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Ticona seeking to create progress

Ticona has set a clear course for progress – and growth. “Together with our employees and our customers, we have accomplished a great deal in the past, and generated continuous growth in sales over the last three years,” explains Lyndon Cole, president of Ticona, at the company’s K 2007 press conference in Frankfurt am Main. Having achieved sales of $915 million in 2006, Ticona is striving to maintain profitable growth in the future as well. That growth relies not only on innovations and targeted investments, but above all on the contributions of a talented and dedicated workforce. “With the right people operating in the right markets, we will succeed – today and in the future,” adds Ticona vice president Roeland H. Polet.

Targeted investments in growth regions and relocation

At the strategic level, the company’s management is ensuring the conditions necessary for achieving market leadership in strong growth regions. These include numerous investments in Asia, for instance, as well as distribution partnerships in Central and Eastern Europe. Similarly, the decision to relocate the Kelsterbach works to another site in the Rhine-Main area is also designed to permit future capacity increases, thereby enabling the company to pursue its growth strategy. “The relocation of a major chemical works in its entirety is a huge challenge for all of us. But the concepts we are developing for this task together with our employees are every bit as targeted – and the solutions just as robust – as those we are also formulating to address the changing boundary conditions,” emphasizes Cole. He is referring here to the trend toward globalization, demographic changes, and new legislation and regulations, for example, as well as environmental aspects.

   
Ticona at K 2007 – close to customers and the market

These changes also open up new growth potentials to the plastics industry, however. Ticona has defined what it believes to be its most important growth fields, and translated these into the three overarching themes of “Power”, “Safety” and “Life” on its open, communicative stand at K 2007. These are complemented by the equally central theme of “People”. “The first area highlights sustainable technologies,” explains Carsten W. Wörner, European sales manager at Ticona, in describing the concept of the stand. “This involves achieving higher efficiency in modern passenger vehicles, for example, or handling resources more efficiently, or protecting the environment.” The second thematic area is right in line with the growth field “security” and the further development of relevant sensor-based systems – in automobiles, for example. The third focuses on how the quality of life can be improved further. “This relates to robots in the home, improvements in medical technology, and many other applications,” says Wörner, “that are making daily life much more convenient for the most part already today.”

People are the key to success

The fourth area on the K stand is entirely dedicated to the people at Ticona. “Well-educated and highly motivated, they develop new ideas (speed to concept) and implement them rapidly (speed to market) – and they do so on a worldwide basis,” explains Polet. “This enables us to operate in profitable markets.” In order to achieve this goal, Ticona is consciously adopting new forms of approach to the customer. The innovation workshops it developed in-house offer participating business partners the ability to better recognize their company’s strengths and to make more intensive use of them. “By taking existing corporate competences into account right from the outset in the systematic search for new business ideas, companies can apply their know-how and transfer that expertise to new ideas,” explains Tilo Vaahs, marketing manager Americas at Ticona.

Along with new customer relations concepts, Ticona also has a well-established range of proven services in its portfolio. Customers particularly appreciate the polymer manufacturer’s extensive processing expertise and take advantage of the support services it offers in, for example, injection molding – designing molds or carrying out computer-aided filling simulations and designing runner and gating systems using Moldflow^®. Customers also receive support in the selection of suitable standard hot runner mold units and on the full range of topics concerning the venting and temperature control of molds.

Create progress. Together!

Creating progress together – that’s what the people at Ticona are working toward. In order to create something new, and to refine a proven product in a targeted manner, the company is continually improving its service portfolio. In so doing, its commitment to the widest possible variety of markets is helping make life safer and more comfortable – today and in the future.