Category: Blogs

Many congratulations to the San Luis Potosí, Fuldabrück and Global Engineering teams for completing the installation of a new Multi-Layer Extrusion Line at our San Luis Potosí, Mexico plant.

The project began in Q1 last year, so its completion in May this year has been a long time in the making. The new machine will support production of fuel and coolant lines, giving us the capability to produce these products locally in Mexico. The machine is truly state of the art and will be able to produce up to six different layers of plastic.

Not only is this an important milestone in our localization initiative, it will also give the business a competitive advantage in the future, as Stefan Rau, Executive Vice President FCS, explains:

“The completion of this project is very important in the execution of our strategy. Thank you to everyone involved for all of your hard work. Next, we are to install a corrugated tube line in SLP, with the project set to finish next year.

“After this installation, we will add one high speed MLT line so that we can stop MLT production in Marysville. Having the MLT capacity and capabilities in Mexico, where we have the majority of our plastic system plant business, is absolutely essential, and we are making great strides towards our goal.”

On 24th and 25th May, several members of the TI Fluid Systems team attended the 2022 tank.tech Conference in Fürstenfeldbruck, near Munich. The biennial event sees representatives from vehicle, supplier and mineral oil industries meet to discuss current technologies and innovations in the field of fuel, SCR and water injection systems, as well as to exchange experiences.

The agenda for the event was diverse, with a wide array of topics up for discussion. Those present at the conference looked at the challenges presented to storage systems by the transformation of propulsion systems, future automotive trends, expectations towards fluid and energy systems, solutions for tank system technologies, current and future manufacturing methods for fluid storage systems, development methodologies, functionalities for storage systems, and infrastructure for energy and fluid storage and distribution.

Among our representatives was Martin Stickel, who took on a role within the event’s committee. Martin chaired the event’s opening day discussion on e-fuels and biofuels, and the impacts that these have on fluid and energy storage systems. Moez Haouala gave a thought-provoking presentation on how PHEV tank systems have evolved towards cost efficiency.

On the success of the event, Martin Stickel commented: “It is essential that we, as a business, continue to liaise with like-minded organisations to develop our product offering. The tank.tech conference is an excellent opportunity to hear from our peers every two years and discover how they have dealt with the same challenges that we are facing. The 2022 event focused on alternative energies, the environment and sustainability and was certainly a success from this perspective. We have now attended 13 iterations of the event, and we are looking forward to returning in 2024.”

The tragic events in Ukraine over the last two months have put everything in life into perspective. Business pales into insignificance at times like these.

Businesses can, however, help to unite people behind a common cause, and provide them with a platform from which to provide assistance. We saw that at times throughout the Covid-19 pandemic and that is exactly what we have seen again in response to the crisis in Ukraine.

At TI Fluid Systems, we are incredibly proud to work with such compassionate teams all over the world. Many of our employees have gone above and beyond to raise money and supplies for displaced Ukrainians. These efforts have taken place throughout the entire company’s network of global locations – it really has been a collaborative approach across the board.

An example of these phenomenal efforts comes from Poznan, where the TI team had a lasting impact on the city’s efforts to send goods to Ukrainian refugees. Volunteering at the Poznan International Fair and at the main railway station in the city, the team put their professional experience to good use, implementing changes to the refugee servicing process. These changes significantly accelerated the process of addressing the needs of those who have had to flee Ukraine.

The impact of the work undertaken by the TI staff was huge; the organisers of these efforts asked the team to train other volunteers to ensure that these standards were maintained. Many members of staff have insisted that, although the work was physically exhausting, it was worthwhile to meet the needs of those affected by the war. In Poznan, the TI team’s commitment has been incredible, and has been recognised by the Charitable Caritas Foundation and the local fire brigade, with both bodies awarding the team with certificates.

This support has extended further, beyond Poznan. In the Czech Republic, our team at Mlada Boleslav has played a crucial role in organising the delivery of essential goods to those in need. The team has also contributed financially to ensure that Ukrainian refugees don’t go without food, water, clothing, and shelter.

