Company Announcement - The SMS group inaugurated its new manufacturing and service workshop in Bhubaneswar, in the Indian state of Odisha, built for an investment of approximately 31 million euros. In the presence of more than 250 guests from politics and industry, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who attended the event as a guest of honor, cut the red ribbon in a festive ceremony. Then, as a traditional Indian inauguration ceremony, a lamp was lit by Naveen Patnaik together with Dr. Heinrich Weiss (Chairman of the Supervi-sory Board of the SMS group), Burkhard Dahmen (Spokesman of the Managing Board of the SMS group), Sam Schreiner (Ambassador of Luxembourg to India), Rainer Schmiedchen (German Consul General in Kolkata) and Christian Klein (CEO & Managing Director SMS India).

The new manufacturing and service workshop, built with an invest-ment of approximately EUR 31 million and covering an area of 21,000 square meters, is one of four locations operated by SMS India. The new manufacturing facility will focus on the supply of steelworks equipment and services tailored to the growth market India. Currently, SMS has more than 1,000 employees in India. In future, at Bhubaneswar, some 200 SMS employees will form a further pillar of the SMS group’s worldwide network of quality-manufacturing sites. With this new asset, the SMS group is consistently pursuing its customer-focused strategy by expanding its local service presence in the important growth market India.

“This investment strengthens our manufacturing network for steel-works equipment in India,” says Burkhard Dahmen, CEO of SMS Siemag and Spokesman of the Managing Board of the SMS group. “It is an important step for the SMS group in tapping this growth market and participating in the upswing taking place in this country. Annual steel production in India is expected to grow from its current level of 80 million tons to 300 million tons over the next 15 years.” The new manufacturing workshop, equipped with machinery of the latest state of the art, is strategically located centrally to the custom-ers of SMS. Most of them are within a range of some 300 kilometers. This makes it possible to fulfill individual customer requests locally and in real time. Moreover, it will also be possible to supply custom-ers outside India with components made at the Bhubaneswar work-shop via the marine port of Paradip, which is just 130 kilometers away.

The steelworks components manufactured at Bhubaneswar will be specifically aligned to the requirements of the Indian steel market.
The range of equipment made at the workshop will include electric arc furnaces, secondary-metallurgy plants like ladle furnaces and RH plants (Ruhrstahl-Heraeus), and BOF plants, including cooling stacks for gas cleaning systems. For continuous casting plants, ladle turrets, tundishes, tundish cars and roller tables will be supplied. All the plants will be manufactured, assembled and tested in Bhubaneswar. This ensures high quality of the equipment. As a systems supplier, SMS also offers a broad range of services, including spare parts services, the manufacture and repair of plant components in OEM quality, the manufacture of value-added components (segment rollers, spindles, mandrels), copper plating of casting molds as well as technical assistance in on-site installation and maintenance activities.

The service workshop of SMS India is equipped with various high-tech machines. These machines are critical to meeting OEM standards in the rendered repair and maintenance services. The new location also has plenty of capacity for customer training courses provided by the TECademy. In his address, Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Odisha, the state where the new SMS workshop is located, emphasized the out-standing importance of the new manufacturing and service workshop for consolidating the relationship between the SMS group and its Indian customers. It is planned to expand the workshop in the future and continue to invest in modern machinery and additional qualified personnel.

SMS India:
Thanks to its predecessor companies, SMS India is well established in the country. In 1989, lndomag Steel Technology Ltd. was founded in Delhi as a subsidiary of Mannesmann. In 1994, SMS Schloemann-Siemag established SMS lndia in Mumbai. Both companies merged in 1999 along with the merger between Mannesmann Demag Metallurgy and SMS Schloemann-Siemag. Since then, SMS India has constantly grown. Today, the company has offices in Gurgaon, Kolkata, Pune, and in Bhubaneswar in the state of Odisha, where the new workshop was built. SMS India has its headquarters in Gurgaon. The staff of SMS India has expertise in the design and sale of components, in project management tasks, in the fields of electrics & automation and in service. They competently handle the complete product range of the SMS group from coal and ore preparation via the blast furnaces from Paul Wurth down the process chain to strip processing lines, for the construction of new plants and for revamps.

Also in India, the successful integration of Paul Wurth into the SMS group and the resulting technological and sales-related synergies have contributed to the further expansion and completion of the SMS group’s portfolio as a provider of plant and mechanical engineering solutions for all process chains in the metallurgical industry. SMS India has already demonstrated its competence in almost 200 large-scale projects.

• Dr. Heinrich Weiss welcomes the guests in Bhubaneswar.
• From left to right:
• Dr. Heinrich Weiss, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the SMS group
• Christian Klein, CEO & Managing Director SMS India
• Burkhard Dahmen, CEO of SMS Siemag and Spokesman of the Managing Board of the SMS group.
• Naveen Patnaik, Chief Minister of Odisha
• Rainer Schmiedchen, Consul General in Kolkata
• Sam Schreiner, Ambassador of Luxembourg to India

Tour of the newly erected workshop on the inauguration day. The SMS group is, under the roof of SMS Holding GmbH, a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry. Its workforce of more than 13,800 employees generates sales worldwide totaling EUR 3.5 billion. The manufacturing and service workshop covers. The manufacturing and service workshop covers a total area of 21,000 square meters.