The new president of Metso Minerals construction business line has been with the company for nearly 30 years, and he has some big plans for the future
João Ney Prado Colagrossi Filho admits his company has a lot of exciting plans for the future, but at present he cannot talk in detail about them.
Acquisitions, new market opportunities and "revolutionary equipment" are all mentioned by Colagrossi, the new president of Metso Minerals' Construction business line. And for now that is it but it is clear there is more to come.
A Brazilian citizen, he has spent the last few months organising his new home in the Finnish capital Helsinki while travelling between that city, where Metso Minerals has its headquarters, and the manufacturing plants in Tampere, as well as many other parts of the world.
Colagrossi, who graduated in Metallurgical Engineering (Business Administration), joined Metso Minerals in 1979 and until his new appointment was responsible for the South American market, in which he still obviously takes a keen business interest, and also a personal one.
In his new post he replaces Jouni Salo who has been appointed as president of the cement equipment division of KHD
Prior to this position Colagrossi has made a long career in senior management positions in Metso Minerals South America, covering both sales and supply operations. In recent years he has been heading the Mining, Construction and Recycling businesses in that region.
"In my previous position I was based 50% of my time in Sorocaba in Brazil, about a one hour drive from São Paulo [the country's biggest city] and this is where we have the biggest manufacturing plant within Metso Minerals. The operations over there are producing a wide range of equipment including crushers and mobile screens," said Colagrossi. "I am still based in Brazil but I will be moving to Helsinki in January 2009, although I will continue to be chairman of the Metso Minerals Brazil board.
"I would say we are the largest producer of rock crushing and screening equipment, producing cone crushers, jaw crushers, impact crushers, screens and conveyors. I don't see any major gaps in our product offering. We are one of the main suppliers in rock crushers when talking about quarries. Talking about mobile plants and we are talking mainly about contractors.
"Metso Minerals' Construction business line is divided by market segments. For example, in quarry market segment we have all the products: primary, secondary, Barmac [a New Zealand-manufactured vertical shaft impact crusher for third or fourth stage crushing], conveyors, screens. And, of course, we have the mobile plants." However, according to Colagrossi, the plan now is to focus on upgrading the equipment to improve efficiency demands and environmental control, and to promote energy savings.
"Like all companies we have plans for acquisitions but we cannot disclose these. We are always looking for good opportunities," he said. "Life is not all about acquisitions. We can find new business without them.
"Our strategy is that we are also looking for new market opportunities and I am not talking about takeovers but business segments like sand and gravel. We are now exploring opportunities to approach this market.
"Once we decide to enter this market we want to be number one or number two. We also want to be number one in the crushing of stone." Looking to markets, he said that the UK is an important market for construction, although Metso has a worldwide presence: not only a physical presence but also resources everywhere.
"We have invested in India, China, Brazil, Russia and in Europe as well - it is clear that the construction business is shifting from west to east.
"The downturn in developed countries such as the US or western Europe (for example the UK, Spain and Germany) has been offset by the growth of the markets in China, India, the Middle East, South America, Mexico and CIS countries.
"We expect the average annual market growth for the next five to six years to be about 6% in construction worldwide.
"It is difficult for me to talk about exporting but obviously we have plants in Brazil producing for South America; plants in India; plants in Europe for local markets that also export. We have 11 manufacturing units and five foundries in different locations and they are producing locally and also exporting to other countries. It is a manufacturing network producing locally, regionally and globally." At present Europe is Metso Minerals' biggest single market for construction. The group's figures show that its European market for construction is 40%; Nordic countries 12%; North America including Canada 19%, and emerging countries 29%.
"By 2012 we expect the emerging countries will account for 50% of construction business," said Colagrossi.
Indeed, In India where Metso Minerals has a number of operations, the capacity of its Bawal plant, near Delhi, has recently been more than doubled and investment is being made in Ahmedabad (Gujarat state), where the company has a foundry.
And in another major move some €30million is being invested in a greenfield project in Alwar (Rajasthan), the largest single investment ever made by Metso Minerals. The company is developing a multi-functional industrial facility called Metso Park where it plans to host both Metso's own operations and that of select key suppliers. To start, Metso aims to enhance its logistics, inventory control, operational quality and productivity as well as supplier relationships, and the park is scheduled to open by the end of 2009.
"By the end of this year expansion of the Tianjin plant in China will be complete, doubling capacity, and we are investing a lot in the Americas market," he said. "In the US we are finalising investment at the Columbia, South Carolina production facility. It is important to mention that while everybody is talking about Brazil, Russia, China and India, there are other potential areas as well. We can see development in Mexico, South Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe: all are doing well in construction.
"I would say we have presence in the most important markets around the world if we are talking about manufacturing plants, test plants or sales people. We are a global company but we are moving technical resources close to the customers to be able to respond quickly to customer demands.
"Our business is not only about selling pieces of steel, it is also about knowledge, and we need to move knowledge closer to the markets." Coming back to the Metso Minerals' products, Colagrossi said that while the trend is towards higher specification machines, it is not only about upgrading Metso's machines. "We are looking for something more revolutionary and this is why we invest more than 1.1% of our net sales in research and development," he explained. "We are looking for some revolutionary steps in crushing and screening but this is a long term project: four, five, six, ten years. We have made a huge investment in our R&D department - just recently we invested €3million in a Research Centre in Tampere.
"Here customers can test processes by giving us the rock shape and size and preferred quality, and we can simulate it live. We can give information to the customers and recommend a certain type of crusher or screen for the application." However, Colagrossi admits that like many companies delivery times "are a little bit longer than they used to be" for various reasons.
"Delivery times from the suppliers are getting longer than before," he said. "Our main problem is that we need to de-bottleneck our production. Orders went up very steeply in the last two years and this why we have inaugurated the expansion plan to de-bottleneck this.
"We have in our strategy a strong focus on growing the business - we are going to expand our business, streamline our supply chain and increase systems business for projects.
"We had a lot of new products at the
