Cross Huller Honored With Ford's 2002 World Excellence Award

STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich., April 16 -- Cross Huller received Ford Motor Company's Recognition of Achievement World Excellence Award, recognizing the company as one of its top suppliers in the world for 2002 performance.

The World Excellence Awards provide annual recognition based on quality, cost and delivery performance. Forty-one suppliers from 13 countries won awards in various categories.

Tony Brown, Ford vice president, Global Purchasing, said, "Congratulations to Cross Huller. You are one of Ford's most valuable partners. Without your extraordinary contributions, we could not have achieved many of our goals in 2002."

A Recognition of Achievement Award is given to suppliers who impact customer satisfaction by providing significant contributions in key areas: Corporate Citizenship for Environmental Leadership and for Social Responsibility, High Mileage Improvement, Consumer Driven 6-Sigma, Warranty Reduction and Consumer Focused Technology. Recognition of Achievement Awards went to 13 suppliers.

Finally, the Warranty Reduction Award recognizes suppliers for excelling in warranty improvement, and Consumer Focused Technology Award recipients have successfully launched Ford-first technologies.

The Recognition of Achievement Award for Consumer Focused Technology was presented to Bob Pelachyk, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cross Huller - North America, last week at a formal presentation to honor 41 key Ford suppliers. This award was given to only one Metal Cutting Machine Tool Company and clearly demonstrates that the level of manufacturing technology and support provided by Cross Huller is recognized within the Ford organization as world class.

Cross Huller is a business unit of Huller Hille GmbH, a division of ThyssenKrupp Technologies. Cross Huller provides low, medium and high volume modular transfer line and agile production systems to the global automotive and off-road / construction industries. Cross Huller also provides extensive after-market services including spare parts, service, preventative maintenance and machine remanufacturing.

Cross Huller - North America, together with major sister divisions in Germany and the United Kingdom provides a common global machine tool architecture, while offering local application engineering and support to each market area's unique needs. Additional support is provided in the South America and Asian markets by plants in Korea and Brazil.

Cross Huller is ISO 9001 and ISO 14000 certified, and also QS9000-TE supplement compliant.