MAN factory opens in Niepolomice

By the end of the year the MAN Group’s plant in the Niepolomice Industrial Zone will have produced 4,000 trucks weighing more than 16 tons each. It has a capacity of 15,000 trucks annually.

The 800,000-square-meter MAN facility is in the Niepolomice Industrial Zone. Companies that supply MAN take up another 600,000 square meters there.

MAN trained the work force in its home country of Germany. By the end of 2010 the Krakow-area facility is expected to employ about 650 people.

MAN and many other international companies rushed to invest in Poland after it joined the EU four years ago. During the grand opening of the factory early this month, Anton Weinmann, board chairman of MAN Nutzfahrzeuge Group, said Poland is an important part of the company’s international strategy.

MAN has a 20-percent share of Poland’s vehicle market. In addition, Weinmann noted, almost every large trucking company in Poland uses MAN products.

Niepolomice is Poland’s third MAN plant. It also has factories in Starachowice and Poznan. The company employs nearly 4,000 people in Poland overall.