Section 2 i) Initial Research Work - Gewerbliche Schule Ravensburg

Section 4Overview of the Three German CompaniesThe three companies visited were:• MTU - Wednesday 18 th May 2011• RAFI - Thursday 19 th May 2011• TOX - Friday 20 th May 2011MTUMTU has been in business for over 100 years, although they were being taken overon Thursday 19 th May 2011 by Daimler. They have a turnover of around €2.6bn andaround 6000 staff at the plant. They are a supplier of drive systems (mainly largediesel engines) for tanks, marine, rail, and plant such as electric power generationand nuclear backup. MTU import castings from China and machine into finishedengine blocks and parts. In total they machine and assemble around 28,000 enginesper year, ranging from a 4 cylinder 129kw motor, up to a massive 20 cylinder9100kw unit (as shown below).RAFIRAFI manufacture electrical components such as push buttons and signal lamps,and operating control systems such as wireless LAN routers and control panels forforklifts. Their control systems are widely used in the automotive, white goods,medical and telecommunications industries. They have an annual turnover of €300mand around 2000 employees working at the plant. RAFI has many plants worldwide,and do both the design and manufacture of their products according to thecustomers requirements.16