Click on the logo for information on the Automotive News PACE "Supplier of the Year" Award

The Award Ceremoney will be Monday, April 15th at the Fisher Theater in Detroit, on the evening of the first day of the Society of Automotive Engineers. The focus of the competition is innovation among automotive suppliers to the global motor vehicle industry. Award winners have included firms from Australia, East Asia, Europe, NAFTA and South America. Over the years this included software suppliers, machine tool and other process suppliers, materials innovations, and parts suppliers to other suppliers, to passenger car and commercial vehicle manufacturers and the (repair) aftermarket.

Each finalist, selected from the pool of applicants in early fall, is visited in the November-January period by a team of 2 independent judges, who include individuals from a wide array of backgrounds, from OEM assembly plant managers to engineers to a race car driver and even (gasp!) a couple economists and a banker. The 20-plus judges meet in a closed door session in February to select winners. This past year I visited:

• BorgWarner with its compact brushless actuator for emissions control
• Brose with its kick-to-open hands-free rear lift gate opener
• Continental with its LocSync tire pressure monitor system that uses software rather than additional sensors to associate the correct tire gauge with the correct location
• Visteon with its MSF zero-leak HVAC connector

If you're not one of the roughly 300 attending the award ceremony, look for a late evening flash story on the Automotive News web site and corporate PR releases for the winners.

...mike smitka...