Engineers are by nature problem-solvers, so when presented with a new challenge—even one as big as the near-collapse of the global economy late last year—top executives at Siemens VAI Metals Technologies GmbH & Co. chose to view it as an opportunity.

Order intake by the Linz, Austria-based company's metals and mining business looks set to fall 37 percent year on year in dollar terms for the fiscal year that started April 1, according to company figures. But rather than cut back, Siemens VAI is instead focusing on two ways to continue generating growth. The first is to work through a massive order backlog built up during the boom of recent years, which took the value of new orders to $4.1 billion in fiscal 2008, up almost 60 percent in just two years.

The surge in order intake was...