Category: Blogs

At TI Fluid Systems, we firmly believe in the power of continuous learning as a cornerstone of success. Why? Because it enables employees to adapt to evolving technologies, industry trends, and job roles, fostering innovation, growth, and resilience within the organization.

Within our six Mindsets for Success, ‘be a continuous learner’ stands to foster a culture of ongoing education and drive our commitment to personal and professional growth. We extend this ethos to all members of our team, actively supporting employees to undertake training and participate in courses to further their learning and enhance knowledge.

An example of this is our leadership training sessions tailored for the US management team. These sessions started in 2023 and serve as a resource for managers to refine their leadership skills and gain insights from industry experts. The sessions are remote, optional to join, and foster a collaborative environment where knowledge sharing thrives.

Led by a trusted external provider, these training sessions feature expert speakers who dive into a diverse range of topics. From fostering diversity and inclusion to navigating complex employment laws, each session is curated to address critical aspects of effective leadership. The team has the opportunity to put forward subjects of interest, and training is developed to meet our needs.

Following the success of the training in 2023, we’re excited to be continuing the sessions on a quarterly basis throughout 2024, with a number of topics already selected and planned for the months ahead. These topics include:

• Leading and working with different personality styles – using the color assessment to identify common themes, superpowers and roadblocks to communication and workstyles.
• Anti-harassment and anti-discrimination in the workplace – applying processes and policies to real world scenarios.
• Technology’s impact on communication – a dive into how technology affects our workplace relationships and assessing its overall effectiveness in various situations.

Fostering a culture of continuous learning is vital for us as we look to empower our employees in their development. We remain committed to ensuring that our team is encouraged to explore new and effective ways of growing on both a personal and professional level.

Last month, TI Fluid Systems hosted its first Global Safety Week from the 16^th to the 20^th October. Marking another significant step forward in our commitment to safety, health, and well-being in the workplace. The week-long event was modeled on our successful European Week for Safety and Health at Work in 2022.

Global Safety Week emphasized the value of safety, health, and well-being among TI Fluid Systems employees. Before the event took place, our Corporate Environmental, Health, and Safety (EHS) teams unveiled the theme for 2023’s event – Advancing Safety Together. The specific focus of this global campaign was on reducing the incidence of slip, trip, and fall injuries, which are among the most common workplace injuries worldwide.

We set out on a clear mission to foster a positive safety mindset that would enable us to continually enhance our safety culture. Setting up activities that add real value to our global teams, we helped to raise awareness of the importance of safety and well-being in the workplace and celebrate our existing safety successes.

To ensure that our safety messages reached every corner of our organisation, we translated and distributed training materials and information packs to our global teams.  It wasn’t all hard work though; we had over 1700 employees take part in a global safety quiz, with the lucky winners in each region taking home prizes for their engagement and attention to detail.

Safety Week activities were hosted all over the world and included a diverse set of offerings and activities. In Baroda India Safety Week activities included an inaugural speech, igniting the lamp, and a safety oath ceremony. Employees took a hands-on approach throughout the week as they took part in induction training and were rewarded with badges as a symbol of their commitment to safety. Our Bursa Turkey team took on an active role throughout the week, too. The highlight of the team’s efforts in Turkey saw them proactively enhance safety awareness by placing warning signs in high-use areas, which emphasized the risks associated with slips, trips, and falls on stairs. In Mexico City, the management team coordinated safety training and drills with a health event designed to bring health services and vendors directly to the plant to make it as easy as possible for employees to access various healthcare options.

Our Safety Week campaign was built around the core principle of advancing safety together, and it provided us with a platform to highlight the vital role of safety, health, and well-being in the workplace. We look forward to continuing our pursuit of safety, health, and well-being together as one global team. We want to thank all those who participated, and we are excited about making Safety Week at TI an annual global event.

We are excited to announce that TI Fluid Systems (TIFS) has agreed to acquire Cascade Engineering Europe (CEE), a company based in Hungary known for its excellence in the automotive sector.

