New success for Polygon cross border collaboration

When a fire ravaged the Switzerland-based factory, Polygon was given responsibility for clean-up and restoration of the production facility. Through cross-border collaboration, rapid response and dedication, parts of production were back up and running only four days after the fire.

Franz Sandner, Regional Manager at Polygon Austria, received an urgent call. A fire had broken out in one of the company’s factories in Schluderns, Italy, causing extensive damage to the property and equipment.

“I immediately realised that given the size of task, we were going to need both more technology and more manpower than we had access to in Austria. Within a few minutes I contacted our colleague at POLYGONVATRO in Germany and together me and two colleagues visited the customer the next day,” says Franz Sandner.

An oral agreement was reached after the meeting and the following day, the first truck full of equipment and 20 technicians from Polygon arrived at the site to start the clean-up. Efforts to restore the facility and machinery were launched at full speed. The next day, they were joined by an additional 25 technicians to speed up the process.

The greatest challenge in the assignment was to restart and secure production, side-by-side with the factory´s employees, while at the same time restoring the property. Polygon worked in two teams, one during the day and one at night, in order to minimise disruption of operations as far as possible. The start-up phase was the most intensive part of the process and for the first two weeks, Polygon had a force of 47 people per day working in the factory. Efforts then continued with a workforce of 25 people. Four days after the fire, parts of the factory’s production were up and running and the production rate rose successively in pace with restoration of the facility. All in all, the clean-up and restoration took five weeks to complete and required a total of 11,000 working hours.

“This was the biggest assignment for Polygon Austria West last year, and one of the most successful. All of our employees took part in professionally tackling the challenge of maintaining production while we restored the property. We were awarded the contract thanks to Polygon’s brand, our international muscles and our ability to quickly mobilise manpower together with our colleagues at POLYGONVATRO,” concludes Franz Sandner.