Cylinders Holding Establishes European Headquarters for Purchasing and Logistics

Cylinders Holding, Europe’s largest producer of high-pressure steel cylinders, is responding to fluctuating raw material and energy prices on European markets by establishing a logistics and central purchasing center based in the Czech Republic. The new center will manage key activities for plants in Europe. “This will bring us savings of millions of euros per year. We are not moving production capacities to cheaper countries, but are building an efficient structure for our three largest plants in the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany,” said Cylinders Holding CEO Jan Světlík.

Cylinders Holding operates three strategic production companies – Vítkovice Cylinders (CZ), Vítkovice Milmet (Poland) and ECS (Germany), with the latter company joining the group last year.

The growth of European production capacities, which also have sister companies in, for example, the USA and the United Arab Emirates, has required deeper changes in the functioning of the entire holding.

The newly established holding logistics and central purchasing will allow us to respond flexibly to the needs and the fullness of production capacities within the Czech-Polish-German triangle.

“Thanks to modern production lines and a new logistics concept, we can now decide exactly where a specific order will be implemented. We are guided primarily by the rule of efficiency from the perspective of the entire holding,” explained Vladimír Kufa, director of central logistics and purchasing. According to him, the newly set logistics will bring in up to 5 million euros per year and savings within central purchasing will reach 2.75 million euros.

Centralized logistics and purchasing management is not the only change. Roman Schenk is now leading business activities across European production plants. Production in the Czech Vítkovice Cylinders has been transferred to Petr Hofrík, who has many years of experience with the technical specifics of high-pressure steel cylinder production.

The use of artificial intelligence is also centrally set. The Cylinders Holding group uses it to streamline administration, refine decision-making processes and generally perform tasks faster.

“With an annual production exceeding one million high-pressure steel cylinders, it is also essential for us to meet the highest standards in the field of environment, social responsibility and corporate governance (ESG). These parameters are monitored by our customers, consumers and financial institutions,” added the CEO of Cylinders Holding Světlík, adding that the newly set up management of the group also includes central management of ESG factors across the group. A high-pressure steel cylinder already has a lifespan of up to 50 years and is fully recyclable.