At our Jablonec site, our employees have donated money and supplies to the People in Need charity and have bought medical supplies and medicines that are to be shipped to Ukraine. The team have demonstrated their compassion by arranging for Ukrainian members of staff to have access to a meeting room to make free internet calls to their homeland, and by offering the relatives of these individuals employment.

Even further afield, in Telford, England, the team has sent multiple donations of essential items, ranging from medical supplies to baby equipment.

TI staff in Ukraine’s bordering countries have also demonstrated their solidarity with their neighbours, with many offering their homes and spare rooms to displaced Ukrainian people. This goodwill has extended throughout the entire company. So far, TI employees have contributed €33,500 to the Red Cross and to various organisations that have supported Ukrainian relief efforts. The company itself has added an extra €58,500 on top of this, taking our overall donation to €92,000.

We would like to say thank you to every single member of the team at TI Fluid Systems who has helped to support those affected by the crisis in Ukraine. You have done us and yourselves proud.

Over the last 100 years, there have only been five automotive megatrends that have significantly affected our company. The first of these was fuel, the second was hydraulic braking, third was air conditioning, then came reduced emissions, and now there is electrification of the vehicle powertrain.

With electrification coming to the fore, thermal management systems are now in the spotlight. The fluids within vehicles are used to heat or cool the key components that electrify the vehicle – the electric motors, power electronics and the battery. Thermal management is needed to optimize the vehicle for peak performance. For example, a battery functions best when in a narrow temperature range which means that it must be heated or cooled to achieve maximum range and performance.

We’ve been able to adapt our fluid carrying products and our manufacturing assets to meet the thermal management requirements of electric vehicles. Our HVAC team – now known as Thermal  – reacted to the shift to electrification and the opportunities that could come with it long ago, even when gasoline and diesel powertrains were still on the industry’s front burner.

Working closely with our global OEM customers as well as numerous battery manufacturers, we were able to understand where the world’s automotive market was heading. The message was consistent: electrification is going to be the future. Fortunately for us, this was a shift that we could really take advantage of through our product portfolio.

The hybrid electric and battery electric work that we have undertaken over the past several years has all stemmed from the early initiative of our HVAC team. The automotive industry’s journey towards electrification has started and is now accelerating. That’s why we are committing more knowledge and resources to our growing electric vehicle product portfolio. While the market for vehicles powered by internal combustion engines will shrink over time, it will not disappear overnight. So, we will continue to support our customers with market leading gasoline and diesel products as the industry shifts to electric vehicles.

Over the last ten years, our product offering has taken huge strides forward.

The shift from steel to plastic tanks in the late 1990s facilitated this progress, and laid the foundations for our current Fuel Tank and Delivery Systems division. One of our unique competitive advantages has been our capacity to provide OEMs with a complete fuel tank system, and this advantage has now been bolstered by new technology.

In 2009, we won an Automotive News PACE award for our Ship in a Bottle (SIB) tank. The SIB fuel tank changed the way plastic fuel tanks were made. By integrating the fuel system components into the tank via a preassembled carrier, we developed the world’s first plastic PZEV fuel tank.

As revolutionary as our SIB technology was, the 10-inch plastic parison opening that was required meant that it was limited on some applications. So, towards the end of 2013, we showed off our adaptable plastic fuel tank advanced process technology (TAPT) at the tank.tech conference in Munich. The TAPT technology used existing blow molding to separate a pre-formed, blow-molded parison into two halves while a robot inserted the fuel system components into designated areas of the tank assembly. TAPT could operate without size or location limitations.

The first TAPT tank was produced in Rastatt, Germany, and was used by Mercedes-Benz for the 2014 S-Class, a model that is renowned for being a standard-bearer for technology breakthroughs.

TAPT proved to be groundbreaking. It was the first application of our flexible manufacturing process that was designed to solve the integration of components in a traditional powertrain with a complicated saddle-shaped tank. TAPT made it possible to produce multiple types of fuel tanks for all types of powertrain, be it diesel, gasoline, flex-fuel, partial zero-emission vehicles (PZEV), or hybrid. What’s more, this is all possible via a single design blow tooling set.

