PANASONIC FACTORY SOLUTIONS CENTRALISES ITS CORE BUSINESS IN EASTERN EUROPE

Wiesbaden, DE. 23^rd September 2026 – Panasonic Factory Solutions is strengthening its presence in Central and Eastern Europe by centralising its customer support, engineering, service and development activities in Budapest, Hungary. As part of this strategic investment, the company has opened a significantly expanded Technical Centre, creating a regional hub with dedicated expertise to support electronics manufacturers across the region and beyond. 

The move reflects growing customer demand for advanced training, demonstrations and lifecycle support as manufacturers continue to expand production capacity throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

A New Home for Technical Excellence

The new Technical Centre complements Panasonic’s broader regional strategy. It replaces the company’s previous training facility in Munich, which had reached its capacity limits. The new site offers four fully equipped training and demonstration rooms, enabling Panasonic to deliver significantly more customer training, technical workshops, and hands-on education. Panasonic’s Customer Experience Centre in Munich will continue to serve as the company’s B2B showcase, including dedicated training facilities for Factory Solutions customers.

The Budapest Technical Centre will feature an 860 m² shop floor with a significantly larger demonstration line equipped with Panasonic’s latest SMT technologies. This includes the NPM G Series (NPM-GP/L, GW and GH), the latest ASF feeder technology for automated refilling of material, and the APC-5M AI software solution for predictive maintenance. The expanded space enables complete production workflows to be demonstrated under realistic manufacturing conditions. 

With direct access to a dedicated materials warehouse and sample room for customer-specific configurations, visitors can experience production scenarios that closely reflect their own factory environments. The facility also provides sufficient space for future expansion, including additional floor automation solutions.

Increased Innovation, Training and Lifecycle Support

Beyond customer demonstrations and training, the Budapest Technical Centre also serves as a hub for Panasonic Connect Europe’s Operations & Maintenance (O&M) and lifecycle support programmes. In 2022, the company successfully established its head and feeder refurbishment service in the Hungarian capital, a core service for all electronics manufacturing machine providers. In the future, customers will benefit from proactive and predictive maintenance services designed to maximise production efficiency throughout the lifetime of their equipment.

“As demand for our training programmes, demonstrations and engineering support continued to grow, it became clear that our previous Technical Centre no longer provided the space our customers and teams required,” explains Jérôme Clouet, Senior Product Manager, Panasonic Connect Europe GmbH. “Our new Budapest facility gives us the capacity to significantly expand these activities while creating a much more realistic demonstration environment that allows customers to evaluate complete production solutions tailored to their individual manufacturing requirements.”

Budapest: A Hub of Engineering Excellence

The Hungarian capital was selected for two reasons. Firstly, it’s located within one of Europe's fastest-growing electronics manufacturing regions, next to a booming industrial hub in Czech and Romania. Secondly, Budapest is an established centre for engineering excellence. The country benefits from a strong academic ecosystem, with leading universities and research institutions producing highly qualified engineers and manufacturing specialists. 

Combined with its multilingual workforce, excellent infrastructure and growing concentration of international electronics manufacturers, Budapest provides an ideal environment for Panasonic to expand its regional expertise and customer support further.

“Central and Eastern Europe is one of the most dynamic regions for electronics manufacturing, particularly within the automotive and industrial sectors, and AI server board production,” adds Clouet. "At the same time, Budapest offers access to an outstanding engineering community and technical talent. This combination makes it the ideal location for expanding our capabilities and supporting customers across the region.”

Tech Days Expands to Budapest

Panasonic Factory Solutions will host its flagship Tech Days event in Budapest for the first time on 23-24 September 2026. It will demonstrate how connected and intelligent manufacturing are supporting the journey towards the autonomous factory whilst improving productivity, flexibility and operational performance.