Ryobi’s newest technology focus is structural parts for automobiles, including cross members and sub-frames using an aluminum casting system.

Premier Business Partners:

Tennessee Aluminum Processors

Ryobi Die Casting USA Inc. has been very busy in the past three years. The Shelbyville, Ind.-based company has developed new technologies and opened a manufacturing plant in Mexico that will put Ryobi among the automotive industry’s most essential suppliers, President Tom Johnson says.

“Our key strength is really our technology,” he states. “We’re always developing new technologies.” As a subsidiary of Japanese die caster and toolmaker Ryobi Ltd., based in Hiroshima, the company mirrors its parent corporation in that it continually studies market trends so that it can produce innovative parts.

Ryobi uses a high-pressure die cast process to manufacture complex aluminum castings, such as transmissions, engine blocks, transfer cases and related power train and structural products. “We started the company [in the United States] with some automotive business,” Johnson says. Ford and GM were its first customers, and it produced about $20 to $25 million in sales in 1986 its first year. Now, its biggest customers are still Ford and GM, but they have been joined by Toyota, Honda and Tuff Torq, and annual sales are in the $200 million range.

Great Expectations
“From a technology standpoint,” Johnson says, “the technology has advanced substantially from where we were then to now.” Ryobi’s newest technology focus consists of structural parts for automobiles. This includes cross members and sub-frames using an aluminum casting system.
“The vehicles are usually made of steel, and steel requires a lot of assembly and welding,” Johnson says. “You can basically take four or five parts and cast them into one part using aluminum if you know [how to use] this new technology.”

Europeans have been using similar technology in luxury vehicles and, now, others are following suit. “We think Toyota, Honda, GM and Ford will be using aluminum structural parts on the vehicle frame because it’s lighter than steel and it takes less assembling and welding,” he notes. “While there has been added aluminum in that transmission cases went from cast iron to aluminum, vehicles have increased in weight from other gadgets like airbags and electronics.”

Heavier vehicles use more fuel and with the “long-range [mileage] estimates that the government wants to impose, car manufacturers need to start thinking about getting that weight back out of the vehicles,” Johnson says. “And you can’t do it without new technology like lighter frames.”

Another industry trend that Ryobi is following is a move away from four-speed to six-speed transmissions. “That means [automakers] need all new-sized aluminum cases and we are the benefactor of that big switch,” Johnson says. A third trend is that engine blocks are also using more aluminum.

In May, the company announced that it opened a plant in Irapuato, Guanajuato, Mexico. “We’ll be running die casting for automotive companies in Mexico,” Johnson says. “A lot of our customers are building plants down there.” Operations will begin next October.