Machine components from the Altmark find worldwide use
With its links to the Elbe Port and its new manufacturing hall, the company AMS Arneburger Maschinen- und Stahlbau GmbH is on the road to further growth.
New apartments in Dubai, waste incineration in China, power station technology in Greece – the company AMS Arneburger Maschinen- und Stahlbau GmbH which is based in the northern part of the German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt delivers components, specialist machinery and systems technology for use on building sites and at ports, in power stations and in the coal and steel industry. With the completion of a new manufacturing hall and thanks to its links to the Elbe Port, AMS is now intending to start playing in a higher league: from the early summer onwards, it will be possible for structural components weighing up to 100 tonnes to be lifted, loaded and transported on the canals. Following its completion in July 2017, the final assembly and painting of the AMS products will take place in the new manufacturing hall, which has some 3,300 square metres of floor space.
The machinery and components are usually transported to the customers by lorry. “With particularly heavy components or parts that are long and wide, however, the ship is the transport method of choice,” explains Christoph Balle, who is responsible for product planning at AMS. The Elbe Port is only 1.5 kilometres from the industry and business park in Arneburg, with the Container Port in Hamburg 300 kilometres downstream, where the goods are processed for their subsequent transportation. The rail link is another alternative to the road.
Founded in 1996 as a family business with ten employees, AMS has grown on a continuous basis ever since. Balle explains how the company’s wide range of services and products has always helped it to survive the economic downturns over the years without any major problems. The AMS Group now has some 150 members of staff, who work in the areas of machine building, crane building and customer services, and the team still includes the ten employees who were there at the very start.
With a very high depth of manufacturing, from cutting, to structural engineering, coating, mechanical processing on drilling and milling systems and the installation of manufactured components and components provided by customers, AMS is able to offer sophisticated services from one single source. From its location in Arneburg, AMS sends its semi-finished products to contractors for further completion and its ready-to-use system parts to the appropriate locations of use, worldwide.
At the moment, the Arneburg-based company for mechanical and structural engineering primarily manufactures major components for plant engineering and construction cranes in a variety of configurations. Since 2015, the company’s manufacturing division for construction crane technology has been producing its very own series of cranes. The first construction sites in Dubai and Germany have already been equipped with the first AMS cranes.
Since AMS also manufactures to order and on the basis of small-series runs, the working day is very varied. The dedicated and qualified employees face new challenges all the time, whether it is solving detailed tasks or realising extensive major projects. In particular, this applies to graduates of the dual degree course which the Arneburg-based company now offers together with the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg. The young graduates can expect to enjoy a variety of interesting tasks in the areas of construction and project management.
Image caption: company employee Alexander Riep sets up the CNC turning lathe for the double-stroke turning of a cable drum.
Photo: Christoph Balle/AMS
Author: Bettina Koch