UK focuses on RK280 production

MAN B&W Ltd, located in Stockport, UK, will in future be focusing on extended service business and on the production of the new RK280 engine series. The MAN B&W Diesel Group?s English site introduced measures to improve competitiveness at the beginning of April, which included optimising of the production facilities and the product line. Apart from development, assembly and testing, the focus of the activities at the Stockport plant will be purchasing and logistics for the series. Deliveries of the first RK280 models to the market have already commenced.

Parts production, together with the manufacturing of spare parts for the other English series such as the RK215, VP185, RK270 and the older engine models from Mirrlees-Blackstone, Paxman and Ruston, will be managed by the MAN B&W Diesel Group?s production network in Germany, France and UK. This ensures that MAN B&W Diesel Ltd will be able to continue offering its customers a full spectrum of services and spare parts.

The machine tools at the Stockport plant will be taken over by the Korean STX Group, who thereby deepens a licensing partnership with the MAN B&W Diesel Group of many years? standing. In the STX plants in Korea and China the machine tools will produce components for ship engines that STX is manufacturing under MAN B&W Diesel license. The transfer will commence in January 2006.

Discussions are currently underway with potential partner firms regarding the continuation of the high-speed diesel engine series VP185, RK215 and RK270.