Russian Railways (RZD) has ordered 13 high-speed Velaro RUS trains from Siemens Mobility and Ural Locomotives, a joint venture of the Sinara Group and Siemens AG. The order has a volume of around €1.1 billion. The contract also includes maintenance of the trains for a period of 30 years. RZD originally ordered eight Velaro trainsets from Siemens Mobility in 2006 and placed a follow-up order for an additional eight trains in 2011.
We released our second quarter results for fiscal year 2019 on May 8, 2019. The press conference was broadcast live.
On the first day of the Hannover Messe, April 1, Klaus Helmrich welcomed you to the annual Siemens Press Conference. As member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG, Klaus Helmrich is responsible for the Digital Industries Operating Company. The Press Conference took place at 6:30 PM in the Trade Fair's Convention Center, Room 1 A/B.
Mr. Helmrich talked about the latest developments of digitalization and the next step towards the digital transformation in the manufacturing and process industries under the theme "Digital Enterprise – Thinking industry further!".
The Hannover Messe will be opening its doors once again at the beginning of April this year to welcome trade visitors from around the world. It is our great pleasure to invite you to the International Siemens Press Conference held in advance of the show: At this press conference CEOs will give you an insight into technological developments and innovations which Siemens will be presenting at Hanover for the manufacturing and process industries at the Hannover Messe. This includes the integration of future technologies such as artificial intelligence, edge computing or additive manufacturing as well as digital solutions for energy supply, and the future of process automation.
Siemens held its Annual Shareholders' Meeting at the Olympiahalle in Munich on January 30, 2019.
We released our first quarter results for fiscal year 2019 on January 30, 2019. The Press Conference and the Analyst Call were broadcast live.
The digital transformation of the producing industry is gaining momentum. Companies from a wide variety of industries are already unlocking this potential – they are using end-to-end digitalization to create a lasting competitive edge by reducing time to market and increasing flexibility, efficiency, and quality. With Siemens Digital Enterprise solutions the technical prerequisites for the implementation of Industrie 4.0 are available and can be deployed in every application and companies of all sizes. At the SPS IPC Drives in Nuremberg, Germany, from November 27 to 29, 2018 – which took place this year under the motto "Digital Enterprise – Implement now" – Siemens showed in hall 11 how this can be done.
Siemens has honored 12 particularly resourceful researchers as Inventors of the Year 2018. Together, these scientists are responsible for some 590 inventions and 589 patents. Two of the inventors are from Germany, three are from Austria, one is each from Norway, France, Poland, Mexico, China, India and the United States. Every year since 1995, Siemens has been presenting this award to its outstanding researchers and developers whose inventions have made major contributions to the company's strong performance. Since 2016, this award has also been presented to researchers from outside the company. In fiscal 2018, Siemens filed around 3,850 patents worldwide – an increase of 200 patents over the previous year. Worldwide, Siemens holds about 65,000 patents. In fiscal 2018, Siemens employees submitted about 7,300 invention disclosures. On a basis of 220 workdays during the year, this figure corresponds to about 33 inventions per day.
We released our financial figures for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2018 on November 8, 2018. The Press Conference and the Analyst Call were broadcast live.
Siemens and the company's Central Works Council have signed a reconciliation of interests based on the framework agreement reached in May. The goal is to increase the competitiveness of the Power and Gas Division (PG) and the Process Industries and Drives Division (PD). At PG alone, costs are to be reduced – as originally planned – by about €500 million worldwide, with €270 million of this amount to be saved in Germany. Around 2,900 jobs will be cut in Germany instead of the roughly 3,400 announced last November. This reduction in job cuts is due, above all, to the continuation of the location in Görlitz, Germany, and the retention of activities at the Dynamowerk, a Siemens production facility in Berlin. However, the measures are not restricted to capacity adjustments alone. Instead, they are primarily designed to achieve structural improvements and systematically sharpen the company's focus on the technologies of the future.
"The market for fossil power generation has contracted substantially. Against the backdrop of this structural change, the agreement we've reached is critical to improving our competitiveness. We now have to implement the measures quickly," said Lisa Davis, member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG.
"In the past few months, market forecasts have again worsened considerably. The job cuts agreed upon with the employee representatives are only one of the measures urgently necessary to improve our cost position. With the reconciliation of interests, we've also reached an agreement on structural changes and new opportunities for several locations," said Janina Kugel, Chief Human Resources Officer and member of the Managing Board of Siemens AG.