What is their mission?
Sandvik is a worldwide high technology manufacturing and engineering company that was started in Stockholm, Sweden in 1862. It first mass produced steel but has since developed and grown into a company that produces and manufactures advanced special alloys and ceramic materials. Since Sandvik is mainly a manufacturing company using heavy, expensive machinery, it focuses on the safety of its employees and its customers who buy their products. Sandvik says they are dedicated to help their customers fulfill and even exceed their targets and their strategy to accomplish this involves four different ideas. These ideas are ambition, speed, focus and globalize and each is a key part of why Sandvik is so successful in its industry.
Who is their customer?
The customers of Sandvik are largely businesses in the cutting, mining, and construction industries who need well-made drill bits and other kinds of machinery to construct or cut large pieces of metal or rock. Sandvik makes a variety of products to fit each industry, and some of their drill bits and cutting machinery is used in the automobile industry to manufacture the car bodies of the new Ford F-150s. The building we went to today does not actually have a customer because their job is to make the product and then ship it to actually distribution centers where customers can call in after looking through a catalog and order the parts that they need. Sandvik has three centers around the world in Kentucky, Holland, and Singapore that are capable of advertising and reaching any part of the world in 24 hours to get in contact with their customers.
What does their customer value?
The number one thing Sandvik customers value is the quality of Sandvik products. They acknowledged that their products may not be the least expensive in the industry but said that customers keep coming back to them because of the excellent quality they receive from their business. Unlike other companies that allow customers to order online and receive cheaper products, Sandvik sends out a catalog to all of its customers with all of the products available and the customer must make the order by phone and speak with Sandvik employees themselves.
What are their results?
Sandvik’s results are impressive compared to other companies. The company now has over 49,000 employees and over 2,700 of them are in Research and Development alone. From 2000-2012 Sandvik purchased forty different companies in twenty different countries to expand its areas of operation. In addition, they have subsidiaries in over sixty countries and are represented by other businesses in over 130 countries. The most impressive statistic of them all though is in the 162-year history of the company; they have only had two years without making a profit. These two years were 2001 and 2008, both of which were poor economic years for the worldwide economy.
What is their plan?
While Sandvik is at the top of their industry they have several plans on how to be even better. The Mebane facility alone is planning on expanding the size of their buildings so they fit more equipment to subsequently produce more products. During their expansion, Sandvik plans on keep up a consistent level of quality and efficiency and to especially increase the amount of automation they use. They believe that more automation can only better their production because it will lead to better material handling and more consistency across the company.
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