Innovation has a name - Oerlikon Corporate

Our markets Exceeding the demands of our customers

Trends like urbanization, a growing middle class, and technical advancement are offering wide opportunities for profitable growth. Oerlikon focuses its business on structural growth markets: food, clothing, transportation, infrastructure, energy and electronics.

Oerlikon is well prepared for the future. With an EBIT margin of 10 %, we have achieved a breakthrough that has taken us to a new level of profitability. But we have no intention of resting on our laurels. We are determined to sustain growth and steadily increase our profitability. In the medium to long-term, we expect good opportunities, despite the uncertainty of current economic conditions, and intend to take full advantage of them.

Our company is present and active in key global growth markets: clothing, transportation, food, infrastructure, energy and electronics. Approximately 50 % of all high-quality clothing yarn produced in the world is made on Oerlikon’s textile machines. State-of-the-art, low-emissions diesel technology relies heavily on Oerlikon’s innovative coatings. Every other tire on the road uses cord made on Oerlikon equipment. About 70 % of all agricultural machinery contains components made by our company. Almost every single cell phone in the world contains electronic components produced on Oerlikon machines. The creation and expansion of infrastructure is made possible by construction machinery equipped with Oerlikon transmission components, geotextiles for road building and landscaping woven on Oerlikon machines, and architectural glass produced using Oerlikon vacuums. In the energy sector, Oerlikon facilitates the efficient extraction of conventional energy sources and, with its cutting-edge single wafer handling solutions, currently offers manufacturers cost-efficient method of production in the photovoltaic industry.

A growing world population, increasing urbanization and the urgent need to protect the environment are fueling demand for industrial manufacturing solutions that are more efficient, as well as of higher quality and cleaner. This is the focus of Oerlikon’s efforts: to develop components and production solutions that meet and exceed the ever-increasing demands of our customers and that allow them to gain competitive advantage. It is for precisely this reason we invest so heavily in research and development every year – expenditures in 2011 totaled CHF 213 million, approximately 5 % of sales.

In 2011, we succeeded in laying the technological basis for sustained economic success through the introduction of new, ground breaking innovations. At the Barcelona ITMA in September 2011, the Textile Segment presented new products and components that use up to 50 % less energy (“e-save”) and deliver productivity gains of up to 25 %. Segment Drive Systems presented vehicle manufacturers with transmission prototypes for new electric drive systems and supplied transmissions for an entire fleet of electric vehicles used by a Parisian auto-sharing program. Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum expanded its portfolio with the launch of the MAGiNTEGRA turbo-molecular vacuum pump, a product that allows new applications, i.e. in steel manufacturing. Segment Coating developed the groundbreaking coating technology S3pTM, which bonds previously incompatible substances by employing extremely hard, smooth and super-adhesive coatings, opening up totally new areas of application. Segment Advanced Technologies’ new HEXAGON semiconductor coating machine features three times greater throughput in the process, significantly improving efficiency.

To best market these solutions, Oerlikon aims to be as close to its customers as possible, particularly in emerging markets. We currently generate 49 % of our sales in Asia, and the trend continues to point upward. With over 1 000 employees, the Suzhou plant is already one of Oerlikon’s largest sites, and we continue to expand our presence in Asia, and China in particular. Segment Textile relocated its headquarters to Shanghai – becoming the first Oerlikon Segment to be managed out of Asia.