MORE AUTOMOTIVE BUSINESS FOR PAL - THIS TIME FROM CHINA VIA JAPANThe automotive industry has proved a fertile area for PAL particularly in India with machines being installed to plate everything from silencer systems to wheel trims for cars and motorbikes, and emblems to sari guards for motorbikes. Australia and the USA also have PAL lines hard at work producing top quality plated components for the car industry. Now, thanks to an order from the Sakae Riken Kogyo Co Ltd, there’s to be a PAL machine in Wuxi, in eastern China plating on plastic for that self-same industry. The long established Sakae Riken company is based in Nagoya in Japan very near Toyota and supplies a wide variety of internal and external automotive parts and accessories for such key manufacturers as Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Mitsubishi, Daihatsu, Isuzu, Suzuki and Hino. Sakae Riken has been involved in surface treatment operations since way back in 1948 and started the development and prototyping of plated plastic products as early as 1952. It now has net sales of US$225m (as at September 2003) and 870 employees. Many of the major players amongst Japan’s car manufacturers such as Toyota, Nissan and Honda have been investing in China. Now as a sub-contractor, Sakae Riken is doing the same. Wuxi, one of the cities in Jiangsu Province, is tucked away on the Yangtze river. It boasts a vibrant plating industry where plenty of Japanese companies, including Sakae Riken, have set up factories. Tamba Trading, PAL’s Japanese agent, made an approach to Sakae Riken way back in 2003. "It was before the SARS outbreak," explains Ken Tamba of Tamba Trading. "Needless to say, once SARS hit, everything was put on hold! We were delighted to get their order this year for an electroless nickel, copper, nickel and chrome plating line. The machine is a gate type with 22 sets of transporters and keeps us on our toes for it also features a new type of technology ?an electromagnetic positioning system. As might be expected it’s a big machine, measuring 90m in length, 21m in width and 6.5m in height. PAL will be shipping it in three stages with the first shipment in September. "It goes without saying that both PAL and Tamba Trading are working hard to ensure the success of this line for Sakae Riken. We are confident that the plating quality and our installation and after-sales-service will encourage this company, in the forefront of plating on plastics technology, to come back for more!" Further information on Sakae Riken at www.sakaeriken.co.jp ANOTHER PAL MACHINE FOR AUSTRALIA
Run by Chris O’Farrell, the company was founded in 1966 by his father, Terry, and serves customers primarily located in and around Ballarat as well as some based in Melbourne. It plates mostly heat-treated work, a combination of pressings, stampings, spring clips and fasteners. They have been using an old automatic zinc barrel machine that they acquired second hand. All is about to change! They have now ordered a PAL machine controlled by OSST, that will provide them not only with superb plating quality but allow them to assure individual barrel load thicknesses and produce process history reports. "We are very much looking forward to its arrival," says Chris O’Farrell. "The fact that we have placed our order is enabling us to promote our impending business expansion and assuring our customers of our forthcoming quality assurance capability. "PAL’s reputation was enough for us. We didn’t go to anyone else for a competitive quote. Indeed, I have to admit that I hadn’t seen a PAL machine until we saw two barrel lines in operation at Hilti. That was enough to encourage me to add an automatic load/unload system to our order. I was very impressed by the scale of the PAL operation both in Hong Kong and Shenzhen. A whole new era is about to begin for us!" Buy-off of the machine took place in mid-July.
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