Air Transport

German hydraulic products manufacturer Remog is one of a small number of foreign small and medium-size enterprises (SME) to have been convinced by the appeal of Poland’s Aviation Valley. But when it established its small factory in Mielec, north west of Rzeszow, last October, it was because it needed to add production capacity to cope with orders for non-aerospace industrial pump shafts. It had no plans to become integrated into the local aerospace supply chain.

“We were capacity constrained, but we didn’t come here with the intention of finding local customers,” says Markus Muller, who runs the 50-year-old company’s aerospace business.

Since then, the company – which makes about half its $26 million turnover from aerospace and employs 200 people in Bavaria – has become part of the Aviation Valley organisation. It has won engine-component machining contracts from WSK and plans to move some of its “less demanding” aerospace production across the border to Poland.

Remog has not found it hard to find skilled staff. New employers in Mielec benefit from the fact that it is a special economic zone, and the main aerospace employer, PZL Mielec, is downsizing and releasing staff, says Muller. “Now we plan to build the competence of the workforce so we can offer more capability. Ultimately, we may transfer business to the Polish company and actually deliver a finished product from here. We currently deliver all our products from Germany,” says Muller.

“We started here with 25 people, but in 18 months we could be employing 70, half of them on aerospace.”