Hirsch Servo AG (A-9555 Glanegg 58; www.hirsch-gruppe.com) plans to build a facility for EPS packaging and industrial mouldings in the industrial park of the expanding Asian Flextronics group (HQ: Singapore; www.flextronics.com) in Nyiregyhaza in eastern Hungary. The new plant in the recently opened 50 hectare site, is to manufacture EPS packaging for printers and will be located right next to the production line.

The first expansion stage is designed for an annual capacity of about 1,000 t and will involve a workforce of around 20 in the initial phase. The investment for the first phase – construction is scheduled to begin in September 2001 – will be some EUR 3.3m. The start-up is earmarked for February 2002. The new facility will supply the Hungarian market up to Budapest to the west and as far as the Romanian and Ukrainian borders to the east.

Flextronics currently has eight industrial parks in Mexico, Brazil, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary (3) and China. These parks have been specifically sited in low-wage countries with large integrated production capacities for OEMs. This bundling of activities enables components and raw materials to be supplied according to the “economy of scale” and results in particularly low-cost delivery of the end products. The Flextronics strategy recently led to the take-over of the entire mobile phone production facilities of Ericsson and Alcatel (see Plasteurope.com 10, 2001).

The Hirsch group opened its first Hungarian operation for EPS packaging in conjunction with a Flextronics industrial park in Sarvar back in 1997 which, it says, proved a success.