IHI Hauzer Techno Coating’s new CEO is Jeroen Landsbergen, taking over from Thomas Krug, who stepped down on 1 July after ten years with the company characterized by change and growth.
Thomas Krug, CEO of IHI Hauzer Techno Coating B.V. stepped down on 1 July, and was succeeded by Jeroen Landsbergen. “Our plasma technology and equipment to produce hard coatings for the tool and automotive industry has a lot of potential,” Jeroen says. “Many industries could use the functionality of hard coatings and our aim is to spread our expertise and make it affordable.”
The ten years that Thomas Krug was Hauzer’s CEO were characterized by change and growth. “In 2008 we joined the Japanese IHI Group,” Thomas says, “which opened up new horizons, gave us new opportunities and new challenges. We grew from a EUR 16 million company to a turnover of EUR 35 million, meanwhile doubling our employee count from 60 to 120. I am very glad that during this decade I have cooperated with a highly qualified team and many very competent customers.” Thomas will still be part of the advisory board for the next two years.
Jeroen Landsbergen joined Hauzer as product manager decorative applications in 2004, the same year that Thomas started as CEO. In 2008 he took over the marketing and sales responsibility and became member of the board as CCO. “In my new role as CEO I will continue along the road that has been so recognisable for Hauzer; focusing on technology and cooperation,” Jeroen explains. “These two focus points have brought us where we are today and I am convinced that they will bring us even further in the coming years. Our plasma technology for hard coatings contributes hugely to the green world of the future. The coatings reduce wear, increase the lifetime of components, tools and decorative products and they reduce friction. In automotive engines this means less fuel consumption and thus less CO2 emissions, on tools it means a ten-fold longer lifetime.”
“These functionalities could be used on a much broader scale,” Jeroen continues, “replacing environment-damaging technologies, and we will put in the efforts to make this possible. Innovation is often just seen in the context of improved performance. I would like to broaden this perspective to include improved productivity and cost-efficiency. With these extra innovations, our environmentally-friendly hard coating technologies will become affordable for many new industries. In the meantime we will strengthen our position by developing new technologies and creatively improving our modular batch and inline machines. Together with our customers and partners in research centres and universities we will be able to improve our existing solutions and seize new opportunities in e.g. energy storage and many other fields of the future. Our very skilled team of technical experts is ready for new challenges.”
IHI Hauzer Techno Coating B.V., the plasma coating expert with competence centres in The Netherlands, China and Japan, develops plasma coating technology and supplies equipment to deposit these coatings. Founded in 1983, Hauzer is nowadays a worldwide player in four markets: tool applications, tribological applications on e.g. automotive components, decorative applications and R&D. The hard coatings are deposited with Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD) and Plasma Assisted Chemical Vapour Deposition (PACVD) technology. Plasma coatings add functionalities to metal and plastic products, such as hardness and smoothness. Hauzer equipment is unique in its flexibility, because several coating technologies can be combined. The batch and inline machines can be upgraded with new technology afterwards, so customers will always have access to state-of-the-art technology. Hauzer cooperates intensively with customers, universities and research institutes, focused on application development for industrial scale production.