Furukawa Electric to Establish Copper Strip Slitting Center at Nikko

Furukawa Electric establishes a slitting center for copper strip at Nikko works in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan which will start operation in fiscal 2008 starting April. The firm constructs a new building and transfers copper strip slitters which are now laid in existent buildings of Nikko works with capital expenditure of 1 billion yen. The firm will install a new slitter as well. Nikko works’ copper strip processing capacity will increase to total 4,500 tonnes per month from current 3,500 tonnes.Furukawa Electric plans to expand copper strip output capacity at Nikko works toward fiscal 2009 and already carried out capital expenditure for the upstream processes. The firm also raises the capacity of downstream processes such as slitting in order to catch up with the demand growth for copper strip.A building site for a new slitting center was previously an aluminium forging plant to manufacture marine parts. Aluminium forging equipment was transferred to Furukawa-Sky Aluminum’s Oyama works to integrate aluminium manufacturing processes. Then Furukawa Electric renewed the vacant building for a new slitting center.Copper strip slitters are now laid in a plant for cold rolling and annealing processes in Nikko works. The building is next to the previous aluminium forging plant. There are 2 large sized slitters and 8 middle and small sized slitters all of which will be transferred into the new slitting center. In place of these slitters, a new finish rolling machine and a continuous annealing furnace will be installed.Furukawa Electric plans to add another large slitter. The slitting center will have 11 slitters as total. The firm will expand its copper strip processing capacity as well as improve productivity by integration of slitting machines into a site.