Fill Machine Engineering, Gurten, Austria, opened Fill China, a new branch of the company headquartered in Shanghai. The new office will allow the machine engineering specialists to address the emerging Chinese market.
China produces around 19 million vehicles per year making it the world’s automotive market—and it’s growing rapidly. Fill Machine Engineering supplies many renowned automotive manufacturers in Europe and America with production systems for manufacturing cylinder heads and in the field of aluminum casting. Fill machines are already installed at 10 locations throughout China.
“We are currently working on seven projects in China, with a total order value of around 16 million euros. The founding of Fill China with a five-strong sales and service team places us closer to the customer and will allow us to further expand our position as a market and technological leader,” said Thomas Rathner, general manager, Fill China.
Rapid growth of the Chinese market in the automotive and composite sectors is stimulating demand for high-quality machines and systems. Demand for fiber-reinforced composites is also rising continuously. These two fields are among Fill Machine Engineering’s core areas of expertise.
In addition to the automotive sector, China’s aerospace market is expected to expand in coming years. In its annual “Current Market Outlook” (CMO), aircraft manufacturer Boeing forecasts a demand of around 35,000 new aircraft in the next 20 years, with more than a third of these destined for the Asia-Pacific region. Fill has made inroads in this important industrial sector with the installation of a nondestructive testing ultrasound inspection system for carbon structures in a Nanjing factory.