Plansee celebrates a successful 2018, looks to challenges ahead
November 30, 2018
Attendees at Plansee’s Jubilee Ceremony in Reutte, Austria (Courtesy Plansee Group)
Plansee, Reutte, Austria, set “a whole series of records” in 2018, according to Bernhard Schretter, Executive Board of the Plansee Group, during his welcome address at the company’s annual long-service anniversary celebration or ‘Jubilee Ceremony’. According to Schretter, the volume of products sold, the use of raw materials, the number of employees and the level of investment all reached record levels over the course of the year.
“We are delighted and proud to be able to say that we are currently successfully active around the world,” he stated. However, he cautioned that the company must not become complacent.
In light of growing competition from Chinese companies, heightened global political tensions and the challenges of industrial digitalisation, Schretter noted that, “Despite all the records, we have to distinguish clearly between those things that are based on our own capabilities and aspects where we are exposed to market forces, overheating, speculation and commodity prices over which we only have limited influence.“
Looking ahead to the challenges Plansee will have to face in the near future, Schretter highlighted issues around the long-term security of supplies of tungsten and molybdenum independent of China; a shortage of skilled workers at most of the group’s fifty production sites around the world; and the digitalisation of sales, production and administration.
Karlheinz Wex, Member of the Executive Board of the Plansee Group, then congratulated each of the nearly one-hundred staff who were celebrating their 25th, 30th, 35th, 40th or 45th year employment anniversaries at the Jubilee Ceremony by reading out short poems and other tributes written by their colleagues or managers.
