As a lifetime partner, WITRON also succeeded in winning numerous projects in the central sales regions of Europe and North America in 2019. The orders come from the entire retail spectrum - both food and non-food - both brick-and-mortar stores and online retail. For the first time, two logistics centers will be implemented for an Australian customer. In addition, the signing of the contract for an omnichannel distribution center for Swedish retailer Axfood near Stockholm represents the largest single order in WITRON's almost 50-year history.

The good order situation resulted in an increase in turnover from EUR 546 million to EUR 600 million. Incoming orders even increased by more than 50% from 2018 to 2019. A good 500 additional jobs were also created nationally and internationally, meaning that the family-owned company already employs 4,000 people worldwide - around 1,800 of whom work at the company headquarters in the northern Upper Palatinate. In order to successfully counter the shortage of skilled workers, training is and remains an important pillar of the company's philosophy. For this reason, 100 new apprentices were taken on last year - a record number. In total, WITRON currently employs almost 300 apprentices in 18 different professions.

Years of high demand for WITRON solutions and an extremely positive outlook for the future are the reasons for a strategic investment decision. Since the end of 2019, the excavators have been rolling to expand production at the Parkstein site by a further 120,000^m2. The owner family Winkler is thus setting an example for the location and the region. The investment for this amounts to around 160 million euros. After the planned completion - in time for the company's 50th anniversary in 2021 - the entire WITRON production area will then cover over 212,000^m2.

The system integrator's management team is also being expanded. Effective January 1, Johannes Meißner will strengthen the management team. As Technical Managing Director, the 53-year-old graduate engineer specializing in communications engineering, who has been with the company for over 30 years, is responsible for project management at WITRON GmbH, including the WITRON IT and PLC systems. The central motivation for this decision was the enormous company and employee growth in all business areas of the WITRON Group as well as increasingly complex customer requirements with regard to the "end-to-end integration" of logistics centers into a consistently intelligent supply chain.