News

FAIST Controls & Propulsion Systems and Industrial annual business results

Worldwide net sales of FAIST’s Controls & Propulsion Systems and Industrial divisions grew significantly in 2018, by 9% compared to the previous year, getting to the highest result on records despite industry headwinds in Europe and China, our two main markets. In a global economy that is slacking because of international trade issues, the (necessary as much as complex) task of decoupling economic progress from environmental degradation and the attempts to widen and strengthen global demand by reducing economic inequality, we consider this positive result as something to be proud of.

Not only did our sales increase: the labour force also went up, and our workforce productivity index presents a 6% increase between 2017 and 2018. So did the team: at the end of 2018 CPS&IND had 51 additional employees, taking the total headcount up to 1067 persons. Due to the general raw materials prices increase experienced throughout the year though, this rise in productivity did not directly translate into greater profits for our Company.

Together with our worldwide team, our customer base also enlarged, going up by 23% between last year and the previous one. We managed to grow in this area while keeping our long-time clients satisfied, maintaining a customer retention rate of 97,5% as of 2018. Our business is currently destined to European and North American countries for a 60%, and to Asia for the remaining 40% of the total.

As you might imagine, we are not putting our feet up: we set exigent goals for 2019, as we always do in order to get better. Our innovation spending for this year will be around 8% of last year revenues, and we plan to further increase our Overall Equipment Efficiency by 1,8%; the target of increase for the throughput yield is set at +6%. Who doesn’t like a bit of a challenge, right?! Watch this space for updates on our journey.