AMB 2010 – LMT is setting out on the road to growth with confidence and innovations
Numerous innovations and renewed confidence have put LMT – Leading Metalworking Technologies back on course for growth. Additionally, the business group is launching a concentrated sales and product campaign at the AMB 2010 fair. In each of its segments, LMT is presenting one product with unique selling points. In the composites growth market LMT is pooling the Group’s expertise for its Composite Excellence initiative. With the world's first modular tap drill, and the application-oriented Polaris coating that the company has just developed, LMT also aims to significantly increase its market share in the machining of cast materials.
In pursuing these ambitious market goals, LMT is able to rely on an above-average increase in orders. As a result, the targeted annual turnover of 240 million euros for the entire Group, including tablet press subsidiary Fette Compacting, has moved within its grasp. “After completing the restructuring process, we can now concentrate fully on our customers,” sums up Dr. Michael Heinrich, chairman of the Board of Directors. “Furthermore, the product innovations we are presenting at AMB prove that we have made very good use of the time to develop innovative tools in our market segments that enable users to further improve their productivity.”
Composite Excellence: Pooling expertise in composite materials
LMT intends to continue moving along its growth course on the basis of its specialist expertise. With its Composite Excellence sales campaign LMT is concentrating its know-how on composite materials, an important market of the future. “Our tools are highly sought-after in very different industries as a result of the diverse uses of these new materials,” explains Alessandro Telesio, managing director of LMT Tool Systems, the sales company of the LMT Group. “The Composite Excellence project enables us to pass on the existing experience within the Group to users in very different industries.” The initiative is being carried by the two LMT competence centres for machining composites and plastics: LMT Onsrud, USA, and LMT Belin, France.
New tools as innovation drivers
The opportunities that arise for the LMT Group as a multispecialist enterprise focusing on selected applications can best be illustrated by the innovative tool that is celebrating its world premiere at AMB 2010: world's first modular tap drill for machining cast materials XChange, and the application-oriented Polaris coating, that the company has just developed. By combining a solid carbide cutting head and a HSS shank using a patented interface, LMT is combining the advantages of both materials. When the cutter is worn out, only the blade needs to be replaced. “We add the advantages of HSS and solid carbide and avoid the respective disadvantages. As a result, we calculate that the XChange drill will achieve at least 30% higher productivity in serial production when compared with conventional HSS and solid carbide tools – and that’s not even taking into account the benefits of reduced non-productive time,” says Matthias Rommel, managing director of the LMT Technology Group. “We initially aim to replace a significant proportion of HSS and solid carbide drills with XChange for the processing of cast materials, before then gradually expanding into other application areas.”