The companies of the Group seek to deliver quality products, while continuously caring for their client relationships and satisfaction.
CAP’s traditional products market has undergone changes in the last years. To the high volatility of iron ore prices, we must add the depressed steel prices as a consequence of Chinese and Mexican steel imports, as well as the world’s overcapacity and the meager defense our domestic steel industry. To the foregoing, we must add the contraction of the mining industry and the construction sector.
For the Group, its capacity to innovate and create new solutions for its clients and consumers is a crucial factor of its business.
The infrastructure area, seeks to develop and boost assets, taking the opportunity to partially mitigate the volatility of the company’s more traditional undertakings. The second focus is on new businesses and business solutions in new areas. The company has ISO 9001 quality management systems in three of its four operations, which is certified by an external company duly validated to that effect. CAP Acero and Procesamiento are 100% certified, while CAP Mineria maintains 79% of its work sites duly certified.
The challenges imposed by this context have marked the company’s strategy, including the transformation and innovation program: "We Create Future".
The infrastructure is exploring several growth areas. For example, an evaluation is being made in order to expand the supply desalinated water as drinking water, or even the construction of a new desalination plant; all of it within the context of the scarcity of hydric resources in the northern region of the country. Likewise, port installations are being analyzed with an eye to opening them to other productive sectors. For example, the Las Losas Port has already executed contracts with third parties for the loading of fruit cargo and the unloading of infrastructure for renewable energy projects. Similarly, the mining company is currently analyzing the possibility of mining other minerals in its deposits, as well as to continue to take advantage of the Group’s resources.
At CAP Acero we have continued to boost the lines of special high-standard steel, such as the MMFX Bars (See the Sustainable supply highlight), or the CAP-Sol (See the Historical sustainable supply highlight). Additionally, there have been developments in steel in applications such as automotive parts, agricultural machinery and the plastics industry, among others. In 2016, a research project was carried out to develop an helical steel bar with applications to be used in tunnels.
Cintac’s customers, more than products, seek constructive solutions; because of this, new business areas and new products have been created that expand Cintac’s supply portfolio. An example of this is the industrialization in the manufacturing of trusses and walls for housing covering the entire process and the development of finished modules on bathroom and kitchen floors, all of which are delivered to the client’s work site ready for electrical and sanitary connections. We are also making progress in modular construction with insulated panels for the construction of houses with various design characteristics.
In 2016, Cintac also advanced in solutions for the agricultural industry. The first area of business is of profiles of use in vineyards offering greater stability and resistance to the mechanized processes of harvesting and handling of the vines. In the near future, the idea is to complement this supply with other parts used in farming systems and to look into other farm products in need of structures to withstand climate change and other factors.
In partnership with the company, MMFX Technologies Corporation, CAP Acero began in 2016 the production of the so-called ChrōmX® Bars, which have a high resistance to corrosion and better mechanical properties than traditional bars. Additionally, such bars have proven to be five times more resistant to corrosion than traditional concrete reinforcement bars, which extends the useful life and reduces the cost of maintenance in the life cycle of the infrastructure, in order to build structures of longer duration in Chile, such as: bridges, tunnels, mining pipelines, ports, docks, dams, mining structures associated with tailings and desalination plants.
Chile has an enormous potential for the production of photovoltaic energy, thanks to climatic conditions with high levels of solar radiation, combined with moderate ambient temperatures. Cintac® Solar aims at development, implementation and marketing of self-sufficiency solutions and the marketing of photovoltaic solar energy on the ground and roofs, with a comprehensive business proposal according to the needs of each client. The company seeks to position itself among strategic suppliers for companies that produce solar systems in Chile, taking advantage of its competitive advantages as a local manufacturer.
In 2016 we worked on developing facilities toward improving the injection process of the insulation of the PUR panels. The new chemicals considered the implementation of a compound called Cyclopentane; a chemical material which reduces the impact on the environment since it does not harm the ozone layer, albeit maintaining the same quality characteristics of the chemicals used previously.
The CAP quality seal is indeed present in all products and solutions offered by the various companies of the Group.
