Rendsburger Feuerverzinkerei

Rendsburger Feuerverzinkerei, a company belonging to the HOBBY Caravan Group, has been operating a galvanising plant since 1973. The steadily increasing demand for caravans and motorhomes, the ever growing market for general galvanised goods and the tightening up of environmental regulations in recent decades more or less forced the company management to build a new hot-dip galvanising plant.

After conducting an intensive needs analysis, in which we were involved at an early stage in the form of an engineering assignment, it soon became clear that only a modern hot-dip galvanising plant with encapsulated pre-treatment and automated transport technology would be sufficient to meet the operator’s needs. The location of the existing galvanising plant had to be maintained in the future for logistical reasons. After a construction period of around eight months, the company boasted a modern galvanising plant with a very appealing architectural design and a fully automated production process. Up to 10,000 tonnes of material per year are galvanised in double-shift operation in a zinc bath with a kettle size of 7 m (length) x 2.8 m (depth) x 1.2 m (width). Building a completely new plant at the same location while the old galvanising plant continued to operate was a particular challenge for all the companies participating in the new construction. Furthermore, the customer wanted to avoid losing any production days because of the construction and change-over to the new plant. A new hall, equipped with a pre-treatment unit, dryer, galvanising oven and Scheffer transport technology, was built on top of the existing galvanizing plant then put into operation. After a very short trial period of only two working weeks the existing galvanising plant was shut down and production was completely switched over to the new plant. The old galvanising plant was subsequently demolished. The entire investment process took place without hampering ongoing production.