Williams Controls Opens Manufacturing Facility In Mexico
1 April 1999
Williams Controls Opens Manufacturing Facility In Mexico for Electronic Throttle Controls
Highlights:
* Facility to serve truck and engine manufacturers' needs for ETCs in the
Mexican and South American markets
* Low cost operation due to satellite cell configuration and lower labor
costs
* Facility to provide backup and expansion capabilities for Williams'
other two ETC manufacturing centers
* Satellite cell configuration will serve customers' Just-In-Time supply
needs
* Williams to immediately pursue ISO-9001 certification
PORTLAND, Ore., March 31 -- Williams Controls, Inc.
announced that its has established a manufacturing operation in
Mexicali, Mexico to manufacture electronic throttle controls (ETCs) for the
company's truck and diesel engine manufacturing customers that operate in the
rapidly growing Mexican and South American markets.
The Mexicali operation will manufacture the company's floor mounted and
suspended throttle control pedal systems that will initially be shipped to
Williams' customers that have manufacturing operations in Mexico, Brazil and
Argentina and need ETCs and other Williams products on a Just-In-Time (JIT)
basis. After the startup phase, this facility will be capable of
manufacturing and shipping ETCs to customers anywhere in the world, providing
support for the five year strategic supply agreements recently announced with
Volvo Truck and Navistar.
The new facility will have a manufacturing cell that matches the ETC
manufacturing configuration in the company's Portland headquarters factory.
The company will immediately begin the process of becoming ISO-9001 quality
certified in Mexicali to be consistent with the company's three other primary
manufacturing facilities in Portland, Oregon, Sterling Heights, Michigan and
Deerfield Beach, Florida, all of which are QS-9000 certified. ISO-9001 is the
international equivalent of QS-9000, the automotive and truck manufacturing
quality standard that has been adopted in the United States by many automotive
and truck suppliers.
Williams Controls Chairman and CEO Thomas W. Itin stated, "This effort has
been in the planning stages for a number of months, and with the recent strong
commitments by a number of our customers to the Mexican and South American
markets, we knew that our timing was right to open this new facility."
Mr. Itin continued, "There are a number of reasons why the opening of this
operation is important. It is the third Williams Controls manufacturing
center that is producing electronic throttle controls for our customers. This
means that we now have sufficient manufacturing capacity to meet both the
current ETC demand from our heavy-truck customers and it is the beginning
steps of our manufacturing plan to meet the needs of new markets in which we
will participate, such as supplying ETCs to the automotive industry. Second,
the Mexicali facility gives Williams a presence in the rapidly growing market
in Latin and South America. Our customers have made major commitments to
these markets, and they have asked their key suppliers to do the same. We
feel confident that this center in Mexico will be sufficient to meet the
demand from this region of the world, and our presence there is also an
opportunity to supply product to our customers around the world."
Mr. Itin further stated, "The combination of having a singular focus on
electronic throttle controls in Mexicali and the low cost of doing business in
this region will give us a competitive cost advantage. We intend to use this
advantage not only in our current heavy- and medium-duty truck market, but
also as we apply our ETC technologies to the automotive and light truck
markets, which we are actively pursuing. The automotive market requires a
throttle control that is not as robust a design as that which is required in
the heavy-truck market, so automotive ETC systems will be lower in price than
their heavy truck counterparts. A number of auto manufacturers are pursuing
the shift from mechanical to electronic throttle controls, and having the low
cost Mexicali facility up and running will allow us to compete even more
effectively in this market."
Williams Controls is a leading manufacturer and integrator of innovative
sensors, controls and communications systems for the transportation and
communications industries. For more information, you can reach the Company at
http://www.wmco.com on the World Wide Web.
Forward-looking statements in this news release, if any, are made under
the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. Certain important factors could cause results to differ materially from
those anticipated by the statements, including the impact of changing economic
or business conditions, the impact of competition, the availability of
financing, the success of products in the marketplace, other factors inherent
in the industry and other factors discussed from time to time in reports filed
by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission.