core sector communique

SMS opens another workshop in China

Welcoming more than 300 guests, Burkhard Dahmen, President and CEO of SMS Siemag AG, inaugurated the new 20-million-euro SMS Siemag workshop in  Zhangjiagang  near Shanghai, China on May 31, 2012. This is where, in  the future, some 350 employees will work in assembly, service, repairs, and functional testing. The facility, together with the SMS Meer workshop opened two years ago plus other engineering and service branches in China, means that almost 1,000 of the SMS group’s 11,000 employees worldwide are now located in China. Together they generate total sales of over EUR 3 billion, of which more than some EUR 600 million come from business with Chinese customers.

Burkhard Dahmen emphasized during the inauguration ceremony:

“All this goes to show that we continue to expand our presence in China, a country that has been  one of our most significant sales markets for decades. There we operate as a system supplier and technology partner for the country’s steel and aluminum industry.

To our Chinese customers, SMS stands for top technology and cost-effectiveness, quality, and reliability. These are strengths we have also used to build up our leading role on global markets.”

Successful twin strategy – international approach

To be able to offer customers around the world technologically and economically outstanding plant and machinery solutions, the SMS group pursues a twin strategy.

First, it is investing massively in expanding and modernizing the German production locations in Hilchenbach and Monchengladbac.  This is where the group develops and manufactures the sophisticated and quality-determining core components of its plants and machinery.

Second, SMS is systematically expanding its presence on major markets such as China by hiring qualified personnel and building  manufacturing and service workshops.  That is how the company guarantees the local supply and  service shares demanded by customers on these markets in the usual SMS quality.

Over a century in China

As far back as 1904, SMS delivered the first rolling mill to Hanyang, a district of the capital city of Wuhan Province. It consisted of mechanical equipment for a complete duo-reversing block rolling mill including reversing roller tables, block delivery device, block shears, and the necessary auxiliary plants.

Ever since the beginning of the 1970’s business relations have surged and meanwhile extend to all the country’s main metallurgical producers. The company attracted its first major orders in 1974 and1979-for continuous casters and rolling mills for the metallurgy works in Wuhan and Baoshan near Shanghai. Furthermore, in 1978 it booked an order from Baoshan for the world’s largest tube rolling mill of its day.

Today, China  produces 46 percent of the world’s steel and some 40 percent of its aluminum products, making it the largest and most significant market for plant manufacturers.