Page 62: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2014)

62 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? AUGUST 2014 GERMANYTowboat Thrust Towboat Thrust ZF Marine ZF Marine makes a strong makes a strong By Greg Trauthwein The marine business, particularly the inland marine business here and abroad, is generally conservative in its uptake of new technologies, particularly when it comes to the vessel?s power system. Simply put, there is still a proliferation of smaller, tightly held companies that have been managed and operated for multiple generations, with the preference to lean on accrued experi-ence.But the market is changing, driven by larger corporate entities nudging their way into these tightly held markets, and also by a myriad of legislative and operational conditions ? namely the rapidly rising cost of fuel. ZF Marine ? or more speciÞ cally ZF Marine Krimpen b.v., the commercial thruster manufacturer ? is poised to proÞ t as it builds an enviable reference list of inland towboat companies enjoying operational advantages and tremendous fuel savings courtesy of its thruster solution.2009: A Pivotal Year ZF bought HRP Thruster Systems B.V. in 2009, a strategic purchase that proved to be the prover- bial ?win-win? for both companies. HRP was at a crossroads, faced with investing heavily in in-frastructure and people to grow its organization to a level where it was capable to serve clients globally, or linking up with an organization with a global network in place. ZF turned out to be a perfect partner. ZF Group, an industrial behemoth with $22.4 billion in sales and 72,643 employees at the end of 2013, was looking to add marine thruster tech-nology to its ZF Marine family of products, and it already had the established network of sales and service in place, as well as the engineering horse-power and organizational structure to grow the thruster business quickly and effectively. ?Essentially, we went from a small company to a big company, and the way in which we view When German industrial manu-facturing giant ZF bought Hol-land Rudder Propeller nearly Þ ve years ago, it was a strategic addition to its ZF Marine port-folio that is now reaping big rewards as it is enjoying strong penetration of its azi- muth thruster systems in the U.S. towboat market. Maritime Reporter & Engineer- ing News visited with Frank van der Vegt, Sales Manager, Commercial Craft Thruster Systems, at the ZF Marine Krimpen B.V. factory in The Netherlands for an update.ZF Group By the Numbers When ZF touts its global capability, it ?walks the walk? with the numbers to back it up. Some impressive end of 2013 numbers include: Sales $22.4 billion Employees 72,643 R&D Expenditure $1.1 billion ? 122 production companies in 26 countries ? 8 main development locations in 4 countries ? 33 service companies ? 724 patent applications in 2013 (Top 10 in patent applicants in Germany) MR #8 (58-63).indd 62MR #8 (58-63).indd 628/7/2014 3:47:16 PM8/7/2014 3:47:16 PM