SZON – Boysen: high energy technologies

The Boysen group manages one of its most important investments in Nyíregyháza: its largest site outside of Germany is being built in the Déli Ipari Park, which will produce steel housings in line with the green transition of the automotive industry. The investment announced last winter, creating 400 new jobs, also belongs to the premium category from an environmental protection point of view, since as a BMW supplier, the entire spectrum of the most modern high-tech energy technologies will be used in the complete production process. The questions of nyiregyhaza.hu were answered by Rolf Geisel, president of the Boysen Group, in an exclusive interview, an edited version of which is published.

Four hundred new jobs

– We are building a production plant with a logistics area and the associated three-story office building with social rooms. With a total floor area of ​​approximately 55,000 square meters, the plant will be by far the largest Boysen site outside of Germany. With this, we are opening a new chapter in the history of our company in Nyíregyháza, as this will be the first plant of the Boysen group in which we do not produce exhaust gas technology, but only boxes (housing) made of steel for batteries. This site is therefore particularly important to us, explained Rolf Geisel.

– At this site, we manufacture steel housings for the new generation electric vehicles of our customer, BMW, which will be manufactured at the new BMW plant in Debrecen. The steel housings are used to store the battery cells in the car. Assembly of battery cells and battery modules is not part of our scope of delivery. As a system supplier of exhaust gas cleaning technology for premium car manufacturers, we have been driving the technological transformation forward with all our energy and new product groups since 2016, said the president of the Boysen Group.

– We are currently planning to have 300-400 employees at the site, and we assume that the first Hungarian Boysen employees will complete their training in Germany in the middle of the year. During the start of series production, we initially prioritize positions to be filled in the areas of production, quality assurance and maintenance. All in all, we need qualified employees for all areas of the company and thus for all administrative tasks.
Rolf Geisel put it this way about the environmental protection aspects that apply during the production process: with the new factory in Debrecen, BMW wants to realize the world’s first car factory that produces exclusively with renewable energy, i.e. completely CO2-free.

– The same requirement applies to us as a supplier in the new Boysen factory in Nyíregyháza, where we will use the entire spectrum of the most modern energy technologies: from solar panels to geothermal energy to the recovery and further use of the heat generated during the operation of the systems. This high-tech principle runs smoothly through consumption, waste management, the use of green stainless steel and all other areas. Long before the importance of sustainability in corporate activities was recognized, we were among the trendsetters, which is one of the reasons why we won the large-scale contract from BMW. At our headquarters in Altensteig, we implemented our vision of a CO2-optimized factory as early as 2011, and since then we have been investing in the latest energy technology at all our new locations. Thanks to the solar systems at our sites alone, we currently produce more than 40 million kWh of green electricity per year, which corresponds to 30,000 tons of CO2 savings per year.

Workplace safety

– We are one of the fastest growing suppliers in the automotive sector. While even well-known competitors are cutting jobs en masse and closing locations, we keep growing. In the last twelve years, the Boysen group has opened 16 new locations worldwide. Another three are currently under construction. As a foundation company, Boysen offers a high degree of job security – and, thanks to the progress made during our transformation, a high degree of future security and exciting prospects. This applies to all areas relevant to the company. In addition, we consistently invest in the further training of our employees, and we invest well above the average in equipping our workplaces with ergonomic, safety and state-of-the-art technology – said Rolf Geisel when asked about the future.