Year-over-Year Increase in Production Output

In 2016, production output increased compared with the previous year. WACKER POLYSILICON sold higher volumes than ever before. Our chemical divisions also reported increased volumes, and high plant utilization of over 80 percent. There were no major facility shutdowns. Production costs were up 8.6 percent. At €472 million, maintenance costs were above the prior-year level.

Plant Utilization in 2016

Investments in new production facilities amounted to €427.6 million in the reporting year (2015: €834.0 million). Most of this amount was spent on completing the new polysilicon production site in Tennessee, USA.

Corporate Engineering is responsible for implementing all investment projects at WACKER.

Key Start-Ups

Priorities in Productivity

High productivity throughout the supply chain is a key to WACKER’s success. The Wacker Operating System (WOS) program helps us to boost productivity along the entire supply chain. Our goal is to continue reducing specific operating costs every year. In 2016, we implemented more than 700 projects in operational business and our corporate departments. Some 500 of these concerned operations, with the corporate departments accounting for about 200. WOS focuses on improving raw-material yields and specific energy consumption. We are working on a new approach to reduce specific production costs for 20 product groups in the chemical divisions.

During the year under review, our WOS ACADEMY (founded in 2009) held seven training courses at which almost 100 employees were trained in the application of new productivity methods, such as Six Sigma. In addition to these courses, we carried out projects aimed at reducing specific costs.