As a leader in the design and manufacturing of thermal fluid connectors and other complex plastic injection moulded components, CEE has a strong reputation for its technical expertise and product quality – offering design, development, tooling, prototyping and serial manufacturing capabilities.

The acquisition aligns with our long-term electric vehicle strategy to increase our market share in the thermal connector market and increase vertical integration. The acquisition of CEE will also increase the components in the TIFS product portfolio to support the growth of internal content in our innovative Integrated Thermal Modules.

But this move isn’t just about strategy and commercial growth. It’s about people. Soon, we will be welcoming 349 new faces, talents and stories to the TI Fluid Systems family, bringing fresh perspectives and expertise to fuel our collective journey into the future. We’re looking forward to the coming weeks as we offer a warm welcome to the team at CEE and get to know our new colleagues.

Over the years, CEE has not just been a supplier to TI Fluid Systems but also a valuable partner. The company’s reputation for technical competence, particularly in fluid connectors and plastic injection moulded components, is unparalleled, and we have always shared mutual respect and trust.

TI Fluid Systems will take on CEE’s 6,500m² manufacturing facility in Budapest, Hungary, together with its dedicated employees, further strengthening our technical and manufacturing capabilities.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval.

TI Fluid Systems has finalised a letter of commitment to the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi), marking a significant step for our business.  The letter, which has been sent to the body for validation, sets out the internal targets we have set for the business.

In setting ourselves a target to reduce our Scope 1 & 2 emissions by 50% in the coming years and our Scope 3 emissions by 30% by 2030, we are demonstrating our commitment to a future built on greater sustainability.

SBTi is a global body that empowers businesses to set ambitious emissions reduction targets in line with the latest climate science. Its short-term goal is to accelerate a 50% reduction in the emissions of businesses globally before 2030, before achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.

The SBTi Commitment is a collaborative initiative between the United Nations (UN) Global Compact, CDP,  the World Resources Institute, the World Wide Fund for Nature, and the We Mean Business Coalition. Its purpose is to define and promote the best practice in science-based target setting, as well as to offer resources and guidance to reduce barriers to adopting these targets, and independently assess and approve the targets set.

This is the latest of many sustainability measures that we have taken in recent years. For example, we have opened three state-of-the-art e-Mobility Innovation Centers in Germany, Japan and South Korea over the last 15 months to help our customers navigate the transition to electric vehicles. We have also worked with the CDP to disclose our environmental data, and have committed to participating in the UN Global Compact.

It is essential that we take tangible steps toward a sustainable future for our business, our employees, their families and our customers. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest forecasts indicate that limiting the global temperature to 1.5°C is still a possibility, although we are moving dangerously close to the threshold. Urgent action must therefore be taken by businesses all over the world.

For more information on the SBTi, go to www.sciencebasedtargets.org.

In recent years, TI Fluid Systems employees in Poland have laced up their boots and taken to the football pitch to represent the company. Consisting of mostly TIFS employees, the team participates in the local business league in Bielsko-Biała and will begin its fourth season in the competition in August. As you can see, the team’s kit is sponsored by TI Fluid Systems, with the company’s logo taking pride of place as the logo of the team.

Last time out, the team achieved a respectable 9^th place finish in the league. In their attempts to be as successful on the pitch as they are in the workplace, our band of footballers have competed in the first division of the league, and have come close to winning a number of tournaments, ultimately finishing second and third.

The team provides TIFS employees with the opportunity to get together outside of their place of work and have fun with their colleagues. With our Polish team consisting of multiple departments, some employees will find themselves lining up alongside people that they don’t typically come across at work.

We are extremely proud of the efforts of our football team in Bielsko-Biała, and we look forward to hearing about their upcoming season. The team is one of many TIFS football line-ups across the world, so keep a lookout for updates on some of the others.

In June, we marked the opening of our state-of-the-art e-Mobility Innovation Centers (eMICs) in Incheon, South Korea, and Nagoya, Japan, by hosting commemorative events for customers, national media and local Government officials.

