Alpla
| ALPLA Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG
|
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|---|---|
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| legal form | GmbH & Co. KG |
| founding | 1955 |
| Seat |
Hard , Austria
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| management | Günther Lehner CEO Nicolas Lehner Philipp Lehner Klaus Allgäuer Walter Ritzer |
| Number of employees | 20,900 (2019) |
| sales | € 3.80 billion (2019) |
| Branch | Packaging manufacturer |
| Website | www.alpla.com |
The ALPLA Werke Alwin Lehner GmbH & Co KG (short Alpla ) is a global company with corporate headquarters in the Austrian market town of Hard , the plastic packaging developed and produced.
history
The company was founded in 1955 as "Alpenplastik Lehner Alwin OHG" by Alwin (1932–2018) and Helmuth Lehner and today employs around 20,900 people (including around 1000 in Vorarlberg, Austria) in 181 production facilities in 46 countries. Günther Lehner is the managing director.
The company's headquarters are in Hard in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg . Alpla builds factories around the world in the vicinity or even on the customer's premises (so-called “in-house factories”) in order to keep the transport costs for the hollow bodies as low as possible. Around 72 Alpla plants were built right next to the customer's filling plant.
Companies
In accordance with the corporate mission statement and the claim of the Lehner family to protect their privacy, the company hardly appears to the outside world. It is often not clear to the end consumer where the packaging of his goods comes from. The only thing that indicates the origin of the bottles is a rectangular "a" that is barely visible on the cap or bottom of the bottle.
Alpla is an international technology leader in the field of plastic packaging and offers its customers packaging solutions of a high quality. Thanks to in-house research and development, especially in the area of extrusion blow molding , as well as the use of different manufacturing processes, Alpla is able to respond specifically to customer requests and implement them.
One of Alpla's core competencies is the system delivery of plastic bottles with closures, which gives the customer the opportunity to get everything from a single source. Starting with the design of the bottle, through production including mold construction to the fully automatic packaging machine, everything is made and produced by Alpla itself.
In order to expand its expertise in the field of recycling, Alpla took over the majority stake in the Lower Austrian PET Recycling Team GmbH (PRT) in 2011. After Alpla had already participated in a Mexican recycling company several years earlier as part of a joint venture with Coca-Cola , this was the first corresponding commitment in Europe . In 2012 the company invested in the construction of another PET recycling plant in Radomsko (southern Poland). 75 employees there recycle around 50,000 tons of PET bottles every year . The plant is equipped with two sorting and washing lines as well as an extrusion line. The annual output is around 13,500 tons of food grade rPET and 33,600 tons of flakes (not food grade).
The Austrian company was also a pioneer in the switch from PVC to PET, in the form of the first two-stage PET bottle .
Alpla is actively researching new packaging materials. For example, along with Coca-Cola and Danone , the company is participating in a development platform from Avantium, a Dutch chemical company, for the bio-based plastic PEF (polyethylene furanoate), the next generation of plastic for beverage bottle production.
In 1988, Alpla received an order from Beiersdorf to develop a completely new packaging solution. The resulting first sampled NIVEA two-layer bottle , which was produced by extrusion blow molding , was the start of a new trend. Multi-layer bottles were also the basis for foaming technology for the production of plastic bottles. In this microcellular process, which Alpla, Unilever and MuCell have been researching for years, a gas is injected into the middle layer of the bottle wall. This creates bubbles in the material. Plastic consumption and weight are reduced by up to 15 percent. For example, Unilever saves around 275 tonnes of plastic on shower gel bottles that are manufactured in the Lübeck plant for the European market.
Apprenticeship training
For many years, Alpla has been training apprentices in six different professions in its own training workshop (called: "Future Corner"). Every year 17 to 20 15-year-olds start their careers at Alpla. The apprenticeship period varies depending on the profession and is usually three to four years. Around 80 apprentices are currently being trained at the main locations in Hard and Fußach. There are 250 worldwide (Germany, Mexico, Shanghai and USA)
The following apprenticeships are currently being trained
Alpla trains the apprentices according to the dual system . This means that the apprentices are trained at the same time in the company and in the vocational school.
Due to the lack of practical vocational training in countries with important production sites for the company (such as Mexico or China ), the apprenticeship training - based on the Austrian model - was quickly copied. The Vorarlberg-based company started training apprentices in metal technology and plastic molding in Mexico in 2012. At the end, the young professionals receive an officially recognized double certificate: a Mexican and a European certificate. For Alpla, the Mexico project is a milestone in the internationalization of apprenticeship training. Since 2013, with initial support from WIFI International at Alpla and the Upper Austrian injection molding machine manufacturer Engel , an Austro-Chinese pilot project to establish apprenticeship training for the same professions in Shanghai has been running . On June 17, 2017, eleven Chinese apprentices successfully completed their final apprenticeship examination according to the Austrian system.
Others
In January 2015, Alpla and nine other Vorarlberg companies founded the “Climate Neutrality Alliance 2025” with the aim of making all of their activities 100 percent climate neutral by 2025.
Alpla is the main sponsor of the handball club Alpla HC Hard, which is also located in the market town of Hard .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Alpla website, section data and facts . Retrieved January 25, 2018.
- ↑ Worldwide for our customers on site. ALPLA, accessed on July 5, 2017 .
- ↑ https://www.vol.at/alwin-lehner-im-alter-von-86-jahren-gestorben/5822129
- ↑ https://www.alpla.com/de/unternehmen/daten-fotos
- ↑ Innovations that write history (s) | ALPLA. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 13, 2017 ; Retrieved April 12, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Microcellular success for the Alpla Group . In: Vorarlberger Nachrichten | VN.AT . ( vn.at [accessed on July 1, 2017]).
- ↑ Climate neutral business | Climate neutrality alliance 2025. Accessed April 12, 2017 .
- ↑ Vorarlberg companies found a climate neutrality alliance (January 9, 2015)
