Dematic, a world leader in logistics automation systems, is dramatically expanding its engineering services centre in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second largest city. Having been operating in the city for nearly a decade, the US company now plans to add a further 40 highly qualified specialists in finance, control engineering and computer simulation to its Kaunas team in the next three years.
“We chose Kaunas for provision of our high added-value engineering services because of the talented specialists available on the local labour market,” explains Vadim Major, Manager of the Dematic engineering services centre in Kaunas. “These specialists mostly come from Kaunas University of Technology, but we are also happy to employ some good graduates from universities in Vilnius and Klaipėda as well as local vocational colleges. Therefore, we are confident that there are sufficient resources available to support our growth,” concludes Mr. Major.
Dematic’s Kaunas office currently employs 60 specialists. The majority of the newly recruited staff will be working in the Control Engineering department being responsible for design and commissioning of automatic control systems for mechatronics equipment at customer sites. In addition, the Computer Simulation team is also set to be expanded. This team carries out detailed research on the qualitative characteristics of the newly designed systems.
Gediminas Koryzna, director of the Investment Development Department at Invest Lithuania, argues that, whilst it is growing rapidly, Kaunas is still far from saturated. “In terms of the number of specialists working in service centres, the figure in Kaunas is currently only one tenth of that in Krakow and only one quarter of the figure in Vilnius,” Mr Koryzna says. “This means that the city is only at the beginning of its development in this sector. Bearing in mind the current players in Kaunas and the competences of the specialists trained in its higher education institutions, Lithuania’s second city has the potential to become a serious contender in attracting global investors which are sought after across the CEE region,” concludes Mr Koryzna.
Dematic has divisions in 35 countries and is one of the five biggest suppliers of logistics automation systems in the world. At the end of 2016, the company strengthened its position by joining the KION Group, one of the global leaders in the logistics transport and systems market. The Group has over 30,000 employees and reached €5.6 billion in turnover in 2016.
