As result of their products’ demand, EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico expanded its plant

The company from the metallurgy sector fulfilled their fourth expansion and for 2019 they will present the proposal for a fifth expansion.

 To comply with their customers’ requirements, EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico made an investment of 10 million dollars to expand two of their processes: cold forging and rolling process.

 The new construction belongs to the fourth expansion of the company and includes 2,800 square meters, space in which machines from the forging and rolling processes will be settled.

 With that the company located in San Luis Potosi reaches 10,000 square meters.

“Currently, the number of employees that integrate the plant in San Luis Potosi is of 170 people, between administrative and operative, 33 more people will be added this year and for 2021 it is anticipated that human capital will be of 300 people,” said Dionisio Ozuna, Chief Financial Officer from EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico.

At the plant are produced cold shaped screws for different customers of the automotive industry and electronics.

“The products that will be manufactured are screws from our patents such as Delta PTFDF, Altracs PDS and Altracs Plus, which we currently supply, but we will increase volumes for new and current customers,” said Jesus Vazquez, Chief Operating Officer of EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico.

More than 1 billion pieces were manufactured in 2018, and with that growth is expected the production to increase 15 % and, for 2020, they have anticipated to reach 24 percent.

“90 percent of the product we manufacture is for the automotive industry and 10 % for industrial products,” he said.

The German-American capital company is focused on Tier 1 and Tier 2 companies mainly those located in Germany, Asia and in North America.

They are certified under the standard IATF 16949 and the Standard ISO 1400-2015, its supplies are local, 80 % are in Mexico and sometimes, they support themselves from suppliers in the United States.

“Most of our products are sold in Mexico, we also exported to the United States, Europe and Asia, mainly to China,” said Luis de la Llave, Business Manager from EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico.

With that for 2019 and 2020 they will be implementing new processes at the plant, beginning with a manufacturing project of a component that no one manufactures in Mexico currently.

“We are the only ones with this technology for the automotive sector, moreover we are working on digitalization and automation, these are priority subjects to achieve new businesses and wellbeing of our collaborators,” said Paulo Teixeira, president of EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico y Compania.

In addition, on March this year a new project will be presented: the fifth expansion, aiming to bring to San Luis Potosi facilities, new processes that they do not currently have, such as special cleaning for products, among others.

“We are one of the most important manufacturers in Mexico, the entire human capital is Mexican, our strength is the support and technical knowledge of our corporates regarding development and manufacturing issues,” said Jesus Vazquez.

SUCCESS OF THE COMPANY

Paulo Teixeira, president of EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico y Compania, said that the company’s success results from the human capital, therefore since 2015 they are working in the development and education of their personnel.

“This was an opportunity for leaders to be in front of people and tell them that they are in fact really important for us, we have a commitment to encourage innovation and technological development in our company and collaborators,” he said.

They detected that there was an opportunity of cultural improvement to achieve good results in the company, in leaders as well as administrative and operative, which has been reflected on plant’s productivity.

“We decided to implement tools from lean manufacturing and continuous improvement by changing people’s culture.  We began with company leaders to develop a vision and mission, and this was a start point to define which were the needs to be better,” shared Paulo Teixeira.

HOW EJOTATF FASTENERS DE MEXICO EMERGED

The company is a Joint Venture between two important companies from the fastener elements market:

1.      EJOT GmbH & Co. KG from Germany.  It is a group of companies dedicated to the development, production and sale of fasteners.

Its divisions have solutions in industrial fasteners, for construction and also components of engineering in plastic.

The company was founded in 1992, it is integrated by 2,500 employees, about 1,300 are in Germany and the other 1,200 in Asia, Europe and America.

2.     ATF Inc. is located in the United States of America, it is based in Chicago and was founded in 1946.

ARF has develop as a screws supplier by globally manufacturing cold forging precision parts, in addition of mechanized components and high technology applications or safety components.

The investment of the plant in San Luis Potosi is of 50 percent from German capital and the remaining 50 percent of American capital.  ATF, from the United States, is integrated by four companies and EJOT from Germany, there are more than 20 companies located in Europe and Asia.

ENVIRONMENTALLY COMMITTED

The company is continuously working in seeking to improve their processes, aiming to impact positively in the environment, that is why since 2014, EJOTATF Fasteners de Mexico has the environmental certification of ISO 14001, and for that they have implemented several sustainability measures on the plant: among them:

Oil savings: in 2018 a new equipment was installed at the plant which allows recovering 98 percent of oil used in the thermal treatment process.

This investment has allowed the company to fulfill an important decrease in their hydrocarbon’s annual consumption.

“We will be working during 2019 in the viability of a project focused on treating water used in our processes aiming to reuse it,” said Jesus Vazquez, Chief Operating Officer.

Energy savings project: all lights were changed at the facilities, what will be reflected on a reduction from 80 to 90 tons of CO₂ emissions per year.