SKF Had a Ground-Breaking Ceremony to Formally Begin The Construction of a New SKF Campus

SKF had a ground-breaking ceremony to formally begin the construction of a new SKF Campus on 18 October 2012 at Jiading, Shanghai. The new Campus will include a new automotive factory for production of wheel hub bearing for passenger cars as well as the relocation and expansion of the Global Technical Centre China (GTCC), SKF Solution Factory and SKF College to the new site. The GTCC includes product development, engineering services, global metallurgy and chemistry labs, manufacturing process development, testing and product investigation. Mr Rakesh Makhija, President SKF Asia, Mr Erik Nelander, President SKF China, Mr Torsten Nordgren, Director SKF Automotive Asia, Mr Eric Brubaker, General Manager Group Technical Centers Asia, Dr Richard Mh Yang, General Manager of SKF (Shanghai) Automotive Technology Co. Ltd. Attended the ground-breaking ceremony. SKF Campus project has received great support from Jiading District and Anting Town government. Ms. Sun Wei, Deputy Governor of Jiading District, Mr. Zhang Liping, the Party Chief of Anting Town, Mr. Lu Qiang, the Mayor of Anting Town, Mr. Yuan Hao, Vice Mayor of Anting attended the ceremony as well. The total investment in this new campus is around RMB 700 million. It will cover an area of 45, 207 square metres, have a building area of 32, 325 square metres in 1st phase, and employ around 900 people in 2015. Construction will be according to LEED certification standards and is due to be completed in Q4 2013. "The new campus will integrate SKF's resources of product development and engineering, manufacturing, testing and training to guarantee our leading position as a knowledge engineering company, " said Mr Erik Nelander. The new automotive factory will mainly manufacture hub bearing units for passenger cars and offer enhanced capacity, in addition to the existing automotive factory also located in Anting, Jiading. The new factory will serve major automotive customers in the area as well as across China and Asia. Mr Torsten Nordgren said: "The establishment of the new automotive factory, together with the Technical Center will further strengthen SKF's manufacturing and engineering footprint in China and enable us to even better support our automotive customers with higher speed and increased engineering and testing competence and resources in the future" The campus is located in an auto parts industrial park of the Shanghai International Auto City in Jiading, Anting town, which is famous for its mature support industries for the automobile industry. Close to several major SKF automotive and other customers, as well as technical universities and engineering institutes, the campus will further accelerate the integration effect of the industrial park, and provide SKF's customers with more convenient and complete integrated resources for the industrial chain. Source: Bearing. Com. Cn