Giesecke & Devrient Opens New Smart Card Factory in Slovak Republic

Approximately 100 invited guests will be addressed by Verena von Mitschke-Collande, shareholder of Giesecke & Devrient GmbH; Dr. Karsten Ottenberg, Chairman of the Board and CEO; and Ferdinand Vitek, mayor of Nitra. The plant, which took a year to build and covers nearly 20,000 square meters (215,000 sq. ft.), is one of the largest factories in the world for producing smart cards for the fields of mobile communications, electronic payment, health care, identification, and IT security. Its production capacity currently runs at more than 250 million card bodies per year, including chip embedding, with enormous potential for the future. All in all, the company has invested roughly 20 million euros in the facility, which employs a staff of nearly 250. Greater production efficiency A significant advantage for production is provided by the factorys single-story construction. “Thanks to the floor layout, we are able to optimize production processes, thus making them more efficient,” explains Jürgen Jachmann, the new facility’s Managing Director. “We work according to what is called the flow production method. This principle keeps us from having to store cards on a temporary basis. That results in speedier production.” Besides card production, additional steps of SIM card personalization and comprehensive customized logistics and packaging services have been newly introduced into the Nitra facility’s overall production concept. Altogether, the company has managed to smoothly transfer production from its plant in Louisenthal, Germany to Nitra. Ensuring competitiveness The smart card market is booming. Experts are predicting the market will grow by more than 20 percent in the coming year. At the same time, however, the card industry has been subjected to ever increasing pressure from international competition and been marked by a sharp drop in prices, especially for SIM cards. For that reason, in July 2005, G&D’s management decided to transfer production from Louisenthal on the shores of Bavaria’s Lake Tegernsee to Nitra, Slovakia. “In order to stand up to international competition as well as boost the efficiency and cut the costs of our production, we are forced to begin manufacturing in Slovakia. Other areas of the cards business, such as personalization, development, and marketing, will remain based in Germany.