“Playmobil” manufacturer geobra Brandstätter (Zirndorf / Germany; www.playmobil.de) is expanding its toy figure production in Malta. The plant is to be expanded in 2019 by another production hall of 16,000 m², and the corresponding construction work is currently in its final phase. A hall of the same size was already added in 2018. The plant’s total area will reach 80,000 m².

In 2018, the toy manufacturer invested around EUR 30m in new buildings. There were additional expenditures for machinery – primarily injection moulding machines and fully automatic pad printing systems – amounting to EUR 19m in 2017 and EUR 14m in 2018. Over the next three to five years, production is to be further expanded, gradually filling the newly created space. In this, the company will focus on automation technology. However, the aim is not to reduce jobs, a company spokesperson told Plasteurope.com. Quite to the opposite, the company would qualify some of the current 1,300 employees and train new staff to be able to operate the automated systems. Highly automated production would also require new personnel, such as machine setters, robot programmers and maintenance teams.

During the first expansion of the production area, which was completed in 2018, Playmobil hired around 200 new employees. As production capacity increases, the number of employees is expected to grow as well. On the machinery side, around 400 injection moulding machines and 80 fully automatic tampon printing machines are currently in operation in Malta. In 2018, the factory shipped around 145m Playmobil figures from the factory.