With its holistic approach to process control along all stages of the supply chain – as in the learning steel mill – SMS group builds not only highly efficient new production facilities, but it also upgrades existing ones to a state that compares with that of new plants.
Additive Manufacturing
Additionally, SMS group is also very active in Additive Manufacturing. The company already uses additively manufactured components in its plants and has been promoting the development of highly specialized metal powders. The powder atomization plant in Mönchengladbach, Germany, is not only used for the production of high-purity metal powders for AM applications, but also develops new design and manufacturing methods there.
New Horizon
SMS group will present its innovations under the umbrella topic “New Horizon”. In more than 150 years, the company has accumulated a wealth of expertise based on which it has started to address urgent and future-oriented topics in a concerted approach: How will we be using raw materials in the future, or energy and our environment? How do we go about topics like mobility, urbanization and the communications sector?
Burkhard Dahmen, Chairman of the Managing Board of SMS group GmbH: “Metals are essential for our future: high mobility, urban life or intensive communication would be impossible without metals. Therefore, we develop technologies for the complete life cycle of metals. We offer technologies that extract and process metals in an economically efficient and, at the same time, eco-friendly way, and allow them to be recycled virtually endlessly back into the raw material cycle. With our “New Horizon” offensive, SMS group is gearing up for future markets.”
Against the backdrop of constantly decreasing resources of metals that are crucial for the application of new technologies – such as nickel, cobalt, aluminium oxide, titanium, vanadium, lithium or rare earths – SMS group has developed new, profitable processes for the extraction of metals from secondary sources and sources that could only be exploited with limited efficiency in the past.
Burkhard Dahmen: “The last few years have seen continual talk of digitalization, Industry 4.0 and Additive Manufacturing at the steel producers and processors as well as at their suppliers. We already feel the heavy impact of new technologies and new production methods in our world of work. We will see this impact cause even more change at an ever-faster pace in the future. Since last METEC we have seen many changes taking place in many different areas. Against this background, we look forward to speak with our customers about the challenges posed by these megatrends – and to propose possible solutions. In this way, we can help our customers to stay competitive in a globalized market environment.”
You can find SMS group in Hall 5, Booth E22