Our invited guests were given an exclusive overview of the facilities by Hans Dieltjens and Johannes Helmich, and were introduced to the six core competencies –  virtual engineering, design, processing, prototyping, product testing, and vehicle testing – that will be brought together at each facility. Our team of engineers at both sites were on-hand to demonstrate how our eMICs are designed to shorten product development cycles for our customers, enabling them to bring products to market faster than ever before.

Following the success of the first eMIC in Rastatt, Germany, the launch of two more facilities of this nature is a significant milestone for TI Fluid Systems. These facilities will enable us to fast-track the development of thermal management solutions for electric vehicles (EVs) in Asia, and will allow us to work closely with our customers in what is a key region in the EV market.

The events clearly struck a chord with the media, delivering significant print, online and broadcast coverage before and after the openings. In the lead up to both events, journalists from both countries wrote about the significance of the new eMICs, with 23 stories hitting the press in South Korea, and 31 articles being published in Japan.

Following the openings, the South Korean media issued a variety of featured articles, interviews, and photo-based content. Journalists from Green Economy News, The Mobillians, and Ilyo Seoul published features following their visit to the event in Incheon, showcasing their unique insight into the launch of the brand-new facility. As you can see here, Segye ilbo issued an exclusive interview with Hans Dieltjens, highlighting the level of access journalists in attendance had to our executive team.

Comprehensive coverage also made its way out of Japan, with over 30 pieces of coverage issued across the automotive and business sections of the Japanese media. These included print articles in Daily Automotive News and The Mid-Japan Economics Newspaper, as well as features on Nico Nico News and Sakae Economics. News of the event in Nagoya spread to television, too, as Chukyo TV covered the launch on its news channel. A short clip of the coverage can be seen here.

We are delighted that the opening of our two new eMICs have been so well received across both markets. Keep an eye out for news of further facilities being opened in the Asia Pacific and North America regions later this year.

Our global internship program has taken great strides this year, helping to underline our commitment to developing the next generation of talent.

Our teams in Europe, South America, North America, and the Asia-Pacific region have all embraced the program, taking on a number of interns from higher education institutions in their local markets. In South America, for instance, 14 interns have been introduced into various departments across three different locations; Gravataí, Juatuba, and São José dos Campos, while our manufacturing plants in China can take on up to five people in the program at a time.

As well as gaining important experience, the interns are adding real value to their teams, providing practical support and fresh insight across a variety of departments, including advanced engineering, process engineering, purchasing, IT, and logistics.

The program delivers an excellent opportunity for our interns to learn from our exceptional team of experts across the world, benefitting from the experience and knowledge of TI Fluid Systems staff who are at the cutting edge of our industry. It has also given many interns an opportunity to experience our state-of-the-art facilities, including the revolutionary e-Mobility Innovation Center (eMIC) in Rastatt, Germany, and our company headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

As each internship comes to an end, we liaise with the interns’ universities to give feedback on their performance and, where appropriate, emphasise the positive impact that they have had on our daily operations.

We are delighted with how our global internship program is developing. Moving forward, we are excited to continue to bring the industry’s leading talent through our doors and provide them with the opportunity to develop on our watch.

 

Team members from TI Fluid Systems (TIFS) China recently delivered an Innovation Day at the global headquarters of renowned SUV and pickup manufacturer, Great Wall Motors (GWM). The Innovation Day provided an opportunity for TIFS engineers to showcase our evolving product portfolio and explore how the business can support GWM in the development of its next generation of vehicles.

After a brief company update from the TIFS team and a reminder of our 100-year heritage, we led a number of insightful presentations that looked in detail at our coolant and refrigerant product portfolios. Many of our latest products were put on display in GWM’s exhibition hall, giving attendees an opportunity to get hands-on.

In attendance were GWM’s Vice President, Mr. Zhao, Guoqing (Mark), and Chief Technical Officer, Mr. Wang Yuanli (Julien), PhD, as well as other leading figures from within the company’s purchasing and product development departments. So far, feedback on the event has been positive. The team at GWM were especially impressed with our system integration capability, and expressed interest in our new innovation ITMA, ITMR, and ITMS products.

