Karl Schmidt Unisia Wins 2002 Nissan Quality Master Award

SOUTHFIELD, Mich., April 3 -- Karl Schmidt Unisia (KUS), a leading supplier of pistons to the North American automotive industry, today announced it has received the 2002 Nissan Quality Master Award.

The prestigious award is given to a supplier who undergoes a year-long evaluation by Nissan and successfully meets its rigorous criteria. Nissan evaluates a supplier's systems and processes, incoming quality, response time to changes in production schedules, cost reduction capability, design support, timely shipments, product performance and complexity, warranty, as well as its performance against Nissan's vehicle evaluation system. Based on a 100-point scale for overall performance related to these criteria, those suppliers achieving a score of 85 or higher receive the Quality Master Award. Only a small percentage of Nissan suppliers receive the recognition

"We are delighted to have earned this recognition," says Don Cameron, director of Sales. "It puts us among a very elite group of suppliers that Nissan recognizes as the best. We also commend our dedicated and hard working people who are truly responsible for KUS earning this award."

KUS currently supplies pistons to Nissan from its Marinette, Wisconsin, plant for its Sentra, Altima, Maxima, Quest, Frontier and Xterra models.

Karl Schmidt Unisia (KUS) is the North American piston operation of Kolbenschmidt Pierburg, one of the world's largest suppliers of pistons to the automotive and diesel industries. KUS designs and manufactures a broad range of pistons for a variety of applications and bore sizes for the North American market. The company has 1,600 employees, three manufacturing locations, a product engineering center, and a sales and engineering office.