“With crash management standards and fuel economy indicator being more and more demanding, lighter and stronger steel will be needed, thus resulting in greater and great demand for high-strength steel.” -- Brian Aranha, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, ArcelorMittal.
On November 1, 2017, GONVVAMA is formally opened in Changshu City, Jiangsu Province, making it the global first-class automotive steel processing base to offer the most advanced comprehensive technical solutions to China’s automotive customers.
GONVVAMA is an equal-share partition joint venture between Valin ArcelorMittal Automotive Steel Co., Ltd. (VAMA) and Gonvarri Steel Serviecs (Gonvarri). Headquartered in Changshu, Jiangsu Province, GONVVAMA currently has 4 Advanced Technologies and Solutions Centers (ATS) in four cities in China, including Loudi, Changshu, Shenyang and Chongqing, thus covering the major automotive clusters in China and helping automotive manufacturers meet the challenges of body weight saving, improved safety performance and environmental protection.
As the extended supporter of VAMA’s downstream industry chain, GONVVAMA focuses on the integrated forming of hot formed steel, advanced high-strength steel, ultrahigh-strength steel and exposed steel plates, and processing service of laser welded parts (LWB) with a view to providing quality products and integrated technical service solutions to automotive manufacturers.
Resource integration of multinational shareholders
As a joint venture, GONVVAMA is a special presence. There are many shareholders with direct shareholding or indirect shareholding. How can resources of each shareholder be integrated? Jean Marc Butin, Chief Executive Officer, GONVVAMA, said, “Valin may offer the best steel substrate, VAMA will convert such steel substrate into high-end ultrahigh-strength steel and bring advanced blanking technology, and ArcelorMittal boasts advanced LWB solutions.”
As global No.1 supplier of steel production and solutions, ArcelorMittal has marked steady footprint in China via VAMA. The equal-share joint venture between ArcelorMittal and Valin Steels covers a full range of steels starting from mild steel grades and to steels that have ultrahigh strength limits, especially the hot-stamping grades, for instance Usibor® 2000 and Ductibor® 1000. Those steel grades have been widely used in Chinese market allowing the car makers to achieve stringent objective in crash safety, weight saving and emission reduction.
Bring global leading technologies to China
The vocation of ArcelorMittal is not to limit themselves to product supplier, but a solution provider. With the success of VAMA, ArcelorMittal decides to extend its supply chain so as to better bring its downstream technologies to Chinese market. A new joint venture, GONVVAMA, was thus created to offer the most advanced solutions to Chinese customers. Another shareholder of GONVVAMA, Gonvarri Steel Services is a worldwide leader in steel processing and distribution.
With technologies transferred by ArcelorMittal, GONVVAMA will operate with vanguard manufacturing technologies specialized in monolithic blanking and laser welded parts (LWB) in steel for both cold stamping and hot-stamping applications (for instance Usibor® 2000 and Ductibor® 1000), third generation ultra-high strength steel and exposed panel. Through its own processing network and strategic steel service centers (SSC) partners, GONVVAMA will offer customers a full range of steel services and solutions.