Importantly, TAPT technology enabled hybrid vehicle manufacturers to accelerate the replacement of steel fuel tanks with plastic ones. Delivering plastic fuel tanks for hybrid-electric vehicles was beginning to set us apart. We were adapting our technology for the future, though even our engineers may not have recognized how quickly those advances would come into play…

World War Two saw American businesses of all types working hard to sustain the country’s war effort, and we were no different. The Allied cause was boosted by the entrance of the U.S. into the conflict following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, and this plunged America’s automotive factories into war production.

Detroit was the heart, soul and nerve centre of the American industrial war effort. The city’s automotive industry in particular was quick to mobilize, ceasing the production of civilian vehicles and instead working on weapons and vehicles of war. In fact, Detroit businesses produced $30 billion in military hardware by 1945, which was a fifth of all World War Two output in the U.S. This didn’t just involve large firms with big factories like us, either; even small tool-and-die shops were involved in turning out jeeps, tanks, troop transport carriers, bombers, ammunition, electronics, and even helmets.

We certainly played our part in the war effort. 367 of our 3,000 employees went into the service, and our entire manufacturing operation had been converted to war production by 1942. Our tubing products were used in more than 5,000 war applications, including oil and gas lines, brake lines and brake lubrication lines for tens of thousands of Allied vehicles. This, however, was only the start. During the war, we grew. Much of the structure of our Warren and Van Dyke plants took root in the war years, with more equipment, more conveyors, and more employees. Even production was flying at a mile a minute.

The war years were busy, very busy. The growth we experienced was a clear demonstration of our success throughout the period, but it was not our greatest success during these times. The hundreds of brave men that fought overseas were not forgotten and treated simply as employees. Instead, they were given reassurances that their jobs were waiting for them upon their return, and they were regularly kept abreast of the latest company news. On top of this, they were greeted personally by the company’s president, Wendell Anderson, and given a $50 recognition check.

Despite the first half of the ‘40s being a tumultuous period for the entire world, we not only survived, but we thrived.

If the 1920s was a booming period for The Harry Bundy Company and for the automotive sector, the 1930s would offer up a very different proposition. The Wall Street crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression hammered the U.S. car industry. By 1932, sales of new automobiles had fallen 75 percent, and automobile companies had a combined loss of $191 million in 1932 ($3.5 billion in 2021 dollars) or 25 percent of industry revenue.

It would seem untimely, then, that Harry Bundy’s company had been bought by Wendell Anderson mere months before the financial crash. Changing the name to Bundy Tubing Company, Anderson wanted to put his own stamp on the business, but he couldn’t possibly have predicted what was to follow. Of course, neither could he have predicted that his new company would prove capable, time and again, of weathering the toughest of times.

Vital to two industries, Bundy Tubing was spared from the worst of the hard times throughout the 1930s, and that was largely thanks to the advent of Bundyweld. Although Harry Bundy sadly didn’t live long enough to see the full measure of his invention’s success, dying of a heart attack in June 1931, his name would carry huge weight for decades to come.

Despite the setbacks of a financial crisis and the loss of the company’s founder, Bundy Tubing Company continued to make strides. Between 1931 and 1934, it sold 200 million feet of Bundyweld tubing. In response to a growing share in a condensed market, the business needed a larger space to operate from, and so it moved to a more spacious building in 1934.

This change in location was accompanied by other changes within the business. 1936 saw it enter into its first overseas venture – producing tubes in France and England – whilst in 1939, it manufactured its second major product, Electricweld.

Although it was faced with a whole host of challenges throughout the decade, including the rising influence and power of organized labour, Bundy Tubing Company came out of it in a strong position. This is testament to the company that the late Harry Bundy established, and to Wendell Anderson’s ability to pick up where his predecessor left off. The next period, however, was not quite as smooth…

The 1920s are synonymous with economic growth and greater mobility. The automobile reigned supreme, causing a mass migration into the suburbs and the rapid construction of all-weather surfaced roads to facilitate this burgeoning mode of travel.

Against such a backdrop, there was perhaps no better time for Harry Bundy to launch the company that would eventually become TI Fluid Systems. He not only had the right product, but he undoubtedly had the right customer, supplying oil and gas lines for the Ford Model T no less.

