LMT Group Opens new facility in Nanjing

The LMT Group has suc­cess­ful­ly estab­lished itself on the Chi­nese mar­ket over recent years. On 8 May 2018, Fette Com­pact­ing and LMT Tools offi­cial­ly began oper­a­tions at a new fac­to­ry and admin­is­tra­tion build­ing in the city of Nan­jing in East Chi­na. Some 500 invit­ed guests attend­ed the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, includ­ing col­leagues from the two com­pa­nies’ oth­er sites around the world. Regine Ben­gel, one of the own­ers, addressed a per­son­al greet­ing to the employ­ees of the Chi­nese sub­sidiaries: “You have trans­formed a Ger­man com­pa­ny in Chi­na into a Chi­nese com­pa­ny with Ger­man roots.”
The new facil­i­ty in Nan­jing was built in just under a year on an area of over 50,000 square meters. The LMT Group cel­e­brat­ed the lay­ing of the foun­da­tion stone in spring 2017. The first machines were installed in Decem­ber. End of Jan­u­ary 2018, the new office and admin­is­tra­tion build­ing was ready for occupancy.
The LMT Group has been active in Chi­na for over ten years. In 2004, Fette Com­pact­ing set up a pro­duc­tion plant for its tablet press­es in Nan­jing. The Chi­nese sub­sidiary of LMT Tools com­menced work here one year later.

Continuing on a successful course

Before the open­ing of the new build­ing Fette Com­pact­ing pro­duced rough­ly 100 tablet press­es a year in Nan­jing, which were deliv­ered to cus­tomers all over the world. The new facil­i­ty will enable Fette Com­pact­ing Chi­na to dou­ble its pro­duc­tion capac­i­ty. “We are firm­ly main­tain­ing our cur­rent course of inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion. That is how we can ensure the con­tin­ued avail­abil­i­ty of state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy and com­pre­hen­sive ser­vice to all the cus­tomers that want to engage in growth mar­kets in Chi­na and oth­er parts of the world and increase their inter­na­tion­al com­pet­i­tive edge,” explains Olaf J. Müller, CEO of Fette Compacting.
From its site in Nan­jing spe­cial­ist tool man­u­fac­tur­er LMT Tools serves com­pa­nies in Chi­na in the auto­mo­tive and wind pow­er indus­tries as well as in the med­ical and aero­space tech­nol­o­gy sec­tors. The new facil­i­ty will allow LMT Tools Chi­na to mod­ern­ize and expand its ser­vice infra­struc­ture. “With 4.4 bil­lion US dol­lars of demand for cut­ting tools, Chi­na is the world’s largest sin­gle mar­ket. Such a mar­ket can only be served com­pe­tent­ly and effi­cient­ly by local sales units, because sales, advice and ser­vice require cus­tomer prox­im­i­ty. When our cus­tomers need sup­port, we have to be able to respond swift­ly and solve their tech­ni­cal prob­lems with com­pe­tent advice. Our strat­e­gy is clear­ly hav­ing an impact since we are receiv­ing grow­ing num­bers of orders, espe­cial­ly from local firms. Our ser­vice offer­ing is a very impor­tant ele­ment in our busi­ness mod­el. Our regrind­ing ser­vice enables us to gen­er­ate an excep­tion­al­ly high added val­ue for our cus­tomers, which is reflect­ed in improved pro­duc­tiv­i­ty as a result of longer tool life and, thanks to opti­mized tool logis­tics, reduced idle capac­i­ty costs. Our facil­i­ty in Nan­jing will strength­en this busi­ness mod­el with inte­grat­ed regrind­ing ser­vices for sol­id car­bide, PCD and HSS as well as recoat­ing for all vari­eties,” explains Daniel Ehmans, CEO of LMT Tools.