparably connected with the product “bandsaw”, something for which the company stands.

The storey symbolise bandsaws, which appear to be stacked on top of each other, the privacy screen in front of the windows represents the geometry of the saw teeth. The façade also adapts functionally to the climatic conditions: The metal slat-type blinds can be opened and closed depending on the time of day and which solar radiation is present, thereby serving as thermal insulation.

Technology
The objective from day one was to create a building that:

• Is “durable”
• Fulfils the foreseeable needs of its users for climatic comfort in the medium term
• Retains operating costs at a low level
• Includes almost no technology which needs to be controlled
• Is designed and constructed in such a way that it almost controls itself
• A "medium-heavy" house, which keeps the heat outside, stores the cold and maintains the room temperature as stable by means of a activated ceiling component and brings it into a pleasant proportion to the outside temperature
• The required air quantities (hygienic air exchange) are blown in as source air at low speed and exhausted as centralised
• Can react flexibly to future spatial alterations to a large extent

Functionality
The new building must holistically provide the functional prerequisite so that the processes envisaged in it can function and operate with the objective of “efficiency and quality”. It was also therefore important for the planners to achieve the sub-objectives:

Creating identity
Silent message created by the rooms”, enabling an appropriate self-portrayal both internally and externally.

Workplace quality
Considerable increase in the staff motivation by utilising an attractive working environment with recreation quality and meeting quality combined.

Economics
Achievement of "Lean Administration" by increasing efficiency with a spatial concept which supports communication and processes, taking into account space economy and flexibility of utilisation.

The new WI.com in figures

• Expansion of the production area on the ground floor for relocating customer order manufacturing into an 2700 m² hall area.
• The complete new building on the 1st Floor comprises the ultra-modern, office landscape on an area of 2550 m² with communicative meeting zones and green internal courtyards for all administrative staff of the company.
• On the 2nd Floor is accommodation for conference and training rooms on more than 1400 m². Another meeting point for all WIKUS staff is the “WIkantini” - the WIKUS canteen.