The company employs just over 1,500 people, of which around 1,200 are in Kiel, 50 in Rostock and 250 employed in sales and service offices around the world. This number will rise as more staff are taken on in Rostock.
1.3 Operating Costs and Procurement Strategy
Essential core components such as connecting rods, valves, cylinder heads and engine blocks are produced and machined by Caterpillar Motoren in its Kiel factory. Lower technology components are sourced externally in order to focus on higher value activities.
The acquisition by Caterpillar of Pontiac (a US-based manufacturer of fuel systems) means that in future fuel systems can be supplied within the Caterpillar group rather than being sourced externally.
1.4 Competition Aspects
In 1999 MaK supplied marine engines with a total output of 550 MW. This represented a significant increase on the 1998 figure of 475 MW.
The company proclaims itself to be the number one supplier to shipyards in Germany in respect of the sizes of engines it supplies and appears to be very strong in northern Europe generally. Elsewhere, success in Japan, Korea and China has tended to have been linked to European owners having ships built in yards in these countries specifying MaK engines.
