Deutsche Post DHL expands innovation centre in Germany
Deutsche Post DHL celebrated the expansion of its global innovation centre today, at Troisdorf in Germany. It held a topping out ceremony for a new Innovation Campus being built next to the DHL Innovation Centre at the site near Bonn.
Allowing the company’s innovations division, DHL Solutions & Innovations (DSI), to expand, the new facility will also help more collaborative research and development by providing space for DSI, its spin-off subsidiaries and external partners all under one roof.
About 200 people will be based there from early next year, bringing together around 50 staff from DSI itself, along with 20 staff from DSI-subsidiary Agheera and also employees from DSI partners.
Deutsche Post said partner companies Motorola Solutions, 7id, Infoware, Mojix, Zetes and the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation have already signed up to make use of the facility.
A second phase of construction is already planned with DSI intending rapid growth at its new Campus.
Cooperation
The topping out ceremony (from left): Ward Vermoere (Motorola Solutions), Steffen Frankenberg (Vice President DSI), Helmut Dockter (State Secretary for the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry for Innovation, Science and Research), Klaus-Werner Jablonski (Mayor of Troisdorf).
Steffen Frankenberg, vice president of DSI, said the development of innovation required cooperation and interplay between partners with a diverse expertise.
He said: “We are in the enviable position of being able to work with our partners under one roof and this will facilitate and encourage cooperation. The inspirational working environment makes the Innovation Campus a practical think tank for innovative logistics extending far beyond Germany.”
Ward Vermoere, global account director at Motorola Solutions, said his company aimed to attract technology developers from around the world to the new Campus.
“We are convinced that with DSI and other innovative partners we will be able to drive logistic change and develop new practical solutions,” he said.
The Innovation Campus is designed to provide 4,263 square metres of floorspace, with a central building and additional “cube” building, with room for three more cubes in the second phase of construction.
The new Campus is to use energy-saving technologies, including use of heat pump technology, solar panels, a roof garden, surface water run-off systems and efficient lighting.
