KOCH H&K Industrieanlagen has completed its move into a new building in Dillingen/Saar. The reason for constructing the new building was the substantial growth of the company and the resulting increase in workforce. Heiko Maas, Government Minister for Economy, Labour, Traffic and Energy in the German Federal State of Saarland, inaugurated the building.
After two years in the previous building in Rehlingen – which KOCH H&K had moved into in 2011 – space became tight. Due to the very good order intake and the great number of projects around the world, the staff – which in the meantime has increased to 80 members – urgently needed more space.
Next to the office building with a floor space of 3000 m2, KOCH H&K now has an adjacent storage and assembly area in which the plant components can be pre-assembled and tested.
KOCH H&K is currently working on several large-scale projects. One of these which is nearing completion, is a finishing line for rails of more than 100 m in length for the metallurgical combine EVRAZ ZSMK in Novokuznetsk/West Siberia. The order includes all components beginning after the rolling mill through to the loading area for the straightened and finished rails. The logistics required for shipping the equipment give an idea of the size of this order: Just for the transport of the components alone – up to 30 m in length with a weight of about 2600 t – 170 railway wagons were required.
Recently in China, a straightening machine and two saws for beams and special sections passed intensive acceptance tests and have been in operation since then. Last year, KOCH H&K not only implemented major projects including the supply of new equipment, but also revamped existing machines and equipment in rolling mills worldwide, such as the one at Böhler Edelstahl in Austria.
KOCH H&K is also active in the close vicinity of its headquarters: A new slab turnover device will soon be up and running in the heavy-plate rolling mill of Dillinger Hütte, which is only a stone”s throw away. The device will be installed in the slab handling area. It is designed for slabs with a thickness of up to 500-mm or blooms with a length of up to 12,500 mm and a weight up to 90 t. The order includes the planning, design, manufacture, installation and commissioning of the complete plant. KOCH H&K supplies all the mechanical and hydraulic equipment as well as the basic engineering for the electrical equipment – all from a single source.
Wolfgang Gerhard, one of the two Executive Partners, takes an optimistic view of the future: “Obviously, our business idea of designing and supplying equipment tailored individually to the needs of our customers has paid off. Not only have we completed several large-scale projects successfully , but we are also in solid negotiations with various steel producers regarding new orders. Therefore the new building was planned with further growth in mind. It offers enough space for 130 employees.”
Simultaneously with the move into the new building, the company changed its name to KOCH H&K Industrieanlagen GmbH. This, emphasises the roots from which the two companies KOCH H&K evolved.
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