March/April 2013 MPR 70026-0657/13 ©2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Carpenter announces management movesCarpenter Technology has appointed a new senior vice president – commercial, specialty alloy operations & Latrobe operations, and a new senior VP & chief financial officer.

Andrew Ziolkowski has been selected to manage Carpenter Technology’s com-mercial, specialty alloy oper-ations & Latrobe operations. He previously held the role of head of integration and oper-ations of Latrobe Specialty Metals, which was acquired by Carpenter in February 2012. Ziolkowski replaces Mark Kamon, who announced his retirement last month.

In his new role, Ziolkowski will be responsible for the overall commercial efforts of Carpenter SAO, including international sales as well as the distribution operations

of Aceros Fortuna and Grupo. He will also oversee the completion of Latrobe’s integration.

Before serving as senior VP – Latrobe operations, Mr. Ziolkowski was VP of bar & coil products and strip prod-ucts. He joined Carpenter in 1989 as a senior internal auditor.

Carpenter has also announced that Tony R Thene has been selected as the company’s senior VP & chief financial officer (CFO). Thene replaces K Douglas Ralph, who will be involved as need-ed in an advisory capacity during Thene’s transition.

Thene will join Carpenter after 23 years with Alcoa Inc, where he most recently served as CFO for Alcoa’s engineered products and solutions business.

Gil Research report estimates worth of PM manufacturing

EC presents action plan for Europe automotiveThe European Commission (EC) has presented a strat-egy which aims to help strengthen competitiveness and sustainability of the EU’s automotive industry.

The European automotive industry is one of the biggest sectors in Europe, with more than €700 billion in turnover and a multiplier effect on the entire economy via links with other markets (steel, chemical and textile). There are approx-imately 180 vehicle plants across the EU. The industry provides more than 12 million direct and indirect jobs, with a significant share reflecting a highly skilled workforce. It has a hugely positive trade balance (of more than €90 billion in 2011). It is thus a major source of growth and prosperity of the European citizens.

However, due to the cur-rent macro-economic situa-

tion, automotive sales in EU markets have declined this year (a 6.8% drop for the first half of 2012 for passen-ger cars and a 10.8% falloff for commercial vehicles) – compared to already low sales levels of 2011. Current forecasts indicate almost 8% year-on-year decline in the EU passenger car market, with sales amounting to 12.1 million units, representing the fifth consecutive year of decline. Recovery of growth is expected only in 2014/2015, and a return to pre-crisis lev-els is not expected in the next 4-5 years – in certain markets only by the end of the decade.

The EC’s action plan sug-gests that concrete actions to be taken on issues of emis-sions, research financing, electro-mobility, road safety, new skills, smart regulation, trade negotiations and inter-national harmonisation.

Powder metallurgy manu-facturing industry generated US$6.6 billion in sales, a report has shown.

The top six or seven com-panies that are well estab-lished in this field make up roughly one-third of the market, while the remaining two-thirds are small- and medium-sized companies spread across various coun-tries. The US continues to claim a high proportion of the total volume of powder metal production and is expected to retain this lead at least through the next dec-ade, the Gil Research report explained.

The PM component manu-facturing industry is esti-mated to be worth around US$14 billion, with the top dozen players in this field making up roughly one-third of the market. The rest comprise small and medium-sized companies spread across various countries. In this market, there is a larger percentage of companies in the Asia Pacific region and North America; the Asia-Pacific companies, including those in China, are expected to grow at a faster rate in the next decade and could make up half of the global output for components by 2020.

The auto industry is one of the biggest sectors in Europe.

Sintermetal invests in Mexico sinter plantSintermetal, a subsidiary of the Schunk Group, plans to invest US$6 million in expanding its sintering plant in Ocoyoacac, Mexico.

The plant now features a new area of machines, ena-bling the production of high-ly complex sintered parts in the manufacture of rotors for oil pumps and VVT (vari-

able valve timing) systems, among other applications.

Schunk Group says that it has decided to make this investment to meet the needs of the domestic mar-ket as well as North America and South America, and meet the needs of the grow-ing automotive market in Mexico.

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