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| CEO of the German toy manufacturer Playmobil, Andrea Schauer, poses beside a giant plastic toy figure Rico |
The unexceptional building in Zirndorf is the origination of Playmobil's 7.5-centimetre (three-inch) dolls with their signature round heads and grinning faces as basic as a kid's drawing.
Since the first trio of them - a Native American warrior, a Medieval knight and a hard-cap development specialist - hit store retires in 1974, they have enchanted youngsters with scores of topics, from police to privateers.
"To make another Playmobil universe takes around the range of two years," said Bernhard Hane, the organization's head of improvement, as he headed Afp backstage into the origination of the colleagues.
Inside, halls are lined with columns of drawers that hold 35,000 little adornments - from swords and armour to amplifying glasses to smaller than usual toothbrushes - all intended to cut under the control of the colourful characters.
In a workshop, representatives use machine devices to make moulds for new toy sets, the fortunes of the organization, which can require up to 180,000 euros ($250,000) and are a defense against duplicating.
The center is on exactness. All Playmobil figures, of which 2.6 billion units have been made as such, must be perfect with all adornments and landscape sets, from Wild West towns and manors to zoos and space stations.
Dissimilar to most toy brands, Playmobil generates not in Asia yet in Europe.
The figures are fabricated in Malta, while creatures and bigger pieces, for example, the ever-well known privateer ship, are made in a manufacturing plant in Dietenhofen, Bavaria.
The items are amassed in the Czech Republic, then dispatched over to Dietenhofen where they are bundled and archived in a warehouse as high as a 12-storey building.
Close-by, in the southwestern city of Speyer, a nearby gallery has given a presentation to Playmobil, which four decades later is going solid. Deals in 2012 hit another record of 531 million euros and are relied upon to ascent five percent not long from now.
Two-thirds of the bargains are in Germany and France and, while the figures' prosperity in Asia has been restricted in this way, the organization sees further development prospects in Europe and the United States.
The toys target youngsters matured four to 12, while a few lines have been made for babies.
There have been turn off motion picture recreations and activity Dvds, and a Tv scaled down arrangement featuring the characters is to start one year from now.
For the family organization Geobra Brandstaetter, which makes the Playmobil line and now utilizes around the range of 3,700 staff, the minimal plastic individuals acquired salvation the 1970s, when the oil emergency drove up the expense of assembling plastic items.
The dolls were the brainchild of mould originator Hans Beck, who utilized negligible measures of plastic for an enormous thought.
"Playmobil discovered the way to a tyke's creative energy in 1974 and it still holds it today," said Ceo Andrea Schauer, illustrating its persevering victory in a faddish and intense area.
In a planet loaded with high-tech sounds and screens, the brand proceeds to expand the straightforwardness of its characters to leave space for the creative ability.
"The heart of Playmobil is pretending," she said. "Youngsters carry to life the stories they have in their brains."
On December 15, 2013
