The Timken Company (NYSE: TKR) recently delivered its two millionth special bearing assembly to the Saarbruecken, Germany, production plant of ZF, a leading global supplier for automotive driveline and chassis technology. The milestone marks a long- standing collaboration between the two companies on the design of sophisticated bearing solutions for automatic transaxles.
Developed specifically for ZF automatic transaxles, the product is a two- row flanged pinion bearing assembly, referred to as a "TDOF." Over time, ZF and Timken worked together to refine the product, providing higher performance with fewer components in the assembly. The result was greater precision at a reduced cost.
"Timken TDOF assemblies have contributed to higher performance and longer service life within a consistently decreasing design envelope," says Jurgen Hodel, account manager -- supplier quality for ZF Saarbruecken. "Our long- term relationship with Timken exemplifies the kind of collaboration ZF is looking for as it strengthens its global role as a manufacturer of automatic transmissions."
"We're driven to improve our customers' performance by working collaboratively to connect their needs with our expertise in friction management and power transmission," says Bob Logston, vice president of Timken's Automotive Group in Europe. "Modern automatic transmissions are designed to accelerate quickly and smoothly with low fuel consumption. So, by reducing the size and weight of our product, ZF's product performs better."
Timken TDOF assemblies were first featured in ZF's four-speed inline automatic transaxles and continued to evolve with the even more efficient five-speed version. It is currently used in the six-speed inline automatic transmission cluster for front-wheel-, standard- or all-wheel-drive solutions and torques up to 750 Newton-meters. ZF's transaxles are featured in dozens of engine-transaxle combinations for a variety of different car platforms.
About ZF
ZF is a leading worldwide automotive supplier for driveline and chassis technology. The company operates 125 plants located in 26 countries and has nearly 54,500 employees. ZF revenues in 2005 totaled 10.9 billion euros. ZF is the third-largest automotive supplier in Germany and ranks among the 15 biggest worldwide.
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