Briefs (December 01, 2002)

The Timken Company of Canton, Ohio, a producer of bearings and alloy steel, reached an agreement in October with Ingersoll-Rand Co. Ltd. of Woodcliff Lake, N.J., to acquire its Torrington subsidiary, a producer of needle roller, heavy-duty roller and ball bearings and motion control components and assemblies. The deal is for $700 million in cash and $140 million in Timken shares (all figures in US dollars). For more details, visit www.mro-esource.com.

Schneider Electric’s St. Hubert, Que., manufacturing facility recently received its ISO 9001:2000 registration. The ISO 9001:2000 registration indicates that the St. Hubert plant — which manufactures power distribution and industrial control equipment — conforms to ISO 9001:2000 quality standards for engineered products.

Diamond Chain Company of Indianapolis, Ind., a manufacturer of power transmission roller chain, is investigating the potential sale of its outdated, 500,000-sq-ft facility on a 20-acre site in downtown Indianapolis. The location has been its main plant and headquarters since 1918. The downtown four-storey plant is inadequate to meet the company’s increasingly sophisticated production demands. The company estimates the entire process could take about two years to complete. Diamond Chain is being represented by Meridian Real Estate Services and Trammell Crow Company.

Siemens Canada held an official opening ceremony for its recently relocated and expanded Transformer Repair Centre in Stoney Creek, Ont., in November. The facility handles inspections, repairs, rewinds and complete remanufacturing. It can also build new and exact duplicate transformers. The 70,000 sq ft site has the capacity to handle liquid- and air-cooled transformers up to 250 MVA and 230 kV. Dr. Albert Maringer, president and CEO of the company, spoke open-heartedly to the invited guests about the venture.

Power transmission supplier BNA Bonfiglioli North America Inc. of Concord, Ont., has restructured into two separate companies. Bonfiglioli Canada Inc. will service the Canadian market from the existing Canadian facility and Bonfiglioli USA will service the U.S. market from a new facility in Hebron, Ken.

Power-Motion Components Inc. of Aurora, Ont., is a new manufacturer’s agent formed by Mike Cotton to serve distributors and OEMs in the mechanical power transmission and automation marketplace. The company can be reached at 905-713-9952 or at mcotton@power-motion.net.

Tenaquip Limited, a distributor of industrial equipment and supplies, has appointed of Jim Law as vice-president, Ontario Region. Law has over 20 years experience in the safety and industrial equipment industry, and was formerly with Acklands-Grainger Inc. He is based at Tenaquip’s Mississauga, Ont., location, and can be reached at 905-890-2270 or jlaw@tenaquip.com.

The process equipment division of Peacock Inc. of Mississauga, Ont., now markets Graco’s fluid handling process equipment, including its Husky air-operatored double diaphragm pumps, sanitary pump systems and piston transfer pumps, reports Al Cunningham, senior product manger, pumps and valves.

Les Payne, president of Universal Pattern Co. Ltd. of Cambridge, Ont., has been elected president of the Canadian Tooling & Machining Association for 2002-2003. Details on the association can be found at www.ctma.com.

James S. Locker has been named president and chief operating officer of G.N. Johnston Equipment Co. Ltd., the exclusive dealer for Raymond Corp. in Canada. The company supplies manual and electric pallet trucks and walkie stackers, through to counterbalanced trucks and order pickers.

Invensys plc of London, England, has sold its Rexnord Corp. power transmission business based in Milwaukee, Wisc., to The Carlyle Group. It also has sold its Drive Systems business, a supplier of AC inverters and DC drives, to NewCo (Eastern) Ltd.

The ABB Group has certified over 10,000 of its products to its new industrial information technology standard. Its goal is to certify 40,000 relevant products by the end of 2002. Industrial IT is a patented concept for linking products and services together with the information needed to run, service and maintain them.

A compressed gas facility has been commissioned by BOC Canada Ltd. at its Magog, Que., hydrogen plant. The new facility will supply 1 million cu ft per month of gaseious hydrogen for delivery in cylinder and tube trailers to customers. Previously, the hydrogen was liquefied and delivered in tanker trucks.