Major German equipment manufacturer Deutsche Bergbau-Technik has officially opened its new $4 million Mackay factory in Queensland.
DBT managing director responsible for manufacturing, Dr Dirk Vorsteher, described the opening of the factory as a significant historical milestone for the company in Australia.
Vorsteher said the group's formation in 1994 was the result of the merger of three German mining equipment suppliers which were struggling for survival in the shrinking German market.
Since then, DBT has undergone tremendous growth internationally. Turnover in 1999 was DM670 million, he said, adding that DBT was in a strong financial position.
"Today, DBT worldwide is in a solid and profitable business situation and has a respected position as technological market leader for longwall systems."
Strategic actions had formed the basis for DBT's international growth, Vorsteher said. Global consolidation had been achieved by merging 64 companies into a global structure of 17. Global engineering and production was achieved by establishing an international engineering and manufacturing network with factories.
"This was strongly supported by the re-engineering of the manufacturing processes towards so-called product responsible units, towards manufacturing work-cells and towards empowered work-teams."
This required a global change in mind-set and a change in the value-system of DBT employees. Vorsteher said a range of innovative measures had been introduced at the company's factories, including material flow orientation, robot welding and flexible manufacturing cells.
Looking at the future, he said DBT did not anticipate much growth in the supply of longwall equipment.
"We feel that in our core competence of longwalls, in the best case scenario we will be stable. We are able to compensate the losses in the German market in the informational field but our overall growth is not sufficient. So if we want to expand, and we do want to expand, then we have to delve into other markets."
DBT was avowedly a mining supplier, Vorsteher said, but would look to other areas of mining including coal preparation, other underground mining technologies, and other commodities. He confirmed the company was actively exploring acquisition opportunities to supplement its existing product line, and that "some of our specific interests include shearers and continuous miners".
DBT is known to be one of five groups interested in US-based underground coal mining equipment manufacturer Long-Airdox, which parent Marmon Group put on the market earlier this year.
Vorsteher was non-committal on the subject. "In view of our goals, Long Airdox is of obvious interest to us, but beyond that I have no further comment," he said.
"We want to be able to provide our customers with the broadest equipment purchase options possible, so that they could buy selected products from us as well as full systems.
"Long-Airdox is an interesting company and it would give us a good synergy. With the shearer DBT would have everything in the longwall itself, however, final choice of shearers is still up to the customers. This is an important part of our strategy.
"The Australian market seems to be a Long-Airdox friend, the American market seems more to be a Joy friend. The eastern markets have hundreds of Eickhoff shearers. Being a supplier of a longwall system without offering an individual or specific shearer has its advantages. But there are issues that make it interesting to us to have the shearers."
DBT's new Mackay facility has one single-lift 52t overhead crane, and two 10t overhead gantry cranes. The workshop will carry out repairs and overhauling of DBT equipment such as beam stage loaders and armoured face conveyors.
DBT introduced its online analyser for use in coal prep plants to the Australian market at the Queensland Mining and Exhibition at Mackay in July. An article on this technology will appear in the September edition of Australia's Mining Monthly.
