Linde Boosts Heavy Trucks Business

By creating an independent business unit, Linde Material Handling aims to boost its heavy truck business and occupy a stronger position in the global market. This was underlined by Theodor Maurer, Chief Sales Officer (CSO) at Linde Material Handling GmbH, and Roland Hartwig, Managing Director of the Linde Heavy Truck Division, during a press event at the Merthyr Tydfil production site in the UK. In order to achieve this goal, Linde Material Handling will invest a total of roundly EUR 21 million in new product development and production facilities over the next three years.

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market is booming and customers are demanding tailor-made solutions. The decision to expand the scope of the business is justified by many years of consistently strong demand for port handling technology and the continued favourable prognoses for global container traffic and the container handling business. The Linde Heavy Truck Division is determined to take full advantage of the major growth opportunities this presents. Theodor Maurer said: "In the past 14 years, the number of containers being transported has quadrupled. We believe that over the coming years container transport will undergo further significant growth."

New management at the Linde Heavy Truck Division. It is not just the considerable financial assets to be invested that demonstrate how seriously Linde is taking the expansion of the heavy truck business. At the Merthyr Tydfil site development, production, sales, marketing and service departments are cross-linked ideally. Managing Director of the Linde Heavy Truck Division is Roland Hartwig. Micheal Gröbner has responsibility for production, while Michael Wuttke heads up development management. John Haden is responsible for sales, Mark Timothy presides over the marketing department and Davide Bertozzi is representing business development. The new division reports to Kerry McDonagh, CEO of Linde Material Handling (UK).

Modular product design. In order to be able to offer specific product solutions to meet the various customer demands and special requirements in this highly diversified market, the heavy trucks and container trucks will in the future be built on the basis of a modular design. This means that the individual components and modules are developed and produced independently of each other, before the relevant components are assembled to create the end product. For example, this means a chassis can be used in combination with different cabins and different cabin layouts. The benefit for customers of the modular design is that trucks can be adapted more quickly to meet the demands of new applications. Linde Material Handling is therefore able to shorten development times and reduce complexity of production.