GKN has outlined how a focus on technology will play a key role in securing real growth.
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Chief executive Kevin Smith said the company has six key achievements to highlight as part of its focus on technology: Targeted, high-growth, technology-rich market sectors; Secured world leading positions in technology applications; Developed market leading products in automotive and aerospace; Won significant new business and has a pipeline full of opportunity; Developed a ‘customer intimate’ technology strategy and plan; World class people who are leaders in their fields.
Driveline is GKN’s core business and with annual turnover of €1.94 billion in 2003 accounted for more than half of core (ex Agusta Westland) group revenues.
Driveline’s competitive strengths are well-known – the company has over 42% of the global CVJ sideshaft market, a leading 18% share of the premium propshaft market, a similar leading (60%) share of torque management devises – viscous, and a growing share of geared driveline products such as power take-off units (PTUs), final drives and transfer cases, a result of the TFS acquisition.
GKN values the total driveline components market at £16.3 billion, with live axles (an area where GKN does not compete) and CVJ driveshafts contributing 35% and 21% of the value respectively.
Final drives, transfer cases, propshafts, Torque Management Devices (TMDs) and PTUs contribute 15%, 12%, 7%, 5% and 5% respectively. More importantly, especially with regards to technology development, GKN is targeting areas of the driveline sector it believes are growing the quickest, namely PTUs, TMDs and final drives.
Driveline operates in two distinct product technology fields: constant velocity joints (CVJ); and torque management technology. GKN made a strategic decision in 2002 to leverage its driveshaft competitive position into adjacent driveline technology, building on strengths in customer relationships, engineering competency and vehicle dynamics experience.
Put simply, GKN is aiming to access a higher value per car by selling torque management devices, building on its recent acquisition of the TFS operations.
GKN has been the technology leader in driveshaft products for many years and has continuously provided new design solutions for premium performance or new niche vehicle applications such as high output engine FWD, high steering angle FWD and high plunge AWD crossover vehicles.
CVJ technology will continue to advance as new applications appear but a new emphasis on the premium propshaft business will also be apparent, especially in Europe for light vehicle segments: RWD/AWD/passenger car; 4×2/4×4 truck and SUV.
Main sales will be to DaimlerChrysler, Land Rover, Jaguar, GM, Holden, Toyota, BMW, VW and Audi. Greater use will also be made in the future of a new Virtual Product e-Realisation (ViPeR) product development process, a global web based system run in partnership with MSC Software.
Despite GKN’s long-standing technology leadership in the driveshaft area, it is clear that new technology will play a key role in the Torque Technology Group (TTG) in the future.
GKN aims to penetrate 4WD and AWD markets with its torque management products and aims to develop new market segments, particularly front wheel drive torque management.
Torque systems revenues (including propshafts) are expected to grow two-and-a-half times in the next few years, rising from £328 million in 2003 to £800 million by 2008, driven by organic growth (partly resulting from technology advances) and acquisitions.
Within this total, sales of TMDs are expected to grow from £200 million in 2003 to £500 million by 2008. TFS will contribute £200 million of annual revenues and key core technologies.
GKN divides its TTG products into four streams: geared systems, active TMDs; passive TMDs; and next generation drivelines (active yaw control, integrated drives and e-motor driven systems.
GKN’s torque technology evolution is split into two phases: evolution 1, which is ongoing and which focuses on continuous improvement in areas such as weight, efficiency, development time and cost; and evolution 2, which represents step changes involving system architecture, new technologies, alternative propulsion and alternative fuels.
In the evolution 2 phase, GKN highlighted a number of new products that reflect possible technology developments well into the next decade. For example, the company revealed two new products that reflect a growing trend towards component integration – a CVJ integrated into the differential and a final drive unit (FDU) integrated with a torque management device (TMD).
The former facilitates packaging and weight reduction and could contribute towards problem solving for engine and steering architecture challenges arising from new crash regulations.
Volume is expected to grow from 150,000 vehicles in 2008 to one million by 2012. The latter offers reduced weight and cost.
GKN also showed a number a number of other ‘breakthrough’ technologies including front electronic torque management, electronic torque vectoring and future electric 4WD.
The active TMD for FWD vehicles could be aimed at a market estimated to be five million vehicles and application development is described as well advanced with selected OEMs. The system facilitates 70% of 4WD functionality and leverages GKN’s hardware, software controls and vehicle dynamics experience.
Electronic Torque Vectoring features independent active torque control at each driven wheel and is seen as a future trend in driveline technology with a market projected to grow to 500,000 vehicles by 2012.
GKN claims the system facilitates 80% of 4WD functionality for RWD vehicles and is already under development with a ‘leading technology OEM’ and at the development initiation stage with two additional OEMs.
Electric 4WD is designed to provide petrol engines with electric torque support at low speeds, helping to meet future CO2 regulations. This could be combined with ‘hybridisation’ providing stop and go regenerative braking and a rear axle electric drive would add 4WD performance.
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