In brief, the £2.87 billion turnover (2016 projection) company is reorganising its global capacity, following the discontinuing of its “middle-class product ecoLine series”, with new successor products being the configurable CMX milling machines and CLX lathes (pictured).
That means that the Chiba factory in Japan that made ecoLine products is to be closed, as will be the company’s Shanghai, China, site, also an ecoLine maker.
The company is also to close the Le Locle, Switzerland, factory of subsidiary Dixi Machines, and will sell Tobler SAS of Louvres, France, a maker of workholding solutions.
DMG Mori is to sell its energy solutions business, Gildemeister Energy Solutions, which marketed solar photovoltaic panels (including the SunCarrier product) and chemical energy storage systems (such as the CellCube product) to go with them.
For the future, the company will be “extending the regional strengths of production sites”: Pfronten and Seebach, Germany, are to be “training factories”, especially in 5-axis technology. Those at Bielefeld, Germany, and Iga, Japan, are for universal turning and turn-mill products. Its Bergamo, Italy, factory will become a centre for production and automatic turning machines. In addition, its Nara, Japan, site will be a centre of excellence for automotive technologies, with Pfronten the same for aerospace.
The machine tool giant will also develop an easy to use human-machine interface, automation systems and technology cycles (application software), as well as shifting to digital factory developments “where we collect and analyse information on manufacturing and utilise it for improving productivity.”
In undertaking this wide-ranging change, DMG Mori says that its focus up to 2020 will be on strengthening operational resources, rather than seeking sales revenue growth, focusing on employee education and the improvement of operational efficiency.
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