NEWS

On May 2nd representatives of PMG Holding GmbH, PMG Füssen GmbH and the Reutte plant of PMG Asturias SAU as well as representatives of the construction company Xaver Schmid met at the site of the new production building of PMG Füssen for the ground breaking ceremony. After completion of the new building, PMG Füssen will expand its production area from currently 15,000 m² to 17,000 m². This expansion will be used for the planetary carrier production line, currently located on Plansee premises in Reutte/Austria. In the near future also a manufacturing line for synchronizer rings is planned to be installed in the new building.

from left: H. Bieber (Site Manager Xaver Schmid), E. Holzmann (CFO PMG Füssen), J. Mücklich (Xaver Schmid), J. Garcia (CFO PMG Holding), C. Rasch (Managing Director PMG Füssen), Dr. M. Krehl (CEO PMG Holding), T. Dreßen (Project Manager PMG Füssen), K. Jackermeier (Plant Manager PMG Reutte)

PMG Shanghai Fengxian Co., Ltd., the successor of PMG Shanghai China Co., Ltd., which had already obtained the ISO/TS 16949 certificate in 2009, received its ISO/TS 16949 certificate in March 2012.

 

Please find the certificate here.

The Chinese subsidiary was founded in 2004 according to one of PMG's most important principles “local content on a global scale”.  In 2009, the new Chinese plant with a size of approximately 5.000 m² / 54.000 sq.ft. was built. PMG Shanghai Fengxian is focused on the production of components used in engines, manual / double clutch transmissions, oil pumps and shock absorbers, has a production capacity of approximately 25 million pcs. and employs about 150 people.

PMG Shanghai Fengxian

Essen/D / Reutte/A ", December 15th, 2011 - Vermögensverwaltung Erben Dr. Karl Goldschmidt GmbH" (VVG), based in Essen (Germany), today acquired the PMG division of plansee GROUP, Reutte (Austria), after successfully completing purchasing negotiations.

PMG has long standing experience in the processing of powder metal. With a special focus on the production of high-grade powder metal components and system components for the automotive industry. PMG employs approximately 1200 people at seven locations, located in Spain, China, the United States and Germany.
"According to our philosophy of sustainable investments, we see PMG as an ideal extension of our technology-oriented company portfolio into the automotive sector. It is our intention to let PMG continue the currently successful company strategy. A special focus will be laid onto the prospective change in individual mobility due to electrically powered and hybrid vehicles. Based on the innovative power and the broad market presence of PMG, we will accelerate the development of the business in system components and noticeably increase the presence in the emerging markets.", says Albert-Frederick Freiherr von Dörnberg, managing director of VVG.
The management of PMG is more than welcoming VVG as the new owner. "The general ideas of management and staff of PMG are virtually identical with those of VVG. We are looking forward to the cooperation", says Dr. Michael Krehl, CEO of PMG.

 

About VVG
The investment company "Vermögensverwaltung Erben Dr. Karl Goldschmidt GmbH" (VVG) is a financial holding company. Since its inception in 1936, members of the Goldschmidt family have been pooling assets in this company. The traditional investment has been the Goldschmidt-Thermit Group, which was a former corporate division of "Th. Goldschmidt AG" and is now active on all continents with 23 subsidiaries, supplying goods and services to the railroads of this world.
Please find further information about Goldschmidt on the homepages of the Group: www.vvgoldschmidt.de and www.goldschmidt-thermit.com

„You are the cream of the crop“ – with these words Horst Wiedemann, Vice President Corporate Purchasing & Logistics, greeted the 5 suppliers. PMG Executive Director, Dr. Michael Krehl, and Christian Rasch, Managing Director of PMG Füssen, accepted the award for the Füssen plant.

„Our customer ZF’s global key to success are efficient and strong partners who excel in quality, technology, innovation, logistics and competitiveness", declares Christian Rasch „and I would like to thank every single member of the Füssen staff, who have earned this award by their continuous hard work.“

PMG supplies special components for manual and automatic transmissions, for oil pumps and chassis to ZF. In a presentation to the global purchasing and logistics management of ZF, Dr. Michael Krehl illustrated the PMG portfolio and provided a glimpse of future product developments, especially for hybrid and electric vehicles. ZF is one of the PMG group’s major customers worldwide.

Says Managing Director Néstor Martínez: "On behalf of the awarded team of PMG Asturias, I would like to express our gratitude to those in the PMG Group that supported this effort, and our commitment to continue on the path of operational excellence."

Executive Director Michael Krehl comments: "Congratulations to the TPM Award. I am proud of your achievement and after several years of hard work you and your team have definitively earned this award."

JIPM launched the PM award system in 1964, to "strengthen the improvement of enterprise constitutions and contribute to the development of industry, by promoting the modernization of plant maintenance and the development of plant maintenance technologies." The TPM Excellence Awards, in which the results of plants' TPM activities are judged and honored, have been awarded to some 2,000 plants since the awards' inception. These awards play a valuable role in JIPM's assessment operations for the development of Japan's industrial sector.

