Fagor Ederlan Group considers innovation to be a key element for technological development and for the generation of new activities. This is why it has promoted the Edertek Technology Centre, in which Mapsa and Ecenarro collaborate as user-partners, and also belong to the Mondragon Automotive Division.
The technology centre is the first in the Garaia Innovation Park, a space that brings together both businesses and research centres, and which promotes the integration and collaboration of other bodies and research and technology agents, such as Mondragon University, Ikerlan and Tecnalia, with whom the centre has signed collaboration agreements.
Edertek has a workforce of 40 people that form the nucleus of the 200 people engaged in R&D&i at Fagor Ederlan Group. It has two buildings: 1500m2 dedicated to Engineering and Research, and 1000m2, the Advanced Industrialisation Module (IMA), dedicated to carrying out industrialisation tests and prototyping for different technologies, also containing a dedicated test area for developed products.
The Markulete iron foundry, with a surface area of 15,902 m2, employs 100 people and has a production capacity of 32,000 tons a year. Its new facilities are characterized by a high level of automation and flexibility, enabling it to work with any type of alloy, and cover Group’s entire range of products.
Two priority areas at the new foundry are occupational safety and the environment. Safety solutions have been adopted such as automatic raw material loading, load transfer using special spoons transported by automated cranes, and replacing forklift trucks with other safer means of transport.
Environmental measures have involved soundproofing facades and machines using noise absorbing materials, reducing raw material consumption by up to 10% compared to other foundry processes, choosing half frequency fusion ovens, facilitating flexible and adjusted processes and more optimised energy onsumption, and the installation of a moulding technology that generates water consumption savings of 60% and 10% savings in bentonite, etc.
Fagor Ederlan Group had a turnover of 682 million Euros in 2007 (+9%), of which 462 million (68%) corresponded to international sales, and has a total workforce of 3,927 people. Forecasts for 2008 are for sales totalling 718 million Euros and a workforce in excess of 4,000 people. Investment during 2007 totalled 50 million Euros and in 2008 46 million is planned. The group has 15 production plants (11 dedicated to chassis and 4 to Powertrains) in Spain, Slovakia and Brazil, the Edertek Technological Centre and 5 Product Engineering plants (200 people dedicated to R&D) and fifty Sales Offices in the UK, France, Germany and Korea.