Annual Report 2011 (5.07 MB, PDF-File) - Oerlikon

Securing our future
The company’s management views sustainability as a competitive
advantage: the more sustainable the company, the more
attractive it is to investors, customers, employees and prospective
employees. For investors, sustainability is becoming
an increasingly important consideration in making investment
decisions. A growing number of institutional investors carefully
review environmental data before committing investment
capital.
The company’s current level of sustainability data collection
and reporting falls short of best practice. The continuation of
the company having been in serious question just two years
ago, management has focused its resources on restructuring
the company and laying the foundation for sustainable growth.
Now that profitability has been restored, Oerlikon is committed
to improving and expanding sustainability reporting on all of its
commercial activities, now and into the future.
Improving the environmental footprint
Many Oerlikon products are designed to directly or indirectly improve
the environmental footprint of customers and end users.
These products are frequently part of the production process for
environmental technologies and energy conserving systems.
Oerlikon thus produces two sets of benefits. First, customers
benefit from business success afforded by higher quality products,
increased productivity or lower energy costs. Second, society
benefits from access to new technologies which better
protect the environment and improve quality of life.
In its Textile Segment, Oerlikon’s product development work is
concentrated on lowering energy consumption and increasing
machinery and systems efficiency. Other areas of focus are
improved ergonomics, noise reduction and minimization of
equipment footprints. Since 2005, machinery and systems
that use at least 20 % less energy than the generally accepted
market standard are awarded an “e-save” certification from
the internal quality-control office. In 2011, Oerlikon Textile introduced
seven newly developed textile machines to the market
which use considerably less energy and have significantly
higher productivity.
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Oerlikon’s Drive Systems Segment is active in two environmental
technologies. First, wind power: Oerlikon supplies a major
American wind-energy company with components (ring gears,
gear drives, etc.) that are assembled into complete gear transmissions
and sold worldwide. Second, electric vehicles:
Oerlikon equips electric vehicles with drive systems based on
its sports-car expertise. These products deliver high torque at
low speeds, good performance parameters when climbing
steep grades, high top speeds and – thanks to high efficiency
levels – improved range. A car-sharing program called “Autolib”
launched in Paris at the end of 2011, uses electric vehicles
equipped with Oerlikon Drive Systems transmissions. About
3 000 to 5 000 of these vehicles will be available for rent
throughout the city.
Many environmental technologies need to be manufactured in
a vacuum. Making this possible is the job of the Vacuum Segment,
which manufactures a variety of innovation vacuum systems
and equipment. Without vacuum technology, there would
be no solar modules, LEDs or insulated glass. Insulated glass,
which is used to reduce energy costs in buildings, is created by
covering plates of glass with a layer of metal, including silver,
under vacuum or high-vacuum conditions. This transparent
layer of metal, usually just 1/100 000 milli meter thick, prevents
heat transfer from the building’s interior and improves the insulation
value of glass alone by a factor of five. In wind power, vacuum
technology is used extensively in the manufacture of turbine
rotor blades, which are produced using a vacuum-infusion
process. This process uses vacuums to create such a strong
bond between the layers of fiber, that rotor blades of more than
50 meters in length can be produced.
Oerlikon Coating, which specializes in coating high-performance
parts and materials in its 87 centers around the world,
is a key contributor to increased fuel economy in today’s cars
and trucks. In diesel engines, for instance, the introduction of
high-pressure injection has resulted in a 30 % reduction in fuel
consumption. High-pressure injection was made possible by
the development of a coating for those engine components operating
under severe conditions, such as fuel-injection pumps.