ThyssenKrupp Tailored Blanks GmbH, Duisburg, and Volvo Cars, Göteborg / Sweden, are stepping up their cooperation: the newly formed company ThyssenKrupp Tailored Blanks Sverige A.B., a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Tailored Blanks GmbH, will soon be supplying the Swedish auto manufacturer directly from a service center on the site of the Volvo plant in Olofström/Sweden. The contract was signed on June 10, 2005 in Göteborg.

Under the contract, ThyssenKrupp Tailored Blanks Sverige will set up a service center in Olofström which will mainly produce tailored blanks alongside cut-to-size sheets for Volvo Cars. The products will be further processed in the stamping plant operated by Volvo at the same site. Volvo employs roughly 2,500 people in the southern Swedish city. Under the contract the new service center will supply around 80,000 metric tons of sheet and tailored blanks a year.

ThyssenKrupp Tailored Blanks Sverige will invest more than 21 million euros in the service center, which will include two fully automatic laser welding lines for tailored blanks as well as an oscillating shear for blanking. Production is scheduled to start in late 2005 and the center will reach its full capacity in late 2006, when it will employ around 50 people.

Volvo Cars has been a customer of ThyssenKrupp Tailored Blanks for six years. In that time, deliveries have increased rapidly. That fact along with Volvo?s wish for local service were key reasons for the decision to locate aproduction site in Olofström. The move will further increase the international presence of ThyssenKrupp Tailored Blanks GmbH, currently already represented in Italy, Mexico and China as well as Germany.