New dawn for electro-mobility HAI

new dawn for

elecTro-mobiliTy

Hammer Aluminium Industries (HAI) specialises in casting and aluminium extrusion and is a renowned Austrian success story. Since the company was founded in 2007 it has been a major force in its field through its commitment to excellence and the strategic adoption of new technologies. The company’s three core divisions - Casting, Extrusion and Processing - are setting new benchmarks for soft metal foundries worldwide, as Philip Yorke reports.

Today HAI employs over 1,200 people. Founded in 2007, the company has its headquarters in the Upper Austrian town of Ranshofen and operates five other facilities in Germany and Romania. The ambitious, family-owned company combines the dynamics and innovative spirit of a young enterprise, with the experience of a traditional business. In its three production divisions of Casting, Extrusion and Processing, HAI registered sales of around EUR 550-million in 2019. HAI products are not only to be found in the automotive industry, but also in the construction sector, transport technology, electrical engineering, machinery and plant engineering, as well as in aviation and medical applications.

Systematic expansion

In another major advance, the official signing was held recently for HAI’s takeover of the extensive Hydro Criș plant in the Romanian town of Chișineu-Criș. With this acquisition, HAI is systematically expanding its capacity and taking another step forward in the strategic development of its core divisions.

This takeover ensures significant expansion in the extrusion sector with the addition of two extrusion presses covering an area of 140,000 square metres and 10,000 square metres of building space respectively. The new HAI facility in Chisineu-Cris offers the group additional production capacity of more than 22,000 tonnes per annum. These additional capacities have been acquired in order to meet the growing demands of its customers, with high capacity utilisation being predicted for 2020 and 2021. These capacities in the extrusion sector also relieve the company’s plants in Soest and Ranshofen, thus enabling further growth there with its longstanding, existing customer base. Strategic significance

The new facility is also strategically significant as it is located less than 20 km from HAI’s major Santana plant. However, the new facility does not just offer synergy with an existing subsidiary.

“We have taken over a well-oiled infrastructure, as well as 200 employees and their know-how. That makes this investment much more calculable and lower risk than a new development on a greenfield site,” said HAI’s CEO Rob van Gils.

The new premises have already been supplied with extrusion billets from HAI’s Santana plant, so the takeover has now further increased the value-added chain in Romania for the HAI Group. This is yet another milestone in the consistent growth strategy of the soft metals group. The acquisition increases the size of the workforce to approximately 1,400 employees across its seven sites.

With a total of ten extrusion presses, HAI now has an extrusion press capacity of some 100,000 tonnes per annum. In combination with an annual foundry capacity of 200,000 tonnes, this underscores HAI’s claim to be one of the leading players in the European aluminium industry.

meeting the challenges of e-mobility

Last year the HAI Group also opened Hall 4.0 - a new production hall at its headquarters in Ranshofen. The investment was designed to meet its current and future requirements in the digital age and further extend its innovative technological expertise.

Hall 4.0 meets the future challenges of eMobility and covers an area of 4,000 square metres. The high-tech production hall is fitted with state-of-the-art technology for high-end production lines. This new facility meets the requirements for increasing digitalisation

as part of the transition to Industry 4.0. The new, fully automatic production line was developed and implemented in cooperation with Fill, the machinery and plant engineering company based in Gurten, Austria. The growth in eMobility brings new challenges as well as exciting opportunities for automotive suppliers.

Today, aluminium profiles with specific material properties are being demanded by the automotive industry, in particular for eMobility. Among other products, profiles for battery cases will also be manufactured in future at the newly opened production line. These profiles feature outstanding crash-impact properties, heat resistance and specific heat transfer profiles. With this HAI is also securing its position for the future as an innovative and reliable partner of the automotive industry.

An on-going commitment to the Ranshofen site

With the opening of Hall 4.0, HAI is making a clear commitment to its Ranshofen location. Following investments in a 6,300 square metre solar power system and a modern 41-meganewton (MN) extrusion press in 2018, the opening of the new hall represents the culmination of the company’s multi-year investment offensive at its main facility.

“Commissioning of the new production hall in Ranshofen is a great day for the whole HAI family. The major investments of recent years are fundamentally important for us in continuing to create future-proof jobs and building on the commercial success of the HAI Group through innovation,” added van Gils.

The family-owned light metal alloy specialist can therefore justifiably take a positive view of its future position in this innovationdriven industry. n

For further details of the HAI Group’s latest innovative products and services visit: www.hai-aluminium.com