General Motors Awards Major North American Welding Control Contract to Schneider Electric

RALEIGH, N.C.--Feb. 2, 20040, 2004--Schneider Electric has been awarded a multi-year contract to supply Square D brand resistance welding controls to all General Motors North American manufacturing facilities. This five-year agreement was awarded to Schneider Electric's Industrial Applications Team and is valued in the tens of millions of dollars. The welding control solutions to be supplied under this agreement include resistance weld controllers, power distribution panels and monitored power systems, all designed and assembled in Raleigh, NC.

The new contract will expand the number of GM plants using Schneider Electric resistance welding solutions to cover all 31 General Motors body shop and general assembly plants in North America. This is the first time in its history that General Motors has awarded to one supplier a contract for resistance welding control across all of its North American manufacturing facilities.

GM made the selection based upon Schneider Electric's technological leadership in resistance welding control over the past 60 years and its network of service and support. With over 25 patents in resistance welding technology to its credit, Schneider has supplied advanced welding control solutions to GM and other automotive manufacturers for new vehicle programs for many years.

GM recognizes and values weld body integrity as a critical element in ensuring quality in the vehicle manufacturing process. Structural integrity and body panel finish are two key areas in which customer perceptions of the level of vehicle quality is based. Schneider Electric's patented weld algorithms ensure that the electrical characteristics of the welding circuit are monitored and adjusted for variances to produce consistent and repeatable quality welds.

Another of Schneider Electric's recent resistance welding innovations is a safety gate panel for monitored power applications that provides safe access to equipment for required maintenance within a robot weld cell.

Schneider Electric is well structured to support GM's deployment of a common weld platform across their broad North American manufacturing base. The Raleigh-based Industrial Applications Team's high-volume manufacturing process has proven capable of supplying thousands of weld controls to multiple plants having the same vehicle launch schedule.

"Our track record in applying innovative resistance welding control technology, as well as the global resources we can direct in servicing General Motors facilities anywhere in the world, were key factors in our selection as GM's lead North American supplier for this application," said Ron Pollmann, Schneider Electric's Strategic Account Director for General Motors.

For more information on engineered solutions from Schneider Electric's Industrial Applications Team, visit www.us.Squared.com/iat or call IAT at 1-919-855-1100.

Headquartered in Palatine, Ill., the North American Operating Division of Schneider Electric had sales of $2.7 billion in 2002. The North American Operating Division is one of four geographic divisions of Schneider Electric, headquartered in Paris, France, and markets the Square D, Telemecanique and Merlin Gerin brand products to customers in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In the United States, Schneider Electric is best known by its flagship Square D brand, with Telemecanique becoming increasingly known in the industrial control and automation markets and supported by many Square D distributors. For 100 years, Square D has been a market-leading brand of electrical distribution and industrial control products, systems and services. Schneider Electric is a global electrical industry leader with 2002 sales of approximately $9.5 billion. Visit Schneider Electric at www.us.schneider-electric.com, www.us.squared.com or www.us.telemecanique.com.