Around €56 million has been spent, among other things on the construction of a new forging line in Unna which began operation today. “In Unna we now have one of the world’s most advanced open-die forging operations,” said ThyssenKrupp Stainless AG executive board chairman Jürgen Fechter at the official inauguration ceremony, which was also attended by North Rhine-Westphalia economics minister Christa Thoben. “It opens up new possibilities to attract further customers, particularly in the promising aerospace industry,” he continued. The expansion of the forging operations has resulted in a ten percent increase in the workforce at the plant. “A lot is talked about corporate responsibility these days. So it gives me great pleasure to come across a company like ThyssenKrupp VDM which is investing in the latest production facilities and through this commitment is strengthening North Rhine-Westphalia as an industrial location and offering the people here secure livelihoods,” said Christa Thoben at the ceremony.

ThyssenKrupp VDM GmbH is working hard to cement and expand its position as one of the world’s leading suppliers of high-performance nickel alloys. To achieve this goal, various investment projects totaling more than €70 million were launched around two years ago as part of a forward strategy. At the Unna plant they included the expansion of remelting capacities as well as the construction of the new 5,000-ton forging press. “We are closing a technology gap in the production of nickel long products and expanding our range significantly,” said Dr. Olbrich, chairman of the management board of ThyssenKrupp VDM at the inauguration ceremony. The company’s nickel alloy and special stainless steel products are used in the aerospace, oil, gas, energy, environmental, automotive and many other sectors. ThyssenKrupp VDM already supplies high-performance materials for the construction of wide-body aircraft such as the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. In the future the company also intends to supply materials for rotating aircraft parts.

The expansion of the forging operations in Unna has also had an impact on the number of jobs at the plant, which has risen by roughly 30 to just under 320. Some of the people who previously worked in the wire production plant transferred from Bärenstein to Werdohl have found new jobs there. ThyssenKrupp VDM has also indicated that the number of jobs in Unna could increase further.

ThyssenKrupp VDM GmbH, a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Stainless AG, has been developing high-performance materials for challenging applications and processes for more than 75 years. ThyssenKrupp VDM GmbH is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of nickel alloys and high-alloy special stainless steels. The product range includes strip, sheet, rod, forgings, pipe starting material, wire as well as precision mechanical parts. The company is based in Werdohl and has further production sites in Unna, Altena and Siegen, all in Germany. In the USA, ThyssenKrupp VDM has plants in Florham Park (New Jersey) and Reno (Nevada) specializing in the production of high-temperature materials for the aerospace industry. A global sales organization with 14 branch offices, combined with service centers in Guangzhou (China) and Melbourne (Australia), ensures an optimum world market presence in the plant engineering, energy generation, oil and gas, electrical engineering, electronics, automotive and aerospace sectors. In fiscal year 2006/2007 the company supplied around 50,000 tons of material and generated sales of over €1.4 billion with a global workforce of around 1,800.

(Source: ThyssenKrupp Stainless AG)