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ITW Hosco Offers Encapsulated Ball Valves

Penninger Introduces Circuit TesterA semiautomatic circuit testing system for insert molded parts that verifies continuity and Hi-Pot conditions has been developed by Penninger Machine Corp., St. Charles, IL. Tested in the field for more than five years, and nicknamed PAT (Penninger Auto-Tester), this system can act as a continuity/Hi-Pot tester and simultaneously control associated devices or machines

April 1, 1998

SMC Use Soars

The SMC Automotive Alliance says more than 45 new SMC components can be found on '98 cars and trucks, a 64% increase in the number of total SMC components introduced since 1993. The amount of SMC used also has risen during the past five years, from 156 million lbs. (71 million kg) in 1993 to a projected 237 million lbs. (108 million kg) in 1998. "SMC has long been known as a composite used for automotive

April 1, 1998

Explore the Trendline➔

Automotive Manufacturing

Production strategies are changing rapidly as tariffs and shifts in consumer buying patterns affect the industry.

By WardsAuto staff

Emission Impossible? No problem, say suppliers helping meet NLEV

Suppliers that develop catalytic converters and fuel-injection systems have been eagerly awaiting a greenlight to apply their new technologies in meeting the National Low Emission Vehicle standards.Now, they get their chance. This fall, at the start of the 1999 model year, the major foreign and domestic automakers have announced plans to sell cars and trucks in the northeastern United States that

By Tom Murphy • April 1, 1998

SPX Bid for Echlin Starts to Get Ugly

Echlin Inc. has implored the Connecticut House of Representatives for a little legislative assistance in fending off the $3 billion hostile takeover bid by SPX Corp. of Muskegon, MI. And as of press time in March, the tactic appeared to be working.Connecticut-based Echlin, with annual sales of $3.6 billion, helped initiate HB 5695, which would block the removal of Echlin directors for a year, even

April 1, 1998

We Won’t See CVTs PDQ Three letters that spell better transmission efficiency

Automotive customers are steadily becoming more shiftless. No, not in their general deportment. In their attitude about manipulating transmissions themselves.Ward's data marks 1997 domestic passenger-car installation rates for manual transmissions at only 13.6%; light trucks came in a bit higher at 16.2%. Nearly nine out of 10 vehicles produced domestically have an automatic transmission, and installation

By Bill Visnic • March 1, 1998

Eaton Stands Firm - Goals by 2000: $10 billion in sales, 10% annual growth

It has been two years since Eaton Corp. Chairman Stephen Hardis announced a bold directive: to grow the business at least 10% annually and reach $10 billion in sales by 2000.But that was before the economies plunged in the key developing automotive markets of Asia/Pacific and South America, regions where Eaton, like other suppliers, has invested considerable resources to support its global customers.With

By Tom Murphy • Feb. 1, 1998

Oh My Aachen Head - Arvin, Air Force develop neural network to interpret sound

When it comes to automated sound-quality testing, perhaps two heads are better than one.In recent years, the automotive industry has relied on the Aachen Head, a microphone-equipped mannequin from Head Acoustics in Germany, to record the many sounds that flow from the tailpipe when a car is running.But it was up to the human ears of trained sound specialists to analyze the source of those sounds and

By Tom Murphy • Feb. 1, 1998

Big Three Economists: Hey, Not to Worry Despite overseas economic turmoil,they see strong ‘98

Despite a financial maelstrom in Hong Kong, Thailand and Brazil, plus fourth-quarter turbulence on Wall Street and a late-fall slippage in U.S. vehicle sales, the U.S. Big Three economists - to a man and a woman - dauntlessly look for a seventh straight record year for the auto industry's U.S. market in 1998.The year just completed already has prolonged the winning streak, and the economists expect

By AL Rothenberg • Jan. 1, 1998

Kyoto ‘Agreement’ Likely Means Nothing But Gore gets to play candidate

When negotiators sat down to regulate controls on six greenhouse gases last month in Kyoto, Japan, they should also have considered a seventh: limits on the emissions that contribute to smoke and mirrors.Because when the fog clears and the hall of mirrors is taken down, Kyoto shapes up as little more than a campaign stop for Vice President Al Gore.The U.S. agreed to participate in a binding plan to

By Jeff Green • Jan. 1, 1998

Detroit, LA auto shows usher in the new year.

Less than a decade ago, the concurrent auto shows in Detroit and Los Angeles were reviewed by the carmaking industry as separate but equal. But since the Detroit event became the Northamerican International Auto Show (NAIAS) in 1989, the world's spotlight has focused on the Motor City during the first week of January.Media from around the globe flock to Detroit to see the more significant world and

By Tim Keenan • Jan. 1, 1998

Kuka’s Welding Technique Doubles Production Speed

An exciting high-speed MIG/MAG arc welding system, combining stationary two-wire MAG welding equipment with robot-aided manipulation of the component, is now available from KUKA Welding Systems+Robot Corp., Sterling Heights, MI. Not to be confused with other arc-welding systems that require huge inputs of energy, KUKA's two-wire MAG technique achieves maximum deposition efficiency and high welding

Jan. 1, 1998

Kaisen Cuts Costs GROWTTH pays big dividends at Freudenberg-NOK

CLEVELAND, GA - Tim Stickles and Gary Chastain knew it was possible.They knew that if their kaizen - or "continuous improvement" - team cut the time it takes to change over a valve stem seal press at the Freudenberg-NOK General Partnership (FNGP) plant here, the company would save money and employees could once again spend weekends with their families.Currently, machine operators spend 37.5 hours

