Interroll opens new China plant

Interroll has opened a new plant in Suzhou, China.

The factory is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Interroll Group, and is located in the Suzhou Industrial Park. It has a total floor space of approximately 28,000 square metres and cost approximately $34 million to build.

As a Regional Center of Excellence (RCoE), the new facility will produce the full range of Interroll rollers, RollerDrive, drum motors, the modular conveyor platform (MCP), sorters, and pallet-handling solutions. It will also function as Interroll’s RCoE for polymers and subsystems.

Interroll end users in China include China Post, S.F. Express, JD.com, Wuxi Lion, Aokang and Liwayway. Across Asia customers include Toyota, Red Bull, Amazon and Youngone.

The company expects the new manufacturing capacity will allow it to expand in growing industry sectors such as e-commerce, warehousing and express delivery, food, airport, pharmaceuticals, apparel, automotive and other industries in Asia Pacific and China.

“The new plant in Suzhou allows us to further upgrade customer comfort in the region through shortened delivery times, faster global product rollouts and additional service capacities—in short further improving quality, speed and simplicity,” said Ben Xia, executive vice-president Asia Pacfic, and a member of Interroll Group Management.

Interroll set up its first manufacturing base in Suzhou in 2002, followed by two moves to larger locations in 2006 and 2011. In March 2014, with the rapid growth of its business, Interroll established its Asian headquarters in Shanghai to provide access and higher-quality products and services to its Asian customers in conjunction with the RCoE in Suzhou.

In September 2014, Interroll acquired Shenzhen Pert Engineering Co., Ltd., a manufacturer of belt curves in Asia, which produced the Portec brand products, and the same year made Shenzhen, China, its RCoE for belt curves.

Interroll was founded in 1959 supplies system integrators and equipment manufacturers with rollers, drives, conveyors and sorters, and pallet handling products. Headquartered in Switzerland, Interroll has a global network of 35 companies with sales of $864 million and had 2,600 employees in 2021.