High-level dialogue with Dr. Mathias Klein, Chief Sales Officer of EMAG Group-EEWORLD

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Entering a new stage of high-quality development, various transformation demands for intelligence, digitalization, green and low-carbon are coming. How to open up the "Ren and Supervision" of enterprise development, turn crises into opportunities, and achieve long-term development? EMAG has made a series of strategic adjustments and actively carried out actions. Let us learn more about it through a conversation with Dr. Matthias Klein, Chief Sales Officer of EMAG Group.

Q: What is EMAG’s strategic focus when it comes to innovation?

Answer: First of all, EMAG's core market is the automotive industry, so you will see many of our new equipment and technologies used in the automotive field at many exhibitions. Among them, technical solutions for motor drive systems are a very important part, especially for the Chinese market. In China, the market for new electric vehicles is growing, so we also hope to use EMAG's technical advantages in this area to increase the company's business.

Second, regarding the new trend displayed by the automotive industry - laser coating, which is related to the planned implementation of the European Stage 7 emission standards (Euro 7), discussions on China's Stage 7 emission standards have also begun. Therefore, we are specifically presenting new equipment and processes in braking systems and emission reduction.

Thirdly, the aerospace industry is also an important market for EMAG, and we demonstrated new equipment for electrochemical machining processes.

We always start with technology. In the past, technological innovation took the first step in Europe, and the second step came to China. In other words, compared to China, Germany has more experience. But now, because we already have many machine tools and systems running in China and Europe at the same time, the services in China, Germany, and Europe are already very similar. EMAG's three factories in China are very large, which means that whether they are German customers or Chinese customers, we can provide them with the same high-quality services.

Q: Regarding localization, what is EMAG’s next plan?

Answer: China is an important market for EMAG Group. We have established three factories in China, including two market companies in Taicang, Jiangsu and Chongqing, and a production base in Jintan, Jiangsu. We have been producing machine tool products in Jintan for ten years.

Our strategy is to increase the number of machine tools produced locally in China as much as possible. Therefore, we will transport more new equipment from Europe and Germany to China to expand Jintan's production capacity. This is an ongoing process and we will increase the number of machine tools delivered every year. We expect this number to double in the next 3 to 4 years. Accordingly, this investment requires at least several million euros. This is the strategy we are implementing—continuously investing in new equipment and producing new machine tools in Chongqing, Taicang, and Jintan.

Second, following the "local-for-local" strategy, EMAG has achieved complete independence in China. In other words, EMAG’s suppliers are in China, management is in China, and engineers are in China. We are completely independent. Especially during the COVID-19 epidemic, the EMAG China team fully demonstrated their strength and independence. This is why EMAG China can continue to develop and why we can continuously bring new technologies to the local market.

In addition, we have increasingly powerful technical engineering capabilities and richer application experience. Our localization process in China must continue to develop and become more in-depth. It is worth mentioning that our team in China is also part of the overall development process, and Chinese R&D personnel have extremely strong capabilities.

Q: Regarding digitalization, what are the new developments in EMAG’s R&D and applications?

A: As I said earlier, our first major market is in the automotive industry. But from the overall planning point of view, we also need to develop into non-automotive industries. In fact, we already have our own IoT development team.

What does this mean? When we discuss processing solutions with customers in the automotive, construction machinery, agricultural machinery and other industries, what we can provide is an overall turnkey solution from machine tools to processes to automation systems. EMAG equipment has its own human-machine interface and its own intelligent system, which can manage machine tools. Whether it is large-volume production like the automotive industry or small-volume production like the construction machinery industry, we can provide Operators are provided with a suitable control system that allows them to operate EMAG machines very easily.

Third, we are deeply developing digital technologies. A machine tool will generate a large amount of information and data, and we can collect this data and process the data. The ultimate goal is to help customers increase production capacity and improve production efficiency. For example, we can use this data to perform "health checks" on machine tools to prevent problems before they occur, such as predicting whether the spindle will break. In addition, we can also study the data to understand the service life of the tools, so that customers can clearly understand "Do I need to replace the equipment?" "When is the right time to replace the equipment?" "Do we need a tool management system?" This is What our development team is working on.

Regarding digital systems, one of EMAG's major advantages is that we have many successful customer applications around the world. This experience can help us continuously improve and optimize system development. We have long-term relationships with our customers, not just a few months or a year. Currently, we are working in depth with customers in the automotive and non-automotive industries to jointly find processing solutions based on digital systems and IoT products. In the end, the system needs customers to use it, so we need to keep close contact with customers and jointly develop this system. This is our digitalization process in Europe and China, and we can clearly see that it continues to move upward.

Q: Regarding sustainable development, what new actions does EMAG take?

A: For us, sustainable development is very important on a global scale. We established our own targets and improvement measures, with the key evaluation criterion being CO2 consumption.

Our goal is that the machine tools produced by EMAG in China, Germany and around the world are carbon neutral. Currently, our production activities and production facilities in Germany are carbon neutral. This means that when a Chinese customer purchases a machine tool from us, we can guarantee the customer that the machine tool is carbon neutral. This initiative will be implemented first at the German headquarters and then transferred to China.

I believe that with our joint efforts, it will not take too long to achieve this goal. This is why we carry out our own production activities and set our own goals, so that we can show our customers the solutions we offer them, which can produce efficiently and at the same time comply with carbon-neutral policies and regulations.

At present, we are on the right track, with a dedicated department responsible for the company's sustainable development, and we have launched many different activities to achieve this goal. For example, carbon dioxide is indeed measured and tracked. As a global citizen, we will do our best to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality for all mankind.