Mecklenburg metal casting

Mecklenburg Metallguss GmbH
legal form	GmbH
founding	1875
Seat	Waren (Müritz) , Germany
management	Katrin Beuster, managing director; Lars Greitsch, managing director;
Number of employees	181 (2020)
sales	39.3 million euros (2018)
Branch	Ship technology manufacturer
Website	www.mmg-propeller.de

The Mecklenburger metal casting GmbH (MMG) is a medium-sized company in Waren (Müritz) . It is a specialist in ship propellers and the world market leader in propellers weighing over 80 tons.

history

The company was founded in 1875 as a machine factory and iron foundry ; it mainly supplied mechanical and plant engineering. The scope of services also included private orders, the so-called customer foundry. When shipbuilding was rebuilt in eastern Germany after the Second World War , the Waren foundry produced more and more parts for the shipyard industry . The company developed its special skills for the manufacture of ship propellers. Even during the GDR era, MMG delivered to all parts of the world. The factory premises expanded over the course of time, and so the federal road 108 ran right through the area. So it was inevitable to close the main road at short notice whenever propellers and other equipment had to be transported from one part to the other. In 2008, construction work began to relocate the federal road. For this, two tracks of the directly adjacent train station had to be dismantled and several garages and houses demolished. The project cost around six million euros, with MMG contributing around 1.1 million euros.

Between 1999 and 2018, the company belonged to the Deutsche Gießerei- und Industrieholding AG (DIHAG) in Essen . In the course of the crisis of DIHAG Holding in 2018, the company was sold to a group of investors consisting of the management and one of the DIHAG shareholders.

Economic situation

MMG in goods

At peak times, the company manufactured around 180 propellers per year and thus achieved a market share of around 25 percent, for large propellers over 80 tons weight even 60 percent and in the segment over 100 tons the market share in 2008 was 93 percent. In 2005, the Waren-based company delivered around 8,000 tons of ship propellers, and 9,000 were planned for 2007. Since the reunification , the company has grown steadily, both in terms of orders and in terms of operational space. New halls were built so that up to 200 tons of metal could be melted down at the same time and propellers with a diameter of more than ten meters could be cast. Until the fall of the Berlin Wall, propellers could only be manufactured with a weight of up to 23 tons and a diameter of up to 6.3 meters. The turnover in 2007 was around 70 million euros. MMG achieved a record turnover in 2008 with 100 million euros, in 2010 it was around 80 million euros with 220 employees. In 2013, short-time work was ordered for parts of the plant in order to be able to maintain the workforce.

Structure of the company

The ship propellers are not only manufactured, but also planned. For this purpose, MMG has independent departments in which the propellers are specially designed and developed for the respective ships. At the beginning of the design, the information of the respective ship is compiled and a design calculation is carried out by the hydrodynamics department. The aim of the hydrodynamicist is to make optimal use of the flow to the propeller, which is restricted by the shape of the ship's hull. The design department then calculates the strength of the design and adjusts it if necessary. This is an iterative process that can run through several loops between the departments and at the end of which the production planning receives the finished construction. This generates work orders for the respective casting stations and machines for production.

In addition to ship propellers, Mecklenburger Metallguss also manufactures other cast metal products made of gunmetal and colored cast. The construction and production planning for this are additional departments. Round products are usually manufactured using the centrifugal casting process. Products such as bushings and rings are made from high-strength copper and aluminum alloys. Other shapes are formed by sand casting and permanent mold casting. All forms of production are separate departments.

Finally, the parts are turned, ground, milled and polished in mechanical processing according to the surface specifications.

Others

90-tonne MMG propeller for a container ship

A number of well-known ships are operated with Mecklenburg propellers, such as the Queen Mary 2 .

The transport of the increasingly larger and heavier propellers is problematic. These must be transported via the B 192 to the A 19 , from there to Rostock or via the A 24 to Hamburg . Here the propellers are then loaded onto ships and brought to the shipyards. Until the beginning of 2006, the B 192 was an avenue and only offered around 8.5 meters of space. This already became a problem in 1998 when a propeller with a diameter of 10.5 meters was to be transported over the main road to the motorway. The company developed a special construction especially for this purpose, with which the propellers on the heavy transporter can be rotated and tilted a few degrees. This is no longer necessary as the avenue has been cut down. Due to the age and health of the trees, they would have been felled anyway, but at the latest in the course of the planned extension of the main road by another lane. Another problem is the weight of the propellers. The federal road and the autobahn have some bridges that could no longer withstand future loads.

The fat"

On February 13, 2006, the (until then) largest ship propeller ever cast was delivered with a weight of slightly more than 130 tons and a diameter of 9.6 meters. It consists of 79% copper , nine percent aluminum , six percent nickel , five percent iron and one percent manganese . Around one and a half years of development and planning work preceded the casting. After casting, the propeller cooled down in its sand mold for two weeks. It was then sanded by hand for three weeks using the latest milling technology . The price for the propeller, which was shipped to Denmark for installation in a container ship of the Emma Mærsk class , was in the high six-figure range.

Awards

MMG has already been voted company of the year in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania several times. On March 17, 2006, Mecklenburg Metallguss GmbH received the "Golden Q-Mark" medal from the second largest shipyard in the world, Samsung Heavy Industries , for very good quality and excellent service. The high reliability and flexibility of MMG were also highlighted. Around 350 suppliers were included in the selection process . Only MMG and a Korean company were able to meet the “Golden Q-Mark” criteria. The award was presented by the President of Samsung Heavy Industries MK Kim to Manfred Urban, one of the managing directors. On October 17, 2008, MMG was again the only non-Korean company to receive this award.