Pontifications: thyssenkrupp’s international expansion

By Scott Hamilton

July 30, 2018, © Leeham News: thyssenkrupp, the German supplier, is a mouthful to say.

Even its name is different, using the small “t” rather than a capital “T”.

Being from Chicago, I suitably butchered it when I met at the Farnborough Air Show with its CEO, American Laura Holmes.

I won’t even attempt to write how I mangled the name, but I didn’t feel too bad when I later discovered there is a 15 second YouTube video on its pronunciation: two-sen croup (in German) or tiss-in krup [as in pup] (in English).

Regardless, the company is in an expansion mode internationally—including in Africa.

The Road to Morocco

Tkrupp, for short, is expanding in Morocco, a growing aerospace hub that already includes, Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, United Technologies are now Tkrupp are among the more than 100 companies with a footprint in Morocco.

Holmes says that when the doors open for business in Morocco, thyssenkrupp already has several companies lined up and several more have inquired about using this facility to supply them.

Morocco serves Africa and the surrounding areas. It’s on the northwest point of this continent and a spur forms part of the narrow Strait of Gibraltar. Tkrupp already has a facility in Tunisia.

There are 10,000-12,000 people employed in the Moroccan cluster.

Holmes said there is a recently opened office in Tokyo and new ones are planned elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region. Tkrupp also has presence in Korea and China.

Aerospace sector

The company serves a broad set of industries, but in aerospace, one of its specialties is as a supplier of raw materials.

Airbus’ Mobile (AL) A320 site, for example, is only a final assembly facility, not a consumer of raw materials, so Tkrupp is not there.

But, said peter McDowell, head of strategy for thyssenkrupp Aerospace, the company recently bid on work at Bombardier in Montreal for the C Series (now Airbus Canada and the A220), for airplanes that will be assembled at the new A220 FAL that will be assembled in Mobile.

A thyssenkrupp unit called TMX Aerospace is dedicated to being a supplier to Boeing.

“The focus of TMX Aerospace is to optimize material and information flow for the Boeing Commercial airplane supply chain,” TMX reveals on an otherwise generally unrevealing website.

TMX is a key player with Boeing for Enterprise Resource Planning, or ERP.

ERP isn’t new; it’s been around for years. In fact, thyssenkrupp’s involvement dates to at least 2014. Nor is TMX’s contract with Boeing new; the first was signed in 1998 and renewed in 2008. But ERP, Boeing and thyssenkrup appear to be new, or at least broader.

Neither Holmes nor Jeff Luckasavage, president of thyssenkrupp Aerospace in Kent (WA) would answer questions about this line of business, referring them to Boeing.

“I will say there has been a lot of activity and a launch in early June,” Holmes said.

“ERP software offers features designed specifically to cater to the needs of aerospace manufacturers.” A 2014 article in Global Shop Solutions says. “With a real-time data convergence factor, users can stay up to speed on inventory status, incoming materials and low levels of required parts.”

TMX exclusively manages the global aluminum and titanium supply chain for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, a listing on the Internet reveals.

34 Comments on “Pontifications: thyssenkrupp’s international expansion

  1. >ERP isn’t new; it’s been around for years. In fact, thyssenkrupp’s involvement dates to at least 2014. Nor is TMX’s contract with Boeing new; the first was signed in 1998 and renewed in 2008. But ERP, Boeing and thyssenkrup appear to be new, or at least broader.

    Scott, wrong grammar/context i believe. ERP is not a company. It’s an IT tool every company of critical size has to implement. I’d rephrase:

    *ERP isn’t new; it’s been around for years with the likes of SAP, Oracle, Lawson (now Infor) specialized in many Enterprise function optimizations. In fact, thyssenkrupp’s involvement dates to at least 2014. Nor is TMX’s contract with Boeing new; the first was signed in 1998 and renewed in 2008. But with his specific ERP project, Boeing and thyssenkrup cooperation appears to be new, or at least broader.*

    What i understand then from the article is TMX is managing then their aluminum/titanium supply chain.

    • Ivorycoast – surely Scott is discussing ERP as a business process, if you will, rather than as an eponymous company?

    • Uwe, the merger is not between thyssenkrupp and tata, but with the steel division of thyssenkrupp. They want to spin off the cyclical steel business and focus more on technologies

  2. Crodcodile Dundee would say about the “guns” Krupp is producing now: “that’s not a gun. this used to be a gun:”

    starting at 1:20 – and yes, it was made by Krupp:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS-t1DAIDz0

    The posting of this video is not a political statement.

    • Early ‘40s Krupp marketing film on “special delivery” of its steel to Russia (Crimea).Needless to say, did not go over well with the natives. Home folks loved it though! LOL

      • In reverse Vickers paid Krupp a fortune in license fees after WW1 for UK machine gun bullets to shoot at Germans. Money isn’t patriotic.

        • Maxim was american born ,like all the other great names related to machine guns( Gatling, Browning and Lewis) but eventually British- they gave him a knighthood. He was quite an inventor with some related to aviation.
          He founded his arms company with backing from Edward Vickers, with whom it later merged to form Vickers, Son & Maxim which improved Maxims earlier design to make the Vickers machine gun, which used (mostly)British .303 bullets

          I think what you refer to is heavy artillery shells where the fuses used a Krupp patent. Krupp also had patents on the production of armour plate.

