The Industry 4.0 ecosystem of DFactory continues to expand. The multinational Kion Group has chosen the center promoted by the Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona (CZFB) to install its intralogistics innovation digital hub, which also becomes the company's first center outside Germany.
This Digital Hub of the multinational, from its Industrial Trucks & Services (ITS) division, has been designed to develop digital products for the group's brands. The company, a leader in the manufacturing of products and provision of intralogistics services, plans to incorporate a hundred workers into the center, who will join its activity linked to the optimization of supply chains, including forklifts, automated warehouses, and advanced software systems.
The company, which markets its products and services through brands such as Linde Materials Handling, Baoli, and Dematic, will boost innovation through its new center at DFactory by applying technologies such as sensors, connectivity, and artificial intelligence to its industrial vehicles.
Thus, the new center is called to play a key role in pioneering projects, such as the development of a new vehicle fleet management platform for intralogistics, which the company plans to launch next March. The new hub will also focus on incubating technological innovation projects aimed at clients at a national level.
The multinational's hub has landed with an area of 350 square meters, which it plans to enlarge in the future. To grow, the company will take advantage of the expansion of DFactory, as the CZFB is working on the second phase of the center's execution, which will allow it to reach 100,000 square meters in the coming years.
The company's incorporation into DFactory "demonstrates the uniqueness and importance of the ecosystem itself, which has excellent connections, with a great capacity for generating opportunities and a boost for specialized tech talent," defended the special delegate of the State in the CZFB, Pere Navarro.
"That a large multinational like Kion Group has installed its digital hub in DFactory Barcelona demonstrates that we have all the ingredients to be a world-leading 4.0 district," Navarro claimed, regarding a DFactory that has 35 companies, on an area now of 17,000 square meters.
In an event with the president of Kion ITS in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Andreas Krinninger, and the senior vice president in Spain and Portugal of the company, Paulina Juárez, the general director of the consortium, Blanca Sorigué, has defended that this potential of DFactory, adding to "Barcelona's attractions as a city connected to the world with a rich technological ecosystem" have been decisive for Kion Group to have opted for the center to open its hub.
And this has been confirmed by the director of the Digital Hub, Victor García, who has highlighted that "Barcelona stands out as an ideal setting to host technological ecosystems, thanks to its long history of commitment to innovation and its ability to attract talent and leading companies in digital transformation."