Schaeffler to build state-of-the-art laboratory complex

A major investment in a new laboratory complex by Schaeffler is part of the company's Roadmap 2025 strategy announced last year.

This is aimed at securing the Schaeffler Group’s competitiveness and ability to realise future opportunities. It will also look to strengthen the position of its Herzogenaurach campus - Schaeffler’s headquarters, where the complex is to be built - as a centre of technological excellence. Now in the detailed planning phase, the facility is scheduled for completion in 2023.

Home to 15 laboratories

The cross-divisional central laboratory complex will span around 15,000 square metres of gross floor space, and house 15 laboratories and more than 360 employees. The new facility will centralise and consolidate the Schaeffler Group’s core competencies and capabilities in key areas of technology, including measurement, testing and calibration systems, materials research and design, electrochemistry, and optimisation of product lifespan, strength and reliability.

It will also house a new electronics laboratory. The company’s aims in consolidating all these activities under one roof include improving the transfer of knowledge and technology between its divisions and enhancing performance through shared use of resources.

“The idea of the new central laboratory complex is to make key technologies available on an integrated, cross-divisional basis so that we can, for example, develop products for sustainable and carbon-neutral mobility and energy ecosystems,” explains Uwe Wagner, Schaeffler AG’s chief research & development officer.

Ideal springboard

“To develop solutions for megatrends such as carbon neutrality, next-generation mobility and automation, we also need to boost our ability to rapidly develop our core competencies across a wide range of disciplines, from materials and surface technology to electrochemistry, electronics, and digitalisation. The new central laboratory complex will provide the ideal springboard for this.”

Schaeffler also intends to make the new complex accessible to external customers. Its plans therefore include a laboratory and presentation area for digitalisation and the use of artificial intelligence.

“Our excellence in manufacturing means we are also ideally positioned to offer our customers optimal solutions in key future areas of technology, such as electric mobility, robotics, and hydrogen,” explains chief operating officer Andreas Schick. “These are growth areas where, right from the basic research stage, we have to consider the end product or application, as well as commercial-scale production in order to stay ahead of our global competitors. Our digital simulation technologies, in particular, are integral to this.”

Setting new standards

Apart from its extensive R&D capabilities, the central laboratory complex in Herzogenaurach will set new standards in laboratory climate control and vibration elimination, making it ideal for high-resolution measurement systems and other highly sensitive technologies. The building, which is scheduled for occupation at the start of 2024, will be built to the latest sustainability standards and operated as a green building in accordance with the DNGB (German Sustainability Council) Gold Standard.

The new facility is an important part of the Roadmap 2025 strategy, which was announced last November and details how the Schaeffler Group will sustainably strengthen its future readiness and competitive position.

“The central laboratory complex will secure high-tech jobs in key growth areas,” says Klaus Rosenfeld, CEO of Schaeffler AG. “It will also add value to Herzogenaurach and the surrounding region in the eyes of customers and employees and underscores our commitment to Germany as a business location.”