Today we visited Sandvik, a world-leading, high technology group, located in Mebane, North Carolina. The company was founded in 1862 in Sandiken, Sweden by Goran Frederik Goransson, and now has subsidiaries in over 60 countries and representations in more than 130 countries. Sandvik is separated into 5 divisions (construction, machining, solutions, materials technology, mining, and venture) as the Mebane location is considered in the machining solutions sector. Since 2000, Sandvik has acquired 40 companies in 20 countries, for example, Daikon Innovation and Wolfram Berglau. They have a large global presence, especially in Europe, Asia, and United States, as they continue to try and expand and help other companies increase profitability.
Sandvik is a world-leading high-technology engineering group who’s mission statement says that they are “the world’s leading supplier of tools, tooling solutions, and know-how to the metalworking industry. With extensive investments in research and development, we create unique innovations and set new productivity standards together with our customers.” They have a set vision within the workplace that is “Zero Harm,” or in other words, having zero harm to their people, the environment they work in, or to theirs customers and suppliers.
The customers of Sandvik consist of businesses worldwide who look to constantly improve their productivity. They help customers fulfill and exceed their targets as well as increase their profitability. Their customers also include businesses that need various tools for drilling through different sorts of metal and steel. At the Mebane plant, they do not sell directly to their customers, yet rather, transport their materials and products to Kentucky first. In doing this, they send them to the pre-approve distribution center, which then sells them internationally.
Sandvik’s customers expect quality over anything. Although it may seem that their products are overpriced and quite high, they feel that because it is such extremely amazing quality, they can charge steep prices to their consumers. When their customers are buying their products, they know that they are paying a little more than the competitors, however, getting the best option.
The results of Sandvik’s company are very clear. In 2011, they received the Gold Award from NCDOL, for excelling in labor safety. Since 2000, Sandvik has acquired 40 new companies in 20 countries and increased it’s total employees by 10,000 people. They also have doubled their land, increasing to more than 15,000 square meter. In this past year, their invoiced sales, in other words, revenue from orders, was 15 billion dollars.
Sandvik’s plan moving forward is increase wealth, energy consumption, industrial innovation, and shorten product life cycles at customers. They also would like to continue to invest in their research and development department. Sandvik also plans to move their operations East and West of Europe into both Asia and the US, as they also hope to find a way to cut down shipping costs.
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