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One million electric motors/month target reached

A WEG Electric Motors (UK) product story

Edited by the Manufacturingtalk editorial team Apr 27, 2004

WEG has achieved the production target of 1,000,000 electric motors per month and is spending over US $500m to more than double the capacity of its industrial park in Brazil.

WEG has achieved the production target of 1,000,000 electric motors per month just as the company is embarking upon its largest investment in manufacturing to date, spending over $500m dollars to more than double the capacity of its industrial park in Jaragu� do Sul, Brazil - already the largest single manufacturing site in the world - from its present size of 430,000m2 to 868,000m2.

The new investment underlines WEG's determination to become the world's largest manufacturer of low voltage electric motors by 2007, and to achieve a major position as a global supplier of automation products by the end of the decade.

"Our decision to invest $500m over ten years is unprecedented in today's highly competitive and rapidly changing global climate," said Decio Da Silva, WEG's Chief Executive Officer.

"However, for us "its business as usual." WEG has always prospered as a result of a consistent growth strategy, building upon 40 years intensive investment in our business - in personnel training, state-of the art manufacturing facilities, quality systems and new technologies - which have brought us outstanding growth worldwide." "WEG's policy of investing in our own manufacturing facilities is in direct contrast to that of our major competitors, many of whom are moving their production to Asiatic countries.

We think that this policy is short sighted and prefer to keep all manufacturing issues from design to production under our own close control.

It's a strategy that's difficult to argue against when our latest trading statement shows a 28% increase in turnover, up $150m from $550m in 2002, to $700m in 2003.

Furthermore, this increase has been achieved against a backdrop of global trading conditions that are still quite difficult and unpredictable." The focus of the latest investment is a new Plant 2, which is being built immediately adjacent to the existing Plant 2 on the Industrial Park at Jaragu do Sul.

The new plant will take ten years to complete and provide an additional 438,000m2 of manufacturing space, 60% of which will be devoted to the production of LV electric motors for export.

The plant will house such facilities as aluminium die-casting, fabrication, wire drawing, winding, casting, machining and control panel and circuit breaker manufacturing.

Even without the new facilities, WEG is manufacturing one million motors a month consistently, over 75% of which are for industrial applications.

WEG is active in all market sectors, domestic, industrial LV, MV and HV, a factor that has enabled large sales increases to be achieved in target markets such as the USA, Europe and Asia.

Also key to this success is a range that includes over 30,000 different products and a design and development service that provides four prototype motors each day to meet customer needs right across the world.