Strategic Positioning
Together with its global operating subsidiaries, ThyssenKrupp Stainless is increasingly positioning itself as a supplier of a wide range of high-performance materials from stainless steel to nickel alloys to titanium.
But rather than just delivering the materials, we aim to act as a competent service provider. This means supplying our customers with solutions for a wide range of applications, providing product support services, for example in the form of various first-stage processing operations, and operating as close to our customers as possible by continuously expanding and optimizing our global distribution and service center network.
The Stainless group’s key strategic goals are:
- to strengthen our good market position in Europe and safeguard our competitiveness
- to participate in the growth in other key markets, in particular in North America and China
- to expand our global distribution network
- to further optimize our product portfolio and increase our value added
To achieve these goals we work systematically on improving our operating performance at all our companies. Our aim is to continuously improve the quality of our products and services.
All the measures we undertake to implement our strategy are geared to achieving these goals. This is why we are investing significant funds in the modernization of our production facilities and the expansion of our finishing and first-stage processing capacities. Further investments are focused on developing new and improving existing products and processes and not least on expanding and strengthening our distribution network.
In addition we aim to continue to participate in the steady growth of the stainless market. The main focus is on the European and in particular the North American market. We are therefore examining the possibility of establishing a production site for stainless flat products at a joint location in the USA.
The stainless steel slabs produced in a 1 million metric ton capacity melt shop could be processed on the hot strip mill to be built by ThyssenKrupp Steel. In addition we aim to invest in a cold-rolling facility which will be designed initially to produce 325,000 tons of cold strip and 100,000 tons of pickled hot strip. Our Mexican stainless steel plant ThyssenKrupp Mexinox could then also be supplied with starting material directly from the new plant in the USA.
At the same time, value added is to be further increased both in stainless flat products and in high-performance nickel alloys and titanium. To achieve this goal, a number of investments are planned both for the production plants and in the service center organization.
By investing further in nickel alloys and titanium production, we aim to increase our share of the fast-growing aerospace and energy markets. For this reason we are further expanding our capacities in this area with the aim of participating more strongly in the market for super-alloys for the oil, gas, aerospace, offshore and nuclear industries and gaining increased self-sufficiency in the manufacturing processes, which today are still carried out in some cases by third parties.