ZF supplier awards go to six top-notch companies

Six companies have received the ZF Supplier Award this year. The accolade, which the technology company awards to outstanding suppliers and partners, was presented for the seventh time.

The award for the most innovative supplier went to Elring Klinger AG. The group of companies headquartered in Dettingen/Erms, Germany, supplies ZF with specialty gaskets, plastic modules, thermal shielding parts, as well as control plates for automatic transmissions. In the jury's view, an innovative sandwich intermediate plate, which allows additional insert parts and functions to be integrated, was particularly prizeworthy this year. For Elring Klinger, this is the second time the company has been singled out as most innovative development partner by ZF, following its initial success in 2007.

In the area of production materials, the Supplier Award goes this year to three companies: In the iron casting category, ZF honored M. Busch GmbH as an outstanding supplier, both in terms of quality as well as delivery performance and costs. The Sauerland-based company was a strategic development partner for ZF's continuously variable CPower transmission, which delivers fuel savings of up to 25 percent with construction machinery. M. Busch also supplies the Group with brake disks and housings as well as hubs for trailers and commercial vehicles. In the area of electronics, Hirschmann Automotive from Austria is synonymous with top quality and innovative strength, such as with plug connectors. Metaldyne GmbH & Co. KG is also networked with ZF around the globe as technology leader for forged parts.

Kuka Systems, one of the leading providers of automatic production and assembly solutions, is an important partner for the industrial assembly of the 8HP and 9HP automatic transmissions. The Global Supplier Award finally goes this year to a partner with whom ZF has been cooperating for many years around the globe: Siemens AG. The Dax group supplies ZF with a range of goods, electronic components, and plant and equipment solutions.

"Anyone like ZF that is looking to shape a global value chain actively, needs innovative and, at the same time, reliable partners. The winners of this year's Supplier Awards meet these requirements in outstanding fashion," said Wilhelm Rehm, responsible for Corporate Materials Management and Industrial Technology on the ZF Board of Management.

The award ceremony for the ZF Supplier Awards took place at the ‘Materials Management Symposium’ organized by ZF, where international experts and executive managers meet annually to share their experience and develop strategies for purchasing and logistics.

Photograph: Six companies bagged the ZF Supplier Award this year (from left to right): Wolfgang Krappe (managing director, M. Busch), Thomas Amato (president and managing director, Metaldyne), Karl-Heinz Füß (manager sales, Siemens), Volker Buth (managing director, Hirschmann Automotive), Dr. Till Reuter (CEO, KUKA), Karl Schmauder (Member of the Board of Managers Elring Klinger).