Timken to Invest $60M in Talent, New Tools
CANTON, Ohio -- The Timken Co. has fundamentally redesigned its engineering, product management and business systems teams, bringing together talent and tools in a new way to drive development of its product lines and advance its technical capabilities, the company announced Wednesday. The company plans to invest $60 million in these areas over the next three years.
"We've been the tapered roller bearing experts since our founding," said Richard G. Kyle, president and CEO, in a prepared statement. "Over the past decade, we've leveraged that expertise to successfully expand into other types of bearings. Today we're announcing a major move taking us more deeply and more broadly into our targeted market space, a move intended to firmly position us among our customers as a full-line leader in industrial bearings and power transmission products and services."
Timken is a manufacturer of tapered roller bearings. In recent years, the company added spherical, cylindrical and housed bearings as well as transmissions, chain, augers, lubrication systems, gearboxes and a host of power system rebuild and repair services, mostly through acquisitions.
"Through DeltaX, we're integrating Timken talent, technology and tools in a way that will allow us to be even more agile and competitive," Kyle said. "We believe this new, more collaborative design, the first step in our initiative, will allow us to execute even better on our strategy to grow, delivering to the marketplace much faster and more efficiently those products that customers value."
The company expects to increase the number of new products and features Timkin introduces to the market by 30% and nearly 200 engineers and related technical resources will be hired over the next three years.
Starting with the appointment of three senior-level product line executives and a new research and development leader, the company sees DeltaX as one means to accelerate growth and further strengthen its ability to capture strategic opportunities that address customers' needs.
Newly appointed Timken veterans will drive three focused product growth streams, strategically aligning product management, development and design with production operations. The three product growth streams and the respective product line executives at the heart of the DeltaX Initiative are tapered roller bearings, led by Douglas H. Smith; industrial bearings, which includes the broader range of spherical, cylindrical, thrust and large diameter tapered bearings, led by Amanda J. Montgomery; and power transmission and engineering systems, focusing on the expanded portfolio of housed units, ball bearings, chain, couplings and related products, including seals, lubrication and monitoring equipment, led by Hans Landin.
Research and development will be driven by Stephen P. Johnson, who will lead a team focused on process and product technology, materials, prototypes, metrology and testing. The R&D group will support the product line leaders with technology fundamentals and services.
The Timken Co., which posted $3 billion in sales in 2013, has 17,000 employees and operations in 28 countries.
SOURCE: The Timken Co.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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