The Dutch multinational AkzoNobel has centralized in the Zona Franca of Barcelona the management and planning of the 30 manufacturing plants and 125 warehouses that the company has throughout Europe, for the production line of coatings for other companies. The center aims to enhance the capacity of the facilities and optimize their performance.
For the launch of the new EMEA Planning Hub, the paint and coatings manufacturer has created 65 jobs, which are added to the staff of 560 employees it has in the Zona Franca facilities, where the company's headquarters in Spain are located. The multinational has considered that in Barcelona it can find qualified professionals and highlight their digital and logistics experience.
The total workforce in Catalonia amounts to 1,400 people, corresponding to two factories in Zona Franca and a third in Vallirana. The factories produce coating paints, powder paints, decorative paints, or those applied in the automotive or aerospace sector, among others.
The new management and planning department will work in collaboration with a similar one that the multinational has in Sassenheim (Netherlands), dedicated to the decorative paints business line, aimed at the final consumer. AkzoNobel manufactures and markets brands such as Procolor, Sikkens, and Bruguer, to which it has more recently incorporated Xylazel (which it bought from Grupo PharmaMar) and Titanlux (after the acquisition of the decorative paints division of the Catalan company Titan, in the Folch-Rusiñol family, in 2020).
The Dutch manufacturer has inaugurated the department in Barcelona because it is "the right place to attract talent and open this planning center, in an environment with many capabilities linked to the supply chain", according to Karen-Marie Katholm, head of the multinational's supply chain, who highlighted the investments the company has made in Catalonia in the last five years.
For her part, the general director of Industry and CEO of Acció, Natàlia Mas, underlined during the inauguration ceremony that "the project will contribute to consolidating the chemical sector in Catalonia, the third most relevant in the Catalan economy and the first in terms of exports".