Mrs Caroline Larsson (Höganäs AB)

Co-chair

Caroline holds a M.Sc. in Metallurgy and Materials technology from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

She has been working for Höganäs AB, since 1988, and has held several positions in Product development, Technical sales & marketing, Production strategies, Business development and Market communication. Her current role is Manager for Product management, where she works with powders for press and sinter, as well as, soft magnetic applications.

Dr Cèsar Molins (AMES SA)

Co-chair

Cèsar Molins graduated as an industrial engineer from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Barcelona and continued his graduate studies obtaining the Master’s and then the PhD degree in Nuclear Engineering Sciences from the University of Florida in the USA in 1981.

Even though his main academic subject was nuclear reactor neutronics, he also studied metallurgy and right after his graduation he entered the Powder Metallurgy world in AMES, a family-owned company co-founded by his father, where he became the General Manager in 1985. Thus, he has now worked in the world of PM for 35 years.

From the very beginning of his work at AMES Cèsar became very involved in international PM associations, presenting papers at PM conferences in Europe, America and Asia and his mixture of technological passion and managerial duties made him a worldwide ambassador of Powder Metallurgy.

In 1998 he chaired the first World PM conference fully organized by EPMA in Granada, Spain. He became the third EPMA President in 2001, after sitting for some years on the EPMA Council and Board where he still serves today. His international involvement brought him to the International Liaison Committee of MPIF and he spoke on behalf of European PM in the USA, Brazil, India, Turkey, Japan and Korea. He received the Ivor Jenkins award in 1998 from the Institute of Metals in the UK, the Fellowship award of PMAI in 2011, the Distinguished Service Award of the MPIF in 2015 and the APMI International Fellowship award in 2016. He was a strong promoter of the joint effort of EPMA, MPIF and JPMA to develop the Global PM Property Database, which was developed during his presidency of EPMA. He also chaired EPMA’s Euro PM 2011 Congress & Exhibition in Barcelona.

His several advisory duties in different governmental bodies in Spain and Catalonia have helped to promote the image of industry in general and of PM in particular. He is a long standing member of the Board of the Spanish Association of Automobile Component Manufacturers and a member of the Industry Commission in the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce where again he represents the PM industry.

Under his leadership, AMES, the company he manages, has grown to 155 Million Euro turnover and 7 plants in 4 countries and 3 continents. Following its strong technological vocation, AMES has developed cooperation with universities and technological centres in Spain, Europe and Asia.

It can be said that Cèsar Molins has been a worldwide promoter of the PM industry, technology and of international cooperation.

The European Press & Sinter Group consists of stakeholders from the ferrous PM structural parts industry. The objective of the Euro Press&Sinter group is to promote the interests of EPMA members involved in the structural parts supply chain.

It holds open meetings involving parts makers, suppliers and any interested EPMA members to discuss issues of concern to the sector.

The open meetings are usually held twice a year, in the Spring and Autumn during EPMA events such as theannual General Assembly and Euro PM Congress. These offer an excellent opportunity todiscuss EPMA activities, current and futureprojects in the ferrous PM structural parts sector and regarding the general state of business within the industry. The state of business discussion always gives a fruitful exchange of experience between participants and is reported in the minutes available to the attendees of the Supply Chain Meeting.

EuroPress&Sinter also gives an input to many projects including:

  • The Global Powder Metallurgy Property Database web site: www.pmdatabase.com
  • The e-learning modules web site for End User Designers and Engineers: www.designforpm.net
  • The yearly Benchmarking exercise, which offers the EuroPress&Sinter Parts Makers companies the chance to benchmark their operations externally in a completely anonymous way. Benchmarking is a requirement under both ISO9000:2000 and ISO TC16949.
  • Trends Surveys: Twice a year the EPMA launches an anonymous trends survey to track the general fluctuations of the EuroPress&Sinter Structural Parts Makers Sector in terms of recent sales trends, business attitudes and effect of the new state of global economy. The answers are collected in an anonymous form and only the participants of the survey will receive aggregated results in the form of a Trends Survey Report.
  • Club Projects: Club Projects are small projects scientifically led by a R&D centre or a University and coordinated by the EPMA. These Club Projects are reserved to the EPMA companies, who share the cost of the project. The EuroPress&Sinter Group is regularly launching new Club Projects for its members (see www.epma.com/club-projects).
  • EuroPress&Sinter Seminars: The EuroPress&Sinter Group is organising regular Seminars, which attract attendees from all the supply chain, and “Special Interest Seminars” within EuroPM and WorldPM

The EuroPress&Sinter is an essential networking group which helps the EPMA to promote the Ferrous Structural PM industry and to set up new ideas of projects, which indicates the trends of the sector to the other working groups and more generally to EPMA members. Every EPMA member is welcome to participate in the open EuroPress&Sinter working group meetings and should contact Bruno Vicenzi, EPMA Technical Manager at bv@epma.com for further information.