Balzers, Liechtenstein, 26 July 2016 – Oerlikon Balzers received a 2015 Pinnacle Award for Supplier Excellence from Delphi Automotive, its most prestigious supplier honor. Oerlikon Balzers was recognized for its contributions to Delphi’s Excellence culture and commitment to quality, value and cost performance.
Furthermore, Oerlikon Balzers received a 2015 Technology - Pinnacle Award for Supplier Excellence from Delphi Automotive. The award recognized Oerlikon Balzers for its ability to focus creative resources and help Delphi deliver globally relevant solutions that capitalize on the megatrends of safe, green and connected.
In recent years, Oerlikon Balzers has developed customized tribological coating solutions for and in close cooperation with Delphi. Coatings such as BALINIT DLC STAR have been adapted to meet Delphi’s needs over several years of development focused on reducing friction and wear.
“Oerlikon Balzers continues to develop projects to push the technical frontiers for future innovation,” says Loïc Cheynet, Head of Business Line ThinFilm Automotive at Oerlikon Balzers. “We made tremendous advancements in order to design products that allow even higher fuel efficiency, including work on component such as plungers, needles, pins, piston guides, pintles, sleeves, armatures, and rocker arms.”
Oerlikon Balzer’s leading position in carbon thin film coatings for automotive components is not only based on their expertise in plasma and vacuum technology, but also on their superior mass-production concept. Oerlikon Balzers offers a very efficient and cost-effective process which includes state-of-the-art automation and enables extremely high quality and reliability due to 100% inspection procedures realized by advanced measurement equipment. Consequently, BALINIT coatings are present today in the passenger cars of most leading brands worldwide. “Our R&D team members have profound knowledge of tribology and automotive applications that allows them to support car manufacturers and their suppliers in developing optimized systems. The solutions being developed by our experts enable our customers to further reduce fuel consumption and emissions through innovative designs,” says Wolfgang Konrad, Head of Business Unit Automotive at Oerlikon Balzers. "Suppliers like Oerlikon Balzers play a significant role in Delphi’s success,” said Sidney Johnson, senior vice president, Delphi supply chain management. “They help us provide our customers with globally relevant solutions that capitalize on the megatrends of safe, green and connected. We appreciate Oerlikon Balzers’ outstanding performance and understanding that excellence is simply how we operate.”
Delphi recognized 32 suppliers from 13 countries with its 2015 Pinnacle Award and five suppliers with its 2015 Technology award.