Siemens, Europe's biggest engineering group, plans to restructure its industry division and to completely dissolve one of its sub-divisions by the fourth quarter, a German magazine reported.
The company's bread-and-butter industry section, which makes equipment that large companies use to run factories and automation gear to help industrial plants run smoothly, is too big and unwieldy compared with its energy and healthcare sectors, Der Spiegel reported on Saturday, without citing sources.
The industry sector has six sub-divisions: Industry Automation, Motion Control, Building Technologies, Industry Solutions, Mobility and Osram - its lighting unit. By autumn, Chief Executive Peter Loescher and Siegfried Russwurm, head of the industry division, plan to dissolve industry solutions and transfer that unit's 30,000 employees to other parts of the division. A Siemens spokesman declined to comment on the report, saying only that the company has said before that it aims to better exploit market potential in its industrial and services segments.
Loescher, who took the helm in July 2007, has promised to slim down the lumbering giant, which makes a wide range of products from light bulbs and high-speed trains to medical equipment and turbines, so it can once again compete with profitable rivals and improve its technology.