Wescast Awarded General Motors Programs
Wescast Industries Inc. (NASDAQ:WCST) (TSE:WCS.A.) has been chosen to supply machined iron exhaust manifolds for several of GM’s new engine programs to be introduced over the next few years.
The Metal Fabricating Div. personnel are even working on what are being called “foot printed lines,” press lines that will be common from plant to plant. Standard equipment and standard practices mean, for example, that someone might go from the plant in Marion, Indiana, to the Parma, Ohio, plant and be able to operate the equipment.
“Not only have we commonized our die standards across North America,” he adds, “we are working with our European operations and our Brazilian operations that make dies so that we will have a world standard.” This means that dies will be able to be produced at various sites with the assurance that no matter where it is made, it will meet the same specifications.
Included will be manifolds for the new Electron and High Value V6 engine programs, to be shipped to the St. Catharines and Tonawanda Engine Plants respectively. These engines will be featured in various Epsilon and mid-luxury class vehicles starting in 2003. In addition these engines will be used on the GMT 235 platform for the next generation of minivans.
“We are very excited about this new business, as it demonstrates our ability to continue to successfully grow our market share in North America,” said Ray Finnie, President and CEO of Wescast Industries Inc. “The programs commence production in mid 2002, and will fully ramp up by 2005. The people at Wescast work diligently to continue to be General Motors‘ supplier of choice,” noted Finnie.