Schaeffler to expand manufacturing footprint in Vietnam

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(left to right) Mr. Mai Van Nhon – Vice Chairman, Dongnai Industrial Zone Authority (DIZA), Mr. Andreas Siegel - German Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Mr. Adreas Schick – Chief Operating Officer, Schaeffler Asia Pacific, Mr. Tran Van Vinh – Vice Chairman, The People's Committee of Dongnai Province, Mr. Helmut Bode – President Industrial, Schaeffler Asia Pacific, Mr. Jozef Babik – Chief Operating Officer, Schaeffler Asia Pacific

Schaeffler, a global automotive and industrial technology group, is continuing with the strategic expansion of its footprint in Asia Pacific with an investment of 55 million Euros to build a new Greenfield plant in Vietnam that will significantly increase the local manufacturing capacity. The company had organized a ground breaking ceremony for the new Schaeffler Vietnam plant on November 3, 2017. The investment is expected to generate 250 jobs in Dong Nai province by the end of 2019.

“The investment reinforces our long-term commitment to this region as this helps us to better serve our customers with a wider local range of our high-quality industrial products. This is the second Schaeffler-owned plant in South East Asia and it has always been part of our vision for Vietnam to further strengthen our operational and technology footprint,” says Mr. Andreas Schick, Chief Executive Officer at Schaeffler Asia Pacific. “We see tremendous potential in Vietnam due to the high standards of technical education, excellent work ethic of employees and great enthusiasm for manufacturing,” added Mr. Schick.

Equipped with Schaeffler’s advanced manufacturing technology, the new plant will replace the existing production facility that was set up on a leased land over 10 years ago. “With the new investment, we are significantly expanding the existing product range of Radial Insert Ball Bearings (RIBB) by transferring the entire global production responsibility to Vietnam. We will also set up a new product line for needle roller bearings (NRB), which is the flagship product range of Schaeffler Group,” says Mr. Helmut Bode, President Industrial at Schaeffler Asia Pacific. “With the localization of these standard product ranges we will be able to further increase our contribution to the development of the industrial sector in South East Asia,” he adds.

The RIBB range offers benefits like easy mounting, smooth running and high reliability in supporting moderate to high radial and axial loads. Typical applications of these bearings are in agricultural, construction and mining equipment; food processing machinery; process industries like textile, paper, steel as well as packaging. The NRB range offers sophisticated, high-precision products for a variety of applications across industries as well as the automotive sector, including motorcycles.

As a global automobile and industrial supplier, Schaeffler offers relevant solutions for shaping the "Mobility for tomorrow". The Industrial division offers everything from mechanical components to cloud-based services across the entire energy value chain.

The new plant, located at the Amata IZ Expanded in Bien Hoa City, is being developed on a modular concept on a 100,000 sq. m. plot. The annual production capacity will be 15 million pieces on completion of Phase I, which will cover half of the area. Construction of the first phase is expected to complete in Q4 of 2018 whereas Phase II, with more product lines from Schaeffler’s wide portfolio of industrial applications, is likely to commence in 2022 over the remaining 50,000 sq. m.

 

Ms. Nguyen Ho Tong Khanh Linh - Executive Office Manager, German Business Association, Mr. Park Seunghun – Country Manager, Schaeffler Vietnam, Mr. Micah Shepard – President, Schaeffler South East Asia, Ms. Pham Thi Thanh Huong – Vice President, AMATA CITY BIENHOA JOINT STOCK COMPANY

3D rendering of Phase 1 of the Schaeffler Vietnam plant