On the occasion of its 60th anniversary in 2013, Jungheinrich set the course for further consistent growth, which continues to this day: In addition to two new production sites in China and Germany, the company also opened a state-of-the-art spare parts centre in Kaltenkirchen, near Hamburg. To optimise spare parts management, a 31-meter-high high-bay warehouse and an automatic small parts warehouse for over 90,000 stock items were built. “This enables us to guarantee spare parts availability of over 98 percent today, which is twice as much as in 2013,” recalls Jens Ringeling, who is responsible for facility management at the site as group leader. The offices in the spare parts cenrer's administration building are designed as an open-plan office covering an area of 3,800 m². The decision to adopt this spatial concept enables more transparent and direct communication between employees. For Jens Ringeling, the open-plan workplace design has clear advantages, but also presents particular challenges: "It promotes communication between teams and encourages idea generation and problem-solving processes. Our customers receive even better service. On the other hand, especially at the beginning, employees had reservations about noise pollution, lack of privacy, insufficient daylight, and poor air quality." Creative interior design planning with sample areas and information events for the teams helped to alleviate many of these concerns before the move to the new building. However, after moving into the office space, there were increasing complaints about the indoor climate in winter.

Over 70 Nanofog humidifiers are in use in the open-plan offices, ensuring an optimal relative humidity of 40 percent all year round. All that is visible is a fine mist that is generated when the humidity falls below the set target value. The system is controlled by hygrometers, which are evenly distributed throughout the office space to measure the humidity and activate humidification when necessary. The fine atomisation of the water is made possible by high-pressure technology and upstream water treatment: a high-pressure pump generates an operating pressure of up to 70 bar and feeds the water through high-pressure pipes to the humidifiers in the rooms. “The installation was absolutely problem-free and could even be carried out while we were still operating,” says Jens Ringeling, describing the simple retrofitting of the air humidification system. The heart of the system is the water treatment unit, which, like the high-pressure pump, is installed in transportable service containers. The water is continuously demineralised there and all impurities and germs are removed. Every six months, Jens Ringeling's team receives refurbished and cleaned containers as replacement units and does not have to worry about maintaining the system themselves: “Safe and hygienic operation is just as important to us as external documentation, which is also regularly requested by our works council.” The manufacturer's service package therefore also includes annual certification in accordance with VDI 6022, Sheet 6, which confirms through comprehensive testing of the system that all necessary hygiene measures in accordance with the current state of the art are being observed at Jungheinrich.