TPT September 2012

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Industry News
8 September 2012
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SMS opens another
workshop in China
WELCOMING more than 300 guests,
Burkhard Dahmen, president and CEO
of SMS Siemag AG, inaugurated the
new €20mn SMS Siemag workshop in
Zhangjiagang near Shanghai, China
recently.
At the workshop 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.
Mr Dahmen said 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 aluminium 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.”
To be able to offer customers
around the world technologically and
economically outstanding plant and
machinery solutions, the SMS group
pursues a twin strategy. Firstly, it is
investing in expanding and modernising
the German production locations in
Hilchenbach and Mönchengladbach.
This is where the group develops and
manufactures the sophisticated and
quality-determining core components of
its plants and machinery.
Secondly, SMS is systematically
expanding its presence in major
markets such as China by hiring
qualified personnel and building
manufacturing and service workshops,
to guarantee local supply and service
shares demanded by customers in
these markets.
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.
Since the beginning of the 1970s,
business relations have expanded to
all the country’s main metallurgical
producers. The company attracted its
first major orders in 1974 and 1979 –
for continuous casters and rolling mills
for the metallurgy works in Wuhan and
Baoshan near Shanghai. In 1978 it
booked an order from Baoshan for the
world’s largest tube rolling mill of its day.
China produces 46 per cent of the
world’s steel and some 40 per cent of its
aluminium products, making it the largest
and most significant market for plant
manufacturers.
SMS Siemag AG – Germany
Fax: +49 211 881 4902
Website: