Mechanical Engineering Industry – A large, successful and heterogeneous sector
date: 22/03/2012
See also: Press memo
With more than 20 subsectors that face quite different market environments it is one of the most heterogeneous industry sectors.
Mechanical Engineering Industry is one of the most shining examples in performance of EU economy. It is characterised by relatively small family owned companies. The typical firm size is between 500 and 2,000 employees. Most of them do not fall under the EU Small and Medium sized (up to 200 employees).
ME is one of the major branches of manufacturing in the EU-27, with a share of around 9.1% of all production in manufacturing industries. As compared to other industries, ME firms are characterized by a relatively high manufacturing depth. This is mainly explained by three factors:
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predominant small-batch and single-item production,
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high qualification requirements in manufacturing departments, and
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large communication requirements between manufacturing, engineering and design departments.