On Thursday, 14 May we officially opened the construction site for a major project at our own premises. From 2023, employees in the Rhineland will be united at an innovative Campus in Mönchengladbach, equipped with ultra-modern workplaces. As a technology company with a history spanning nearly 150 years, we are therefore upholding our commitment to invest in the future. The Campus will create a technology, service and digitalization center that combines the expertise of five local sites under one roof in order to drive innovation in specific fields.

The importance of digital infrastructure and flexible workspace design for companies' future viability has come into sharp focus in 2020. With the Campus, SMS group will ensure close cooperation along the entire value chain.

Torsten Heising, Member of the SMS group Managing Board, sees the campus concept as a key factor in shaping the working world of tomorrow, especially in light of the current challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic: "Demands on workplaces are changing more rapidly than was previously assumed. On the one hand, employees are using and appreciating the benefits of remote working. On the other hand, we are now experiencing offices more consciously as places of creative collaboration and social interaction. With a modern infrastructure and generous spaces for communicating and socializing, we will create considerable added value for our employees, which will pay off for our company in the long term."

With the Campus, SMS group is creating a platform for employees to exchange ideas and inspire one another, so that future topics such as digitalization can be combined even more effectively with new products and processes. Optimizing our own processes and performance is just as central to the concept as adding value for customers and end users. As "Leading partner in the World of Metals", SMS group is increasingly focusing on technical service and offering direct exchange with customers worldwide through new communication formats. The campus concept combines the latest innovation methods with metallurgical process expertise and technical know-how. We will also further expand our competencies in the areas of augmented and virtual reality, which enable service support even in the event of travel restrictions and are particularly showing their potential during the Covid-19 crisis.

The ground-breaking ceremony will take place in October 2020.