The company’s journey well and truly roared into life at a small space at Bellevue and Warren in Detroit. Here, Harry Bundy set up a ‘factory’ that was essentially a shop with a garage. With a workforce of 20 employees, Harry and the team went to work, establishing what would become a blueprint for the future of the American automotive industry.

As the decade progressed, so did tubing sales. As the ‘20s hit the halfway mark, these tubes were the auto industry standard, and in 1922 and 1923 alone, Harry had managed to sell 3.5 million of them. By 1926, the company had also made its mark in the refrigeration industry.

The innovation throughout the automotive industry in the 1920s propelled it to new heights, and Harry Bundy was never short of his own original ideas. 1927 saw the business consider introducing steel into production, using the material as an alternative to brass strips to make tubes. After some more Harry Bundy magic, he was selling steel tubes to automakers the following year.

He wasn’t quite done there, however. Harry introduced a process that became regarded as “Bundyweld”, a tubemaking technology that ensured greater fatigue strength and resistance to corrosion, as well as an enhanced ability to handle increasingly complex bending and torsion. The practice became widely recognized and was yet another facet of automotive progression.

Although the ‘Roaring’ aspect of the 1920s didn’t last, it was the perfect backdrop for a small automotive firm to grow into the industry giant that it is today. The hard work and innovation of Harry Bundy and his growing team set the framework for TI Fluid Systems in the 2020s.

Any business that wants success and longevity needs to keep moving forward and never stand still. As is the case with life in the wild, it becomes a matter of adapting to survive and thrive. Having been operating for 100 years now, it is safe to say that TI Fluid Systems has found the right formula.

No entity exists for 100 years without having experienced hardship, and there have been numerous periods of great difficulty for automotive manufacturers over the last 100 years. We’ve been through the Great Depression, World War II, the twin oil crises of the 1970s, the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Our key to success has been to tweak our approach where necessary, whilst always retaining the core aspects that make us what we are.

Take the 1990s as an example. What was once The Harry Bundy Company was now a critical part of UK conglomerate, TI Group Ltd. Other acquisitions led to other new partners, meaning that there were several voices of influence impacting the company. Things had changed since Harry Bundy started things up all those years before.

This time around, the challenge was how to react to an era of wholesale change. As part of TI’s response, an age-old concept of Harry Bundy’s was rediscovered: customer orientation. In embracing this approach to put the needs of the customer before the needs of the business, we have ensured our place at the forefront of the automotive industry.

As you can see, things have changed throughout TI Fluid Systems over time. Whilst the company’s name has evolved and ownership has changed hands, the business is, at its core, still the same customer-serving business that Harry Bundy started 100 years ago.

Harry Bundy’s story is one of courage and innovation. For it was courage and innovation that enabled one ambitious man from a small town in Minnesota to put himself on a path to founding a global success story.

Even in the formative years of his career, Harry was driven by a desire to innovate. Working at Diamond Manufacturing and Detroit Steel Products as a young engineer, he saw many of his contemporaries break the mould with their own creations. This helped to fuel and inspire Harry, who harbored big dreams of his own.

Later, in his time at Detroit Steel Products, Harry began to put his experience to the test and develop a creation of his own. His goal? To make a machine that could produce fluid tubing from flat sheet steel for automobile gas and oil lines.

Whilst the tubes Harry Bundy created might seem basic to a modern engineer, he was ahead of his time and his creation was perfect. Perfect in the sense that it couldn’t be improved upon for a long, long time. These tubes could withstand extremely high pressure and high temperatures, as well as bending and vibration. This product has stood the test of time; the tubes have remained virtually unchanged since their creation.

Whilst the product itself is arguably Harry Bundy’s crowning accomplishment, his formation of The Harry Bundy Company – which would one day become TI Fluid Systems – is his legacy. Just like its founder, Harry’s company has constantly looked towards what comes next, right from day one.

From its humble beginnings as a small shop to its current position as a leading global supplier to the world’s largest automotive manufacturers, none of what has been achieved over the last 100 years would have taken place without the courage and ingenuity of Harry Bundy.