Plansee Composite Materials appoints new Managing Director
March 27, 2019
Matthias Hochstrasser (centre) has been appointed as the new Managing Director of Plansee Composite Materials (Courtesy Plansee Group)
Plansee Composite Materials GmbH, Lechbruck, Germany, part of the Austrian-based Plansee Group, has appointed Mathias Hochstrasser as its Managing Director. Hochstrasser has worked for the Plansee Group for thirteen years, having joined the company in Switzerland in 2006.
After joining Plansee as a Production Planner, Hochstrasser relocated to China in 2011 as Project Leader for the construction of a new plant. He is said to have managed and incrementally expanded the plant in Shanghai since its successful commissioning in 2013. At present, Plansee has more than 400 employees in China.
On his appointment to Managing Director of Plansee Composite Materials, Hochstrasser stated, “Plansee in Lechbruck is very well positioned – with great employees, competitive products, good capacity utilisation and outstanding machinery.”
He added that he sees the development of the location as a challenge. “To optimise Lechbruck further, we need state-of-the-art manufacturing technologies and processes, a high level of automation, qualified employees, and carefully crafted succession planning in order to cover the need for suitable employees for the years ahead.”
Plansee Composite Materials is Plansee Group’s competence centre for tungsten heavy metals as well as metallic and ceramic composite materials. The site manufactures a number of products from the group’s tungsten heavy metal alloys, as well as metal and ceramic composites based materials such as on titanium and aluminium.
Among other products, Plansee Composite Materials develops sputtering targets and cathodes for hard material coatings. Its Lechbruck site was founded in 1975 and is certified to ISO 9001 for quality management systems in the development, production and distribution of powders, semi-finished products and products made of refractory metals.