By Tom Murphy • Dec. 1, 1997

Brazil Hits Major Bump A rocky road in early ‘98, but wheels won’t fall off

Hitting on all cylinders, the Brazilian auto industry this year seemed poised to cruise past the 2.1 million-vehicle output mark. Until, that is, the world stock market hit some rough pavement and sent the economy of the world's seventh largest car market into the wall.Industry observers say the damage likely will linger through the first quarter of 1998, dropping as much as 18% from like-1997 and

By SAID DEEP • Dec. 1, 1997

Asia Future is Cloudy Asia/Pacific’s crash calls for caution

From Indonesia's burning forests to Thailand's downward spiraling baht to Japan Inc.'s slippery slide to Hong Kong's plunging stock markets - Asia/Pacific's boom times turned to bust in the economic meltdown of late 1997."It was a horrible year," says Linda Yuen-Ching Lim, director of the Southeast Asia Business Program at the University of Michigan School of Business. "And next year should be just

By Barbara McClellan • Dec. 1, 1997

The Day the Earth Stood Still Global Warming: Sci-Fi or real thing?

TOKYO - I'm not a big sci-fi fan. Most of the old sci-fi movies had the same plot: Some-where west of Laramie, a family in a station wagon suddenly was horrified to see a brightly shining object coming toward them. When it landed, out popped little creatures with huge eyes, pot bellies and frog-like skin.Their language was unintelligible, but their message was clear: Give us your youngest child. Then

By David C. Smith • Nov. 1, 1997

Labor peace; time now to add members; chart Big Steel merger

The phone call came from Canadian Auto Workers president Basil (Buzz) Hargrove to UAW President Stephen P. Yokich about one week into the Canadian Auto Workers' three-week strike against GM.The CAW strike fund was dwindling quickly. Leaders asked members for a special assessment to prop up the kitty in case the walkout lasted more than a month.Don't worry, Mr. Yokich assured his Canadian counterpart,

By Gardner, Greg • Dec. 1, 1996

Sentimental journey

Retro. Futro. Heritage. Whatever you call it, it's starting to cause a commotion in mainstream automotive design.Once strictly reserved for low-volume niche cars and quirky experiments, the cues and shapes of the past are starting to show up on much higher volume cars, and promise to become major elements of many future bread-and-butter vehicles. The goal is to escape a sea of sameness and renew a

By Drew Winter • Nov. 1, 1996

Deciphering future product preference: the key is understanding what drives product image

Consumer preferences for the type and concept of the vehicle they purchase is a continually evolving process. Generally, the type of vehicle a consumer buys changes as he ages and moves through the various stages of his life. The usual cycle has a younger consumer starting off with a lower-price, small car or truck, and then continually moving into a larger and more expensive vehicle as he ages.Although

By CHRISTOPHER W. CEDERGREN • Nov. 1, 1996

No one has to ask ‘What’s a Jaguar?

SANTA BARBARA, CA -- Jim Padilla is as American as apple pie. Mike Dale is as British as beef Wellington. Jim pronounces Jaguar "Jag-yer," Mike "Jag-you-are"It really doesn't matter how they say it: the Yank and the Brit are working to restore one of the world's best-known automotive brands to its former glory as a leader in the prestige segment where image is everything.Although they have quite different

By David C. Smith • Oct. 1, 1996

The year of the eights

Several auto analysts believe 1997 to be a watershed year for the industry: If the model year sustains strong sales, it could be the first signal that the automotive sector, like a growing snake shedding its skin, is tortuously evolving away from its boom-'n-bust business heritage.But to maintain the sort of solid, steady sales that could eliminate the past's often ruinous cycles, automakers know

By Bill Visnic • Oct. 1, 1996

Steel crazy, after all these years: truck popularity, consumer preference keeps steel strong.

Like the strains of an old country song, steel continues to maintain its own melody and momentum.Because of the shifting market -- from cars to trucks -- and an apparent consumer preference for the material, steel content of the average family vehicle has increased for the sixth straight year.In addition to the popularity of pickups and sport/utility vehicles (SUVs), which use more sheet metal than

By Jackson, Kathi • Sept. 1, 1996

Stainless structures: PNGV Supercar highlights qualities of stainlesssteel

If the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles (PNGV) Supercar project is any indication of the future of automobiles, then "light" is the key word and stainless steel is one material to watch.Technology developed for the project includes a lightweight stainless steel vehicle structure designed by Armco Inc. and Autokinetics Inc.Although it's often passed up in favor of other steel products for

By Kinsler, Christen • Sept. 1, 1996

Tough fluff: plastics recycling faces big barriers.

Recycling automotive plastics still sounds good on paper, but low landfill costs, weak demand for recycled compounds and the high cost of separating and identifying different types of plastics remain formidable economic barriers.Take the case of Phoenix Fiberglass, a Cobourg, Ont., company that filed for bankruptcy protection last March. For about five years, Phoenix tried to reclaim the core calcium

By Gardner, Greg • Sept. 1, 1996

Plastics graduate underhood.

When Dustin Hoffman was told in the 1967 movie The Graduate that plastics were the future, not even the forward-thinking screenwriter could have known that 30 years later plastics would show up in as many places under the hood as they do today.Although the development of underhood plastics began five years before Mr. Hoffman and Simon & Garfunkel made Mrs. Robinson famous, plastics suppliers and molders

By Tim Keenan • Sept. 1, 1996

Chipping in: new Texas Instruments DSP could be major breakthrough

Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) is "chipping in" to the auto industry's effort to simplify vehicles and their systems with a new digital signal processor (DSP). TI says it's the first such computer chip designed specifically to improve the performance, lower costs and reduce component count of systems driven by small motors.The major benefits of the new chip, called the TMS320C240, or' C240 for short,

By Tim Keenan • Sept. 1, 1996