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Cross Huller Receives Ford Advanced Engineering Order for Cylinder Blocks

28 February 2000

Cross Huller Receives Ford Advanced Engineering Order for Cylinder Blocks

    STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich., Feb. 25 -- Cross Huller announced
today that it has received an advanced engineering order from Ford Motor
Company for a new cylinder block manufacturing system.  The order
will allow Ford and Cross Huller engineers to finalize detailed design and
build specifications, production rates, site location and delivery schedules.
    Ford's order follows a long history of successful cylinder block programs
supplied by Cross Huller plants throughout the world.  The most recent
programs are the new global family of in-line engine blocks, currently being
installed in Ford's Dearborn and Chihuahua, Mexico, engine plants, and a major
rework of a Cross Huller system to produce V8 cylinder blocks at Ford's Essex
Engine Plant in Windsor, Ontario.  The latter system produced cylinder blocks
one year and seven days after initial order placement -- an outstanding
achievement, considering that the line was originally designed to produce V6
cylinder blocks.
    The new system will feature Cross Huller's Global Transfer Line 2000
architecture.  According to Ron Quaile, Vice President of Sales and Proposal
Engineering, "Global Transfer Line 2000 is easily the most modular and most
convertible transfer line design available anywhere in the world.  It's a true
global standard that integrates the best practices from each of our major
facilities.  Global Transfer Line 2000 allows us to reduce costs while
improving delivery time and reliability and maintainability characteristics,
while achieving the demanding part tolerances and production capabilities
required by Ford Motor Company and our other automotive customers."
    Cross Huller is a business unit of Huller Hille GmbH, a division of
Thyssen Production Systems.  Headquartered in Essen, Germany, it is a 2.7
billion-DM division of ThyssenKrupp AG, with 8,000 employees in ten countries.
Thyssen Production Systems focuses its global activities on the development,
production and service of metal-cutting machine tools, automated assembly
systems and automotive body shop systems.
    Cross Huller - North America is ISO 9001 certified, QS-9000-TE supplement
compliant, and recently received Ford's prestigious Q1 award.  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 - North America, supported by two major sister
divisions in Ludwigsburg, Germany and Knowsley, England, provides a common
global machine tool architecture, while offering local application engineering
and support to each market area's unique needs.