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WEG invests €30m to build its biggest European plant
Published:  12 December, 2017

The Brazilian motor manufacturer WEG has invested more than €30m to build a new plant in Portugal where it will produce standard and customised low-voltage motors, mainly for the European market. The factory – WEG’s largest in Europe – is a further step in WEG’s expansion of its European operations, which has included the acquisition in recent years of the Austrian company Watt Drive, two German companies, Katt and Württembergische Elektromotoren, and Autrial in Spain.

The new Portuguese factory, in Santo Tirso, covers an area of around about 45,000m² and has the capacity for future expansion up to 100,000m². It is located about 20 minutes away from WEG’s existing plant in Maia. Together, the two sites currently employ more than 600 people, about 150 of them at the new site.

António Duarte, who is managing director of both plants, says that the new factory will allow WEG to cut delivery lead times and to increase the production capacity of the Maia facility. The earlier plant will now focus on manufacturing medium- and high-voltage motors, with an emphasis on explosion-protected machines. The company will expand its current portfolio of products, whilst strengthening its in-house service capabilities and automation capabilities.

“It will be better and simpler for our customers, and more productive and efficient for our business,” says Duarte. “The two facilities will make us more resilient in this business environment where flexibility, creativity and agility are the foundations on which we must continue to build on.”

WEG's new factory in Portugal will produce standard and customised low-voltage motors

Production facilities in the new factory include rotor manufacturing, stator winding, machining, assembly and testing. Like other WEG plants, it has a modular layout to help supply materials faster and more efficiently, and to allow the company to increase production capacity if it needs to expand. The plant combines automated and manual processes to boost productivity.