Top gear performer LuK Savaria Kuplunggyártó

TOP GEAR PERFORMER

Established in 1996, LuK Savaria Kuplunggyártó Kft in Hungary is the biggest clutch and clutch disc manufacturer within the internationally operating Schaeffler Group. The production site is located in Szombathely, near the Austrian border, and was initially set up as an assembly plant to serve customers in Hungary. Today the company offers a wide range of products and covers almost a third of the group’s production in the clutch segment. Edina Beale reports.

The Schaeffler Group is renowned for its three main brands – LuK serves the automotive industry, whilst INA and FAG are industrial brands – and operates a worldwide network with 78,000 employees. In Hungary the group operates three sites: LuK Savaria Kuplunggyártó Kft produces LuK clutches in Szombathely; FAG bearings are manufactured in Debrecen whilst INA and FAG products are sold through the Budapest sales office.

LuK Savaria Kuplunggyártó Kft began production in November 1997 on a brand new 7500m2 manufacturing site in Szombathely. The company has gradually extended its site since then, and now operates on a 78,000m2 production facility and office area. The Szombathely plant currently employs 2400 people, which makes it the largest plant besides the Schaeffler headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, which employs 4600 staff. The company achieved a turnover of €540 million last year.

Increasing product variety

Serving only the automotive sector, LuK Savaria’s customers are all major OEMs. The company mainly supplies clutches and clutch discs for manual transmission, but also builds clutches for the VW DSG system

and provides double clutches for other partners as well as damper systems. Thanks to its state-of-the-art technologies, the firm offers a wide range of clutch applications including a twin disc application for high torque transmission.

Other significant products manufactured by LuK Savaria include dual mass flywheels and dampers. In addition to the core products, two years ago the company began to produce clutch release systems in Szombathely. Managing director Michael Reinig explains the reasons behind this: “We are increasing our capacity in accordance with our business plan so we can meet the market demand for greater flexibility.

“In general, we can say that every third newly manufactured car has a product from LuK worldwide and every 10th new car worldwide has a component part produced by LuK Savaria.” The company supplies mainly engine manufacturing plants, which has largely contributed to the decision to establish LuK Savaria in its current location. For example, the company is able to supply the Audi Hungary engine plant directly from Szombathely, as well as OPEL Szentgotthárd and the BMW Steyr Plant.

Mr Reinig continues: “The philosophy of the Schaeffler Group is ‘in the region for the region’, which is why we are acting with the group and its different brands worldwide. For our plant the target region is Europe and 96 per cent of our production is supplied directly to customers in Europe.”

In addition to the manufacturing process, LuK Savaria is currently working on developing new testing and prototyping applications for its partners. “We build our prototypes for these projects here in Szombathely and also work out most of the necessary testing parameters. This includes all electrical applications,” says Mr Reinig.

Guaranteed quality

In order to meet growing demands, the Hungarian plant regularly invests in extending and modernising its facilities. The latest development of the 3B plant increased its production capacities by 20,000m2 . Component production has also become increasingly important for the factory in the past few years. Production technologies include stamping, heat treatment, machining and spring production. The firm is aiming to carry out all stages of the production process by itself as much as possible, from the raw material to the finished product. Quality, however, is top priority, as Mr Reinig confirms: “Quality is first and foremost. We

have a very well organised quality control system within the group that enables us to constantly improve our quality to achieve the target of zero defects. We provide regular training courses for all our employees. Everybody within LuK Savaria is responsible for quality and for improving our systems to avoid quality concerns for our partners.”

Mr Reinig also shares the following view on the company’s prospects: “We have a challenging future in front of us and we will be increasing our workforce over the next few years. Why do I say challenging? We have more and more advanced technologies on-site and we are little by little becoming leaders in these technologies within the group. For this reason, we are in need of young, motivated and well trained engineers, and identifying this calibre of employee is still one of the biggest challenges.” n