BEARING PRODUCTION IN FULL SWING – AT THE 5 NEW MAHLE PRODUCTION SITES.
The European automotive components market is largely saturated. Market shares can therefore only be increased by winning them from the competition. For a company like MAHLE, with a strategy of dynamic growth, this means extending the product portfolio permanently – to become complete supplier for everything in the engine compartment. The extension of the product programme towards connecting rod bearings for diesel and petrol engines, passenger car piston pin bushings, commercial vehicle bearings and rocker arm bushings are only a few examples. MAHLE has high production and material expertise that makes it possible to supply custom solutions for almost any type of application.
An important strategic step was the acquisition of the engine parts business of the Dana group, which has been integrated successfully into the MAHLE group for more than one year – and has added 5 European bearing production sites to MAHLE: Kilmarnock and Whitehill in Great Britain, Chavanod in France, Trento in Italy and Dolný Kubín in Slovakia. Also the R&D center in Rugby, England, is now part of the MAHLE group. Altogether, there are now 1,400 employees working to offer the customers in original equipment and aftermarket a comprehensive bearing range. Bearings and bushings are produced in large numbers in the British production sites – with the focus on cast and sintered aluminium bearings, which are also manufactured in lead-free versions. Components for the motorsport represent another important production sector – after all, MAHLE is the world’s leading manufacturer of motorsport bearings.
The French plant in Chavanod specialises in high-tech bearings in sputter technology as well as thermally sprayed coatings – components that are mainly used in modern heavy-duty diesel engines. The production site Trento in Italy has extensive know-how in galvanic production processes and supplies mainly the Italian market. And for small batch production, the Slovakian plant Dolny Kubin is the right choice.
In order to optimise communication and logistics, the newcomers to the MAHLE group are currently converting their IT systems to the MAHLE standard and add to the tool-making, which is an integral part of production, by the acquisition of external standard elements – in the interest of a production with optimised price-performance ratio.
MAHLE occupies therefore an excellent position in the bearing production. This is also backed up by a look at our customer list, which reads like the Who’s Who of European car and commercial vehicle manufacturers. Bearings for Volvo, Scania, Iveco as well as – due to the geographic closeness – various French applications are here one of the main areas. In addition to our original equipment expertise as key supplier and our convincing bandwidth in aftermarket applications, we offer therefore decisive advantages for MAHLE customers of all trade levels.