Certificate Award for TPM Excellence Category B

Diana Castrillo received the award on behalf of PMG                                                      

...for a one- way clutch outer race made for EXEDY Global parts Corporation, Belleville, Mich. Used in a torque- converter stator, the heavily loaded part transmits more than 274 Nm of torque amounting to extremely high hertzian contact stresses on the cam surface and high tensile stresses in the hoop area. A proprietary surface densification process forms the inner surface of the race to a minimum density of 7.7 g/cm³. The process provides improved durability over a fully dense hot forged part. The PM part was converted from conventional steel using sprag elements with a cam profile into a design incorporating the cam profile in the inner diameter.

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The award was given for three high-precision powder metallurgy (PM) steel parts which operate in oil pumps in new larger hybrid SUVs. Choosing PM improved the oil pump’s efficiency in addition to reducing energy consumption and lowering vibration.

They accepted the award for their company at PowderMet2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

PM is an automated metalworking process that forms metal powders into precision components used in auto engines and transmissions, business machines, hardware, and biomedical products. More than 800 million pounds of PM parts are made annually in North America.

The competition is sponsored annually by the Metal Powder Industries Federation, international trade association for the metal powder producing and consuming industries.

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Made from a modified iron–copper PM material, the complex part is formed to a density of 7.0 g/cm3. The stator, featuring five intricate center holes, is a one-piece design that replaced two parts. Very tight tolerances help to minimize any internal oil leakage between the adjoining pressurized chambers. The PM stator helps reduce fuel consumption and the formation of exhaust gases, as well as improving engine performance, especially torque at low rpms. It has two functions: a spline for the timing belt pulley and the VVT housing. The PM process offered substantial cost savings despite finishing operations such as sizing, machining, deburring, and steam treating.

 

Mitsubishi Materials PMG Corporation, Tokyo, Japan, and its customer Fuji Kiko Co. Ltd., Shizuoka, Japan, won the grand prize in the automotive chassis category for a high-strength gear set used in a new tilting and telescoping steering column. The gear set consists of a tooth lock and two cams. Made from diffusion-alloyed PM steel, the parts have a density greater than 7.05 g/cm3 and a tensile strength greater than 159,000 psi and a 57 HRA hardness. In replacing forged and machined parts, PM offered substantial cost savings with a net-shape design that eliminated the need for machining.

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The pulley operates in the timing control mechanism for a 4-stroke 115-horsepower outboard motor. With an outer diameter of 4.36 inches, it is considered large for PM stainless steel. It is made to a density of 6.7 g/cm3 and has a tensile strength of 49,300 psi and yield strength of 21,750 psi. Successfully producing the large pulley required a special powder-mixing technique of first coating the particles with a liquid binder, followed by the addition of a substantial amount of a special lubricant. These additives were completely removed by precisely controlled vacuum dewaxing. Machining the inner diameter counter bore is the only secondary operation.

The Awards were presented during the 2007 International Conference on Powder Metallurgy & Particulate Materials held in Denver, May 13–16 and sponsored by MPIF and APMI International.

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...in the automotive transmission category for a one way clutch race (OWC race) made for General Motors Powertrain, Pontiac, Michigan. The high-strength part is used in the GM 4T40/45E automatic transmission, operating in Chevrolet, Pontiac and Saturn vehicles.

The PM race undergoes a proprietary surface densification process (DensiForm®) on the part’s complex geometry. The process ensures full density on the surface, a contact fatigue strength of more than 524,000 psi (3,615 MPa), and a tensile fatigue strength of 111,000 psi (765 MPa). These values match forged heat-treated steels.

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This prize-winning sprocket features not only complex geometries and tight tolerance margins but a novel Fe-Cr material (SIRON® P820m) which has with this application for the first time been used in volume production. Compared to conventional P/M technology considerable cost reductions could be realized.

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Should vibrations in cars be dampened by “sporty” shock absorbers or would you prefer a more comfortable ride – at the expense of safe driving? Forget about questions like these with new electronic damping systems. The key feature in these systems are new continuously variable shock absorbers, which change from “soft” to “hard” at lightning speed. The sensors of an electronic controller check speed, acceleration, loading condition, throttle motion as well as road conditions every 2 milliseconds. Then sensor driven control software calculates the damping required for each wheel.

The mechanical core of electronically controlled shock absorbers is a proportional valve which finally tunes the damping. Jointly with a leading manufacturer of damping systems, Sinterstahl Polmetasa has developed its key component: A valve seat (see illustration below), which is tailor made precisely for this application. Being manufactured from carbon and copper alloyed steel powder by advanced powder metal (PM) processing, the valve seat combines geometric complexity with high precision. The inherent cost effective nature of PM processing provides this combination of properties at the lowest available manufacturing cost.

Several variants of such valve seats have been produced in the past years at relatively low volume in Sinterstahl Polmetasa’s Mondragon facility since the system has been historically available for upper class vehicles only. As electronically controlled shock absorbers are now being offered on middle size passenger cars, the latest generation of seats will be produced in high volumes, not at least due the high productivity of the Mondragon facility. It was only in June that the innovative achievements of Sinterstahl Polmetasa’s development team was recognized by the ”Overseas Award of Distinction“ at the 2004 World Congress on Powder Metallurgy and Particulate Materials, PM2Tech, in Chicago.

Sinterstahl is one of the three business units of the Plansee group and currently operates production plants in Germany, Spain and USA. These four facilities house approximately 800 employees and produce annual sales of more than $110 million Euros. Sinterstahl supplies the automotive industry OEMs and their first tier suppliers with products used in powertrain, chassis and racing applications.

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