AT&S

FROM CIRCUIT BOARDS TO NEW NETWORK CORDS

Roughly 10 years ago, AT&S moved its headquarter from Vienna back into the Mur Valley. The reason behind this is that for a big player, one’s own identity is more important than shiny offices in a skyscraper.

The ‘Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik’ (AT&S) ‘Aktiengesellschaft’ (public company) is one of the leading suppliers and producers of high-end printed circuit boards (PCBs).Whilst being the undisputed number one in Europe with two manufacturing locations in Austria, AT&S also has locations in China, India, South Korea and quite recently in Malaysia as well. In Malaysia alone, where the construction has only just started, there is already a plus of 300 employees. “In reality there are now already roughly 13,500 employees at AT&S,” clarifies Andreas Steiner, “but with this enormous growth, we are often lagging behind with updating our online press informations.”

At their location in Leoben-Hinterberg in Upper Styria, the signs also point toward growth as well. At the moment, the large construction site on the 5,500 square meter plot is determining everyday life. “The construction site is one thing, but the presence of the container village requires permanent relocation. Despite all of that, the IT has to be operational 24/7.” The 80-strong IT-team in Leoben that is under the control of Andreas Steiner, originates from a dozen different nationalities – his international team consists of even more than 200 employees. The construction site will be underway until early 2023, but then the work is going to really be kicking off again for Steiner and his team as all equipment, the IT for 1,300 employees on site, new server rooms as well as research centres are going to be newly installed. Furthermore, Steiner also visits all AT&S locations several times a year.

NTS and AT&S are linked through a “very, very good” partnership for quite some time assures Steiner, who joined the Group in 2002. “In the past we had 25 to 30 suppliers in the IT sector. It is evident that we had to consolidate this.” Security is the dominating topic, and we require reliability and high quality. These are NTS values that Steiner and his team have already had the chance to experience – or rather – were forced to: A power failure in the entire region – a very old switch that was not from Cisco – the configuration disappeared into nowhere… “Eight hours later, we were back online thanks to NTS. These things bring you together. Because the network is our backbone, and it MUST work.”