The construction of the center took twenty-one months and required a 11.9 million lei (EUR2.7 million) investment, partly paid for with European funds (RON6.4 million), about RON2.2 million of which non-repayable.
“The dream of making an entirely Romanian tractor in Reghin (central Romania), with an engine, gearbox, transmission and chassis developed by our engineers will become a reality in five years,” Mircea Eugen Oltean, general manager of IRUM Reghin, told ZF.
“We needed to build this R&D center to be able to create complex products and launch new machinery on the market.”
The Oltean family therefore established the iFor center, which is currently employing 40 engineers. The tractors IRUM assembles in Reghin use Perkins engines, whose sole distributor in Romania and Hungary is another group of the Olteans, Maviprod.
“Although we are just beginning, the engineers of the R&D center contributed to the development of new machinery, such as TAF 690PE and TAF 2012 skidders. We have also filed four patent applications with OSIM (Romania’s State Office for Inventions and Trademarks), which are now under various phases of review.”
IRUM makes tractors, skidders, agricultural machinery, front loaders and other types of equipment and parts thereof on its 17.5 hectare site in Reghin, which is currently employing 400 people.
Its sales stood at more than RON75 million last year and the company expects growth of 15% on 2014. First half revenue reached RON27.8 million, an increase of 8% on the year-ago period.
“We set out to double exports and boost revenue by at least 10% every year. We also plan to develop the sales network since we reinvest our profit every year,” Mircea Oltean said.
The company plans to open a 750 square meter sales and service facility in Afumati, near Bucharest, this year. (EUR1=RON4.4170)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)