Several potential opportunities to expand on our work with GWM have arisen as a result of the Innovation Day. For example, our Modules & Systems team has received a request for quotation (RFQ) from GWM for a coolant module, while other opportunities are also being explored. It is fantastic to see our teams reap the rewards from a successful showcase.

We are excited that this is just the first of several Innovation Days this year, with multiple events to be held with a number of different OEMs from all over the world. These Innovation Days are an effective way of bringing customers up to speed on our latest products and technologies in a format that fosters discussion and collaboration, and we look forward to taking part in more as the year goes on.

We are extremely excited to share that TI Fluid Systems has adopted a new look and feel to better reflect the business as it stands today.

For several years, our brand has distinguished us as a global leader in automotive fluid systems technology. However, in the same way that our products have evolved over time, so too must our brand, with our new identity better reflecting our position in today’s automotive sector, and speaking to the exciting future that lies ahead of us.

The most prominent feature of our brand, our logo, will not change. We have made changes to our colour palette and typeface. Check out some of the changes here.

As you can see, the main colour of our new brand is blue, which has actually been present in the TI Fluid Systems colour palette for several years, and is accompanied by two new secondary colours. One of these is cool turquoise, a colour that reflects the company’s innovation, flexibility, and fluidity, alongside warm orange, representing energy, scale, and speed. We believe this set of colours symbolises the characteristics that make TI Fluid Systems a leading figure within the automotive fluid systems technology sector, and ensure its success in the future.

Our updated brand identity was established by teams from all over the global TI Fluid Systems team. Following a collaborative process, where teams across many of our locations gave their input and ideas, we are proud to have developed a brand identity that will take us into the future with a clearer, more impactful and more modern identity. It was especially rewarding to see the unity within our team; no matter where they are in the world, each team did their bit to develop the new brand.

You may have noticed that our branding isn’t the only change we’ve made of late; we have recently updated our website, too. The website – https://tifluidsystems.com – has been restructured to be more up to date and accessible for its visitors. Take a look and see our new brand in action.

Owing to exceptional performance throughout 2022, 13 manufacturing plants within our Fluid Carrying Systems (FCS) and Fuel Tank and Delivery Systems (FTDS) divisions have received internal recognition for their achievements.

TI Fluid Systems has awarded a coveted FCS Quality Award to ten FCS plants across the global business in recognition of their exceptional manufacturing performance, while three FTDS plants achieved the equivalent accolade known internally as Global Benchmark level.

The FCS awards are based on performance against KPIs in critical areas of plant operation, from compliance with internal and external waste reduction targets to customer satisfaction, quality, and improvements made in Cost of Poor Quality (CoPQ).

Plant performance levels in these key areas are assessed using a tiered system, with gold, silver and bronze awards. Four facilities – those based in Qinhuangdao, Yantai, Bekasi, and San José Chiapa – received the highest honour. Close behind was our plant in Montornes del Valles, which received silver-level recognition, while plants in Brindisi, Gravatai, Incheon, Hillsdale, and Nanjing were all awarded with bronze status.

On the FTDS side of the business, plants were ranked on how well they performed against our highest internal standards and KPIs. Those that exceeded their expected performance achieved the Benchmark level. The three plants to achieve this were based in Changchun, Guangzhou, and Lokeren. A special mention must also go to the Changchun plant for not only achieving Benchmark status within the business, but for gaining recognition from Toyota for delivering no defective parts throughout 2022.

Setting ambitious but attainable targets and empowering our plants to succeed is an important part of our strategy at TI Fluid Systems. So, too, is recognising hard work and high levels of performance, so it is encouraging that many of our global plants are not just meeting but exceeding their targets. This year, we will be developing a common awards system that will continue to recognise the great work that our fantastic teams all across the business have been doing. In the meantime, we are delighted with the performance of our FCS and FTDS teams – congratulations to everybody involved!