We’ve just been appointed to help Austrian industrial giant voestalpine raise its UK profile as a technological pioneer.

Voestalpine has a turnover of €11.3 billion and 50,000 employees across the world. One of the largest global producers of steel, it’s shifting its focus from mass metal production to specialisation in high-value technology components including complex parts for the aerospace, automotive, oil and gas and medical sectors.

As part of this drive, Voestalpine is pioneering the field of 3D metal printing – or ‘additive manufacturing’ – developing the metal powders needed as well as advanced production techniques.

It’s innovating methods to print components from tiny aerospace or medical devices right up to parts for bridges. Invented in specialist research centres in Dusseldorf (pictured above), Singapore and Taiwan, its 3D printing techniques are producing component prototypes which are far lighter than conventional steel parts, with a significant reduction in waste and big benefits for the environment.

This is the ‘LightHinge’ it recently produced – a car bonnet hinge prototype as strong as a traditional steel hinge but only half the weight.

Our brief is to raise the UK profile of voestalpine and its CEO, Dr Wolfgang Eder, through the business media, with a particular focus on the company’s innovation in 3D metal printing.

You can see more on voestalpine at www.voestalpine.com