To support longer term growth, ESAB is developing its presence in certain key markets, in particular China, Central and Eastern Europe, South America and South East Asia, where it sees excellent prospects for the full range of its welding, cutting and automation products. A program of projects in these areas to increase ESAB's total capacity for the manufacture of welding consumables by around 20 per cent between June 2006 and June 2007 has been completed, and further expansion in capacity, particularly in China, is anticipated which will be utilised to meet demand for ESAB’s products in Europe and North America as well as throughout Asia. In other developing markets, such as certain former CIS countries and the Middle East, ESAB’s presence is being enhanced through the opening of new sales offices and distribution centres.
The growing demand in these markets will increasingly be supplied with product manufactured in ESAB’s factories in lower cost locations.
To assist ESAB in remaining at the forefront of the welding industry, a programme of continuous development of new welding products is undertaken, which reflect prevailing trends in the global industry, in particular customers seeking higher productivity from a generally less skilled workforce and the use of increasingly sophisticated materials to be joined by thinner and stronger welding material.
Following the success of the pilot programmes, ESAB has continued to roll out its Lean-manufacturing programme to all manufacturing sites in its organisation. During the first half of 2008, initial focus is being directed to ESAB India and China. ESAB will continue to focus on Lean initiatives to ensure that Lean principles are adopted throughout the organisation, to include applications in logistics and administration.