InFORM 02.2008 (PDF-File) - Duktus

Dear readers,
We are delighted to be able to present you with a new issue of
our corporate magazine inFORM – published specially and exclusively
for customers, employees and friends of our business
in cast iron pipe and piles.
Work on the aspects of our restructuring covered by company
law have now been completed. Together with their sales and
marketing companies Buderus Litinové Systémy s.r.o. (Czech
Republic) and Buderus Pipe Systems FZCO (United Arab Emirates),
Buderus Giesserei Wetzlar GmbH (BGW) and Tiroler
Röhren- und Metallwerke AG (TRM) now form an independent
group of companies. We are glad to see the business developing
in this way, because we can now concentrate our forces on
the cast iron pipe business and devote all our efforts to our core
business and its customers.
In this issue, we report as usual on current projects, events and
people in our group of companies.
This time we have made a special feature of our activities in the
field of piled foundations using ductile piles. In the first half of the
year we have already worked with our customers to carry out a
number of very interesting projects, such as the new Grimming-
Therme thermal spa in Bad Mitterndorf in Austria and the Solar
Energy Park at Lebrija in Andalusia. You will find reports on these
projects on pages ten and eleven.
Other high spots of the first half of the year were the many international
fairs and exhibitions. The Alpitec exhibition in Bozen
and the SAM in Grenoble were this year‘s most significant exhibitions
in the market for Alpine snow-making facilities. They
were followed by national exhibitions in Saragossa (Spain), Brno
(Czech Republic), Bydgoszcz (Poland) and in the Russian capital
Moscow. The industry‘s main event was of course the IFAT,
which took place in early May in Munich, and you will find a detailed
report on this on the pages below. The high point of the
year‘s conferences and exhibitions in 008 will be the World Water
Congress of the International Water Association, which will
be held from the 7th to the 1 th of September in Vienna. For
the first time for years, this congress is going to be returning to
the German-speaking part of the world. May we take this opportunity
of extending to all of you a cordial invitation to attend
this event, which is highly esteemed in the industry.
We regret to say that we are increasingly concerned about worldwide
developments on the raw materials and procurement markets.
The effects of the international boom in demand in the construction
and steel industries are now making themselves felt in
our business too. For example, just in the months from March
to June this year, the purchase price of our main raw material,
scrap iron, went up by more than 00 Euros per ton – a rise, the
like of which has never before been seen on the raw materials
market. Regrettably, the price of coke too is moving upwards at
the moment in a similar headlong fashion. With products such as
cast iron pipes and ductile piles which use large amounts of mate-
rial, developments like these have a major impact on the cost of
the product. It is virtually impossible to compensate for them by
making savings elsewhere. This is why we are finding ourselves
compelled to pass on the major part of these price rises to our
customers. As from 1 June 008, we have had to introduce surcharges
for the price of scrap in almost all areas of the business
to enable the situation to be dealt with in a reasonable way. It is
clear to us that this will make it considerably more difficult for
fairly long-term projects to be costed. However, the action we
have taken here is simply a reflection of the general trends in
the prices of raw materials and we therefore trust that our customers,
and the clients for whom they are working, will understand
why we have had to do this. At the same time, we hope
that the situation will soon settle down, because this will be in
the interests of everybody in the industry. Demand in the foundation
and underground construction industry still seems to be
strong. Both for ourselves and you, dear readers, we hope that
this state of affairs will continue.
In this issue, we would like to continue a story we began to tell
in the past and to introduce you to some of our company‘s important
partners in the field of marketing. From its base near
Manchester, the HamBaker Group deals with our cast iron pipe
business in Britain. HamBaker is totally committed to our highquality
products and is making major efforts to promote sales of,
for example, our thrust-locked BLS ® /VRS-T pipe in a marketing
environment which is not always easy. You can find our portrait
of the company on page 14.
See too the profiles of new, young and promising employees who
work for our group of companies (page 1). With their talents
and abilities they represent the future of our company. We think
you should get to know as many of them as possible.
We hope you will enjoy reading the magazine and would like to
wish you all the best for the forthcoming holiday period and that
you will have a pleasant and relaxing holiday.
We‘ll be back with you with the next issue of inFORM in November
008.
Until then, with best regards, we are
Ulrich Päßler Max Kloger Stefan Weber
Editorial