Decent year 2023 for MAPAL

MAPAL was able to further increase its Group turnover in the 2023 financial year. At 588 million euros, this meant an increase of 5.5% year on year. Dr Jochen Kress, President of the MAPAL Group, considers this a validation: “The fact that we were able to achieve our planned growth despite considerable economic fluctuations over the course of the 2023 financial year makes us optimistic that we have charted the correct course.” The headcount remained constant.

The company expects turnover to stagnate overall in 2024. “The economy grew slower than expected in the first half of the year. There are more and more signs though that the second half will be more positive, which is reflected in our forecasts. We are now concentrating on remaining in line with these despite the economic risks”, Dr Kress explains.

To do so, MAPAL is working intensively on topics that are of great relevance to its customers and where MAPAL was not always able to fulfil expectations in the past. This includes the quality of deliveries. “We were able to improve processes significantly at all MAPAL Group production sites and thus stabilised delivery reliability at a much higher level”, Dr Kress highlights. By launching an online shop, an extensive stock was built up. More than 8,000 products are now in stock and available immediately.

A large customer satisfaction analysis found that customers have noticed and appreciate the effects of these efforts. The results also confirm that customers are satisfied with MAPAL’s traditional strengths: close collaborations based on a partnership between the customer and manufacturer as well as the ability of MAPAL employees to find perfect solutions that meet customer needs and to implement these in practice.

The automotive industry remains the most important market for MAPAL. Concepts and solutions that MAPAL has developed for electromobility are now widely established on the market. Intelligently designed machining solutions are also available for further strategic sub-segments, such as chassis, brakes, powertrain and combustion engine. The Global Organisation for Assembly (GOA) department was established to meet the special demands of the aerospace industry regarding final assembly. Extensive expertise has been acquired at the Vigneux-de-Bretagne location in France to translate customer requirements as quickly as possible into solutions and to transfer these worldwide throughout the company. “All MAPAL Group locations can draw on the expertise of our employees in France”, Dr Kress explains. “This way, customers all over the world have access to solutions that can increase the productivity and quality of their manufacturing processes in light of growing production rates. This is certainly one of the reasons for the positive development in the aerospace segment.” The demanding markets of fluid power technology as well as die and mould have also developed well.

MAPAL focusses on its expertise in aluminium machining across all industries this year. “The machining of aluminium parts is one of MAPAL’s great strengths. With manufacturing sites producing according to the highest standards worldwide, the resulting comprehensive and innovative product range as well as the extensive component expertise and profound know-how of our sales team, we are certainly one of the leading, if not the leading company in this market”, Dr Kress stresses.