---

Freudenberg-NOK's Gasket Lead Center Earns Shingo Prize

28 April 1998

Freudenberg-NOK's Gasket Lead Center Earns Shingo Prize

    PLYMOUTH, Mich., April 28 -- Freudenberg-NOK's Manchester,
N.H. Gasket Lead Center has earned the 1998 Shingo Prize for Excellence in
Manufacturing in recognition of its world-class achievements in manufacturing,
quality, productivity and customer satisfaction.
    The prestigious award will be presented to Freudenberg-NOK's Gasket Lead
Center and six other recipients at the Shingo Prize Conference and Award
Ceremony in Lexington, Ky. on May 14.
    "Receiving this Shingo Prize is a great honor," said Alfred J. Nadeau,
general manager of Freudenberg-NOK's Gasket Lead Center.  "This award
symbolizes the dedication of Freudenberg-NOK's 200 Gasket Lead Center
associates whose focus on continuous improvement provides world-class products
and services for our customers."
    "Freudenberg-NOK's Gasket Lead Center is truly one of our crown jewels,"
said Joseph C. Day, Freudenberg-NOK chief executive officer.  "The lead
center's dedicated, customer-focused work teams represent the essence of lean
systems and have created a benchmark for industry."
    According to Nadeau, the lead center associates have dramatically
increased productivity, slashed costs, enhanced quality, improved delivery and
increased customer satisfaction -- while creating a culture that embraces
process control, one-piece flow, product standardization, waste elimination,
reduced lead times and zero defects.
    Some of these achievements include:

    * saving nearly $1.1 million in the first three quarters of 1997;
    * increasing productivity by 40 percent;
    * decreasing scrap by 75 percent;
    * significant improvements in safety performance; and
    * earning several customer quality awards.

    Much of this success, Nadeau said, is from the company's innovative lean
systems program called GROWTTH(R) -- Get Rid Of Waste Through Team Harmony --
that fosters continuous improvement and empowers employees.
    Established in 1988, the Shingo Prize for Excellence in Manufacturing
recognizes companies throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico that have
demonstrated outstanding achievements in manufacturing processes leading to
quality enhancement, productivity improvement and customer satisfaction.  The
prize -- known as one of the "Triple Crown" awards for industrial excellence
along with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and the Deming Prize --
is administered by the Office of Business Relations in the College of Business
of Utah State University.
    Named in honor of the late Dr. Shigeo Shingo -- one of the world's leading
experts on improving the manufacturing process and one of the creators of the
renowned Toyota Production System -- the prize is awarded to businesses after
a rigorous application review and site inspection by a board of examiners.
The philosophy of the Shingo Prize is that world-class status may be achieved
through improving manufacturing processes, implementing lean, just-in-time
philosophies and systems, eliminating waste and achieving zero defects -- to
continuously improve products and costs.
    Freudenberg-NOK's Gasket Lead Center is one of two lead centers housed in
the company's 150,000-square-foot Manchester, N.H. facility.  The Gasket Lead
Center produces static engine and transmission gaskets manufactured by
injection molding.  Its major customers include Chrysler, Ford and General
Motors.
    Plymouth, Mich.-based Freudenberg-NOK is part of the Freudenberg and NOK
Group Companies, which have total annual sales of more than $6 billion.  With
global automotive sales of approximately $3.2 billion for 1997, the
Freudenberg and NOK Group ranks among the world's top 25 independent
automotive suppliers.
    Through a global network of facilities spanning 24 countries with some
21,500 employees worldwide, the supplier group offers its automotive customers
globally integrated products, including total sealing packages for engines,
transmissions and brakes, NVH components and modules, and all rubber, plastic
and PTFE components for suspension, steering, electrical and fuel systems.
    The Freudenberg and NOK Group also offers an extensive portfolio of
precision-molded products for the aerospace, appliance, business machine,
fluid power, marine, medical, off-highway equipment and recreational vehicle
markets.  For more information, visit the Freudenberg-NOK web site at
http://www.freudenberg-nok.com.

SOURCE  Freudenberg-NOK