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Yaskawa opens new European headquarters in Hattersheim
Yaskawa Europe, the European subsidiary of the Japanese technology group Yaskawa Electric, has officially moved into its new corporate headquarters in Hattersheim near Frankfurt/Main. At the inauguration of the new building on 25 April, Masahiro Ogawa, President & CEO Yaskawa Electric Corporation, Bruno Schnekenburger, Chairman Yaskawa Holding, and Marcus Mead, President Yaskawa Europe GmbH, welcomed about 200 guests, including representatives of politics, customers, partners and neighbours.
Yaskawa – a global technology supplier in the business segments Drives, Motion and Controls, Robotics and solutions in the field of Environmental Energy – invested about 23 million euros in the new building at its new location in the Hattersheim industrial park.
The construction period was, as planned, about two years. For the previous 15 years, the European headquarters of Yaskawa and European Drives Motion Controls Division had been accommodated in a leased building in nearby Eschborn. Yaskawa’s European Robotics Division will retain its registered office at Allershausen near Munich.
“Technology Day” at the inauguration
In addition to the formal ceremony, Yaskawa celebrated the opening with a “Technology Day”. Recognised experts from the automation industry showcased the latest developments and trends related to Industrie 4.0. These included Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Ruskowski from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern with a look into the future of production, and Boris Waldeck, security specialist at Phoenix Contact, with a talk on the subject of “Cybersecurity according to IEC 62443”.
A building for cooperation
The new, four-storey structure incorporates 3,450 m² of office space for approx. 220 employees, a multi-storey car park, a 1,150 m² European training centre and a 206 m² innovation centre. Here, Yaskawa employees from the entire EMEA region will have an opportunity to invite customers and partners to work on joint projects and develop new solutions.
Customers, suppliers and visitors from the field of politics, universities and schools will be able to experience Yaskawa’s latest products, technologies and innovations in a representative showroom. In practical workshops at the “Yaskawa Academy” highly-trained instructors will provide course participants with an insight into the application and programming of Motoman robots and Yaskawa drive and control technology.
Energy efficiency house conforming to KfW 40
The new building, planned and built by partners Feldmann Architects and Weimer Bau, was designed as an energy-efficient house in accordance with the KfW 40 standard. A high level of energy efficiency has been achieved with a wide range of measures. It features a photovoltaic system, highly energy-efficient air conditioning technology in the office space and energy-saving LED lamps. Heat is generated by an air water heat pump.
Continuation of the ambitious European strategy
The new headquarters in Hattersheim mark a continuation of the company’s ambitious expansion strategy in Europe. Yaskawa, founded in 1915, is consciously following the trend towards building up technology know-how and production competence in Europe.
Yaskawa has been represented by a European subsidiary since 1979, and YASKAWA Electric Europe GmbH was founded two years later. Further milestones in Yaskawa’s recent history were the founding of own companies in South Africa in 2012 and in Turkey in 2013. The Switch Engineering, a company that is actively engaged in the field of wind turbines, was acquired by Yaskawa in October 2014. Most recently, the European robot plant at Kočevje in Slovenia started operation in 2019, and now caters to about 80% of the European demand for Motoman robots.