Customer service is crucial at Cintac, and it is measured by an indicator called “Perfect order”. At this steel company, satisfaction is measured annually by a third party: the Industrial Marketing Center of Universidad de Chile. In the case of CAP Minería, it has a satisfaction-measuring procedure focused on long-term clients and limited to the products of the Pellets Plant.
Each company has measurement of satisfaction and complaints mechanisms. Cintac has a system of formal complaint, aimed at reducing the response time and improving customer satisfaction. In 2016, complaint response times dropped from 27 to 21 days. To that effect, the company is equipped with an online complaints portal and a customer service unit in charge of responding and resolving each customer complaint.
At CAP Acero, service quality (measured by the IRS © index) reached 87.6%, taking an evolution on the rise to levels of excellence. Nevertheless, the company is managing areas and spaces for it to improve still further.
CAP Mineria also has a formal procedure to measure or infer customer satisfaction based on field surveys and the existence or absence of complaints within a given period of time. The foregoing is complemented with a complaint treatment procedure.
| Minería | Acero 5 | Procesamiento6 | Infraestructura | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | |
| Customer satisfaction index | 75% | 65% | n.i. | 86% | 82% | 88% | n.i. | n.i. | 70% | not measured | ||
5In CAP Acero, satisfaction is measured through the IRS Model [© CMI 2010] carried out by the Industrial Marketing Center of the University of Chile.
6In Procesamiento, satisfaction is measured in 100% of Cintac's customers. Tupemesa measures it by only 23%, which is why the customer satisfaction only includes Cintac, does not include TUPEMESA or TASA.
The CAP - SOL® technological solution is an innovative proposal that offers a number of advantages over conventional steels. In addition to being a bar with a high limit of elasticity, it is also a product that guarantees weldability.
This product is aimed at the mining, construction and infrastructure in general, areas in which safety and efficiency are key to the success of each project.
Sustainability is here to stay to the construction sector. As demonstrated by the boom of LEED-certified buildings in Chile. CAP Acero positioned itself at the forefront by delivering, as of 2014, a Life Cycle Analysis of the steel bars for the reinforcement of concrete via the Product Environmental Statement (DAP, in its Spanish acronym) (it includes an estimate of CO2 emissions) pursuant to ISO standards and Europe’s EN 15804 standard, thus being the first in Chile to secure a DAPCO Certification pursuant the European and the IOS standards (See DAPCO Report).
The certified road guard rails meet all the standards of the European Economic Community and real impact tests in European laboratories pursuant to standard EN1317-2, which ensures compliance with the required level of containment. In this manner, the quality of an installation can be guaranteed with the support of a brand like Cintac.
In 2013, Cintac developed a new web platform as a space for the generation of new businesses, to provide solutions and become an instance of customer care and service. Nowadays, most clients are served through Cintac Digital.
Cerro Negro Norte represents an innovative model of sustainable mining development. The plant was designed considering its maximum shared development potential:
This is the first operation of Chile’s large-scale iron ore mining to use 100% desalinated sea water.
It reuses 100% of the water consumed.
It equipped with a modern paste-tailings disposal technology for the treatment of rejects of the concentration of the mineral. It allows a greater recovery of water; it increases seismic stability, and reduces erosion by rainwater and wind, among others.
it is partially fed by solar energy.
The ore is transported from the mine to the port by means of a concentrate pipeline, avoiding the use of road infrastructure.
Work site operators live in their own homes and not inside the work site.
CAP Mineria developed the most innovative recycling process of the steel industry. This process uses state-of-the-art technology capable of recovering ore content present in mining tailings, thus converting an environmental liability into an economic asset.
The main positive impacts are associated to extracting value from waste materials, in this case the reuse of minerals that had only a negative residual value to the environment. Another aspect worth highlighting is the less energy consumed in obtaining the final product as compared to a normal mining production process.
Aguas CAP is a company dedicated to the collection, purification and distribution of water. Its desalination plant has the capacity to produce 34 million liters of water daily to be used by CAP Mineria, other mining companies and the local community. Its current production is equivalent to the water consumed by 230,000 people.
