Toyota has granted its “Achievement Award” in the “Supply” category to Schaeffler. With this distinction the Japanese automobile manufacturer acknowledges the quality of the products and services supplied by the Schaeffler Group. Schaeffler is one of only four suppliers to have received the “Achievement Award” in recognition of their supply performance at Toyota’s “Annual Business Meeting 2009” in Brussels.
“It is a fantastic success indeed to win this recognition from a company that is well-known for being a particularly discerning customer,” says Dr. Peter Pleus, President Schaeffler Engine Systems Division.
A hydraulic support element, developed by Schaeffler for the engine valve train, was displayed as a technical example in the background of the award ceremony. Ensuring automatic valve lash adjustment, this component is used in Toyota’s new ZR engine. This four-cylinder gasoline engine comes with 1.6 and 1.8 liter cubic capacity and is, for instance, installed in the Auris and Avensis models.
Compared with the previous ZZ generation, ZR engines feature up to six percent reduced fuel consumption. This is achieved thanks to variable valve control as well as optimized friction within the engine.
A special technical characteristic of the hydraulic support element manufactured by Schaeffler is a ceramic ball is used for the check valve in the component interior. This places even higher demands on the manufacturing process. So it was not the innovative ability of the globally operating supplier alone that was decisive for receiving the award. Quality and delivery aspects also played an important part.
Traditionally Schaeffler is considered to be a dependable partner of the automotive industry, becoming involved in numerous processes early on in the development stage with many automobile manufacturers. This is also the case with Toyota. One example is the joint hydraulic support element project, which was launched at the beginning of 2006 and culminated in the start of volume production in the fall of 2008.
“The close dialog with our customers gives us the opportunity to fully focus our innovative ability on their specific requirements,” explains Dr. Peter Pleus. “For example, we managed to successfully integrate the ceramic element suggested by Toyota in the manufacturing process.”
In presenting the “Achievement Award” to Schaeffler, Toyota is at the same time attesting its satisfaction with the production process. “The excellent results achieved in audits and project evaluations arise from the strongly interwoven collaboration between Project Management, Sales, Development, Production and Quality Assurance,” Dr. Peter Pleus points out.
For Toyota and many other companies, quality starts as early as with the ion of suitable suppliers. After all, an automobile is only as good as the sum of its individual parts. Each of these makes a decisive contribution to overall quality – and thus to customer satisfaction.
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