Noble Metal Processing to Make Front and Rear Door for Ford
20 August 1998
Noble International's Noble Metal Processing company to Produce Front and Rear Door Inners For Ford Motor Company
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MI--Aug. 19, 1998--Noble Metal Processing, Inc. (NMP), a subsidiary of Noble International, Ltd. (AMEX:NIL) announced today that it received a letter of intent to produce tailored laser welded blank front and rear door inners for the 2001 Ford Explorer and Mercury Mountaineer. The company has also announced plans to open a third laser welded blanking facility to support production of the door inners.
NMP is scheduled to begin production of the door inners in June, 2000. Ford Motor Company expects the yearly volume to reach 479,000 vehicles. NMP expects annual revenue to increase over $9,000,000. The new facility is planned to be built in the Southern Ohio/Kentucky/Indiana area in order to reduce shipping costs to the stamping facility, which is located in Shelbyville, Kentucky.
Commenting on this arrangement with Ford Motor Company, John Baysore, President and CEO of NMP, said, "Our proprietary technology and value-added solutions approach to our Tier I and OEM customers make us the partner of choice for the production of these laser welded blank door inners. We are already successfully working with Chrysler, for whom we provided a satellite facility in Canada in 1997. We are very excited about this partnership with Ford and look forward to offering similar arrangements with other Tier I suppliers and OEMs in the future."
Noble International, Ltd. is a leading Tier II full-service supplier of automotive parts, component assemblies and value-added services to the automotive industry. As a Tier II supplier, Noble provides design, engineering, manufacturing, complete program management and other services to the automotive market. Noble delivers integrated component solutions, technological leadership and product innovation to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and Tier I automotive parts suppliers thereby helping its customers increase their productivity while controlling costs.
Certain statements in this news release may be "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933. Statements regarding future prospects and developments are based upon current expectations and involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from the forward-looking statements.