GLOBAL REACH. LEADlNG TECHNOLOGY. - Zonebourse.com

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A Joy Mining Machinery customer
in China recently began operating
the world’s first longwall system to be
remotely operated from the head gate,
aided by cameras mounted on the
shearer. Pictured here are Robbie Gao,
Joy China Senior Electrical Engineer
(foreground) and Zhiwen Suo (facing
screen) of Shendong EMC.
Joy Mining Machinery Engineer
Jennifer Yan (center) discusses portions
of a longwall system’s armored face
conveyor with Designer Tatiana
Grazhdannikova and Engineer
Daniel Lowden at Joy’s Moss Vale,
Australia, manufacturing facility.
a key strategy of acquiring integrated, highly synergistic
companies that can extend the range of products and
services we provide to our customers.
We continue to expand our presence in China and the
emerging markets because we expect these to be our fastest
growing markets. On our Tianjin campus, the Joy Armored
Face Conveyor components factory is producing at higher
output levels with lower staffing than its predecessor
factory. The P&H gearing components factory was
completed earlier this past year and will be ramping up
to full production during 2009. These factories not only
demonstrate our commitment to the emerging markets but also our capacity strategy
of making core components in our own factories, building best-in-class processes and
diversifying our manufacturing.
We have also completed the acquisition of Wuxi Shengda, a Chinese manufacturer of
longwall shearing machines for mid-tier, provincial mining companies. The provincial
mining companies comprise a larger production volume than the state-owned companies
that we have traditionally served in China. In addition, there is a great opportunity to
help this new customer base to improve its technology and productivity.
In addition to adding new capacity, we invested in upgrading existing operations through
the implementation of our Operational Excellence programs. Operational Excellence has
been a significant contributor to improved inventory efficiency in each of the facilities
where it has been implemented, and we expect these results to expand as we continue
to roll out this program in 2009. Inventory
performance has been instrumental in improving
our overall working capital efficiency. During 2008,
we reduced our working capital investment by
almost $200 million while growing revenues by
34%. This enabled us to increase free cash flow
to 14% of revenues and helped us to improve our
industry-leading return on invested capital to 37%.
During 2008, we also invested in new products
and services that will become important sources of