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Cracow, Poland was chosen as the venue of Siemens VAI Metals and Mining Technologies (MT) second media summit largely as this enabled a visit to their latest flagship project, the completion of the new hot strip mill at ArcelorMittal's integrated plant on the outskirts of Cracow which was conceived just 23 months prior to hot commissioning.
OPENING the summit, Dr Richard Pfeiffer, CEO Siemens VAI Metals & Mining Technologies explained the company's evolving strategy as one that is creating new manufacturing and service centres to support its intention to become a local supplier of plants and process solutions, not only for metals but also open- cast mining. "We aim to use acquisitions and joint ventures to expand our business network for engineering, plant solutions and maintenance in order to reinforce our local presence and our proximity to the customer", explained Dr Richard Pfeiffer.
Siemens VAI plans to further increase local content, especially in China, India, Russia and Ukraine. Following a 33% rise in new orders to 3.5bn in 2007 (to September 30), Werner Auer, CFO of Siemens VAI MT said the Division is expecting considerable further growth thanks to new projects and the expansion of the company's service solutions.
In a move away from its former policy of contracting out the engineering requirements of its plant building operations, in April 2008 Siemens MT acquired Morgan Construction, Worcester, Massachusetts, a leading US supplier of long products equipment with 500 wire, steel and billet rolling mills supplied all over the world. In addition to adding its engineering skills and workshops, the acquisition greatly expands Siemens VAI MT's position in the long products equipment segment of the market.
In 2007 Morgan Construction, which has 1100 employees, posted sales of US $230M. "The engineering and servicing capacities as well as the production facilities of Morgan in the US, India and China will not only enable us to expand our long product business," said Dr Pfeiffer, "but will also open up new ways of combining electrical and mechanical solutions to create unique plant components, to manufacture them ourselves and to supply them from a single source". This, he continued, will protect our know-how against the increasing number of imitators and, at the same time, strengthen the core of our...