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World Cement interview with AAF: part three

World Cement,


Q

Many people will think of AAF as a Spanish company. How central is Spain to your operations, and how has the downturn there affected your business?

A

AAF International is in fact a global company headquartered in Louisville, KY USA. As explained above, within the Power and Industrial division the company runs different businesses. In our case the air pollution control business integrates both the Environmental Product (EP) division and the Environmental Systems (ES) division.

AAF Spain has been appointed by the company as the ES division Centre of Excellence, being the global ES business managed from Vitoria in Spain. As the Centre of Excellence we do define our business strategic plan and establish the standards to work with.

Our responsibility is to manage and control the global business coordinating the work of our teams in the US, Mexico, Brazil, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Malaysia and China. We do work as a single global team and we do support to each other based on the help each office may need to develop the business. This support refers to applications expertise, training, engineering services coordination, fabrication capabilities (the recently opened workshop in China, for instance) or commissioning services among others. That is the reason the local economies do not have a particular effect on our business. It is in fact the global economy. As a case in point, our latest projects have been located in Saudi Arabia and Mozambique.

Q

AAF traces its origins back to 1921. What does the future hold for the company?

A

We are optimistic thinking of our future. In fact we are finalising our Fusion 20 plan stating the bases for where we want to see ourselves in 2020 and we have foreseen a very aggressive growth that will include an important increase of our headcount. We are redefining our value chain and process map chasing the maximum level of standardisation possible.

Currently AAF is launching a new brand structure and new products to support our growth.

REDFiltration™ is our new Environmental Products brand. For our aftermarket business, we are launching REDClean™ Media and REDClean™ Technology, RED standing for Reliable Efficient and Durable.

On the other hand, our new painting cabinet facilities and new assembly-line robot are a good example of AAF’s continuous investments, crucial for our business development.

We will strive every day to become the foremost supplier of clean air solutions for people, processes, and the environment, offering solutions that feature minimum environmental impact and the most effective total cost of design and operation.


This is part three of a three-part article written by World Cement for World Cement’s November issue and abridged for the website. Subscribers can read the full issue by signing in, and can also catch up on-the-go via our new app for Apple and Android. Non-subscribers can access a preview of the November 2015 issue here.

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/29102015/world-cement-aaf-arregui-spain-general-manager-3/

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