          In 1908 the German arms manufacturer Deutsche Waffen-und-Munitionsfabriken (DWM also known by the name of the production arsenal Spandau) was licensed to produce the British-designed Maxim machine gun. As well as making a 7.9-mm version for the German Army – the MG08 . DWM evenually ended under another German industrial family control , the Quandts

      • MO:

        I don’t know that this is a LOL sort of thing.

        WWII was a tragedy of biblical proportions for all sides, may we never see its like again.

        • Certainly not laughing, my grandfather was wounded three times in two world wars. But it just goes to show that money doesn’t care

          • Yea, my dad an Uncle escaped getting wounded, not for a lack of trying or being in bad places.

            A close friend got severely wounded at the Bulge.

            That does account for the psychological damage and those were the combatants. Civilians casualties and the same mental impact on all.

  3. Germany is a bit dependet on Russia having Money to buy German machinery to produce weapons.
    Hence Germany “helps” Russia to get the cash thru raw material purchases and rail transports to China thru Russia. This dependece has been since the early 1800’s. Many German Soldiers died in WWI and WWII by Russian products made by German Equipment.

    • To say nothing of the extra euros to flow from Germany to Russia once Nord Stream 2 comes on line!

      • Maybe Germany just dislikes to buy gas for a quite higher price from the US.

        • Because they’re “saving up” to get their pathetic defense spending level up to 2.0% of GDP by 2024?

          • Unlike France and UK they don’t have a nuclear deterrent, which is very expensive. And unlike the USA which has global bases and responsibilities as well as the triple nuclear deterrent. Compared to UK and France Germany has a small Navy and no need for aircraft carriers. There saved heaps for you.

          • The simple difference is that the task of the Germany military is to defend a rather small piece of land with one coast and land boarders with 9 countries, of which 7 are NATO allies and 2 neutral.

            They don t have colonies in the Pacific or Africa, don t want or were forced not wanting to be a hegemonic power in sub Sahara or the gulf or in the West Pacific.

            Still, they are spending on military in absolute numbers about the same as France with an aircraft carrier and colonies and a 3 bn € force de frappe, namely aroudn 30 – 33 bn €.

            The rest is what they call a “peace dividend” of roughly 20bn € per year (difference between 1,2% of GDP and 2% of GDP), or 100bn € per year if calculated by 5% military expenditure at the peak of the cold war in 1963.

            https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verteidigungsetat#/media/File:Verteidigungsetat_Deutschland_BIP.png

            If you force Germany to spend an additional 20bn € per year, which makes 200 bn € in 10 years on arms, don t expect them to buy some tanks or F35s, park them and let them rust. The only investment that would make sense is to build a nuclear deterrent. So be careful what you are asking for.

          • MO: If you believe 2024 I have a bridge in Brooklyn I will sell you!

            Dukfurl: Germany does have a nuclear deterrent. Read up on the current issue with the retiring Nuke Capable Tornado retiring and having to buy F-15 or some such to sustain that capability as the Typhoon is not certified (as it were) to carry the nukes.

          • Those are US weapons, under US control. Just because they can be loaded onto German planes doesn’t make them a German deterrent. The obvious choice for replacement is F35 but UK dropped their RAF deterrent and the French have their nuclear capable mirages retired last month

  4. Thales is another one that people get wrong. By the way it’s Ta-les.

    • Thales, a greek philospher. Theres plenty of great french names which have slipped away or not used at all and they choose a hard to pronounce one that no one has heard of from Greece.
      What was wrong with say, Descartes. The Italians went the right way with ‘leonardo’

  5. Correct pronunciation would be [ˌtʏsn̩ˈkrʊp]
    but who cares?

    • The wikipedia page on Krupp goes into some detail on the german pronunciation:
      ‘A British documentary on the Krupp family and firm included footage of German-speakers of the 1930s who would have had speaking contact with the family, which attests the long [uː], thus [kʁuːp] or [kɾuːp], rather than what would be the regular German..’

  6. It still amazes me how few industry commentators are just now learning about the Boeing-ThyssenKrupp partnership, let alone those who would claim to be industry analysts.

    • Found that interesting as well.

      Kind of like Babe Ruth and finding out lo many years latter he was a ragging alcoholic.

      • Boeing-TK partnership ? Why would anybody know or care previously.
        Theres plenty of companies further up the ladder who are better known. Even now that we ‘know’, I doubt we really care it ‘supplies raw materials’

      • So TransWorld – this reminded me of your earlier comment on an earlier post about ERP systems where you stated “…They just need to walk the floor…”. I laughed thinking about walking a 90 acre floor building several airplane models, with multiple planes coming down the line, all uniquely configured for different customers, looking for one of 250K+ parts coming from one of thousands of suppliers…

        This is just one little piece of how complex the commercial airplane supply chain is: TMX is managing hundreds if not thousands of different raw material types/forms from a dozen or so suppliers feeding to hundreds of fabrication companies that feed to assembly companies that ultimately end up on that floor you suggest walking…

  7. And as its not an exciting topic, GE is replacing combuster cases on 47 GEN X engines.

    It seems a supplier decided to do weld repairs on badly fabricated cases.

    Kind of like welding cast iron boilers, only in an Emergency (I know of only one that was approved and that had a timeline to replace)

    I would have loved to have been in the room for the discussion.

    GE: We inspected those last cases and found welding on them.

    Supplier: Oooops, you mad at us?

    GE: Are you out of your freaking mind? You guys are not just clowns, you are lunatics.

    • or it could have been.
      “Look guys , ‘we’ have been found out and as GE is the elephant in the room, ‘you’ have to take the fall.”

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