The Timken Company has fundamentally redesigned its engineering, product management and business systems teams, bringing together talent and tools in a new way to drive development of its product lines and advance its technical capabilities to better meet customer needs. “We’ve been the tapered roller bearing experts since our founding,” said Richard G. Kyle, President and CEO of the company. “Over the past decade, we’ve leveraged that expertise to successfully expand into other types of bearings.”
He continued saying that this move aims to take the company “more deeply and more broadly into our targeted market space, a move intended to firmly position us among our customers as a full-line leader in industrial bearings and power transmission products and services.”
Timken states it is the world’s leading manufacturer of tapered roller bearings. In recent years, it has added spherical, cylindrical and housed bearings as well as transmissions, chain, augers, lubrication systems, gearboxes and a host of power system rebuild and repair services, mostly through acquisitions.
Kyle said that the company is committing $60 million to its DeltaX Initiative, a multi-year investment designed to dramatically improve the company’s concept-to-commercialisation efforts. “Through DeltaX, we’re integrating Timken talent, technology and tools in a way that will allow us to be even more agile and competitive,” said Kyle. “From design to delivery, a more product-focused infrastructure, supported with new customer-facing systems, will replace our traditional functional structure. We believe this new, more collaborative design, the first step in our initiative, will allow us to execute even better on our strategy to grow, delivering to the marketplace much faster and more efficiently those products that customers value.”
Starting with the appointment of three senior-level product line executives and a new research and development leader, the company sees DeltaX as one means to help it accelerate growth and further strengthen the organization’s ability to capture strategic opportunities that address customers’ needs.
Newly appointed Timken veterans will drive three focused product growth streams, strategically aligning product management, development and design with production operations. The three product growth streams and the respective product line executives at the heart of the DeltaX Initiative are:
•Tapered Roller Bearings, led by Douglas H. Smith;
•Industrial Bearings, which includes the broader range of spherical, cylindrical, thrust and large diameter tapered bearings, led by Amanda J. Montgomery; and
•Power Transmission and Engineering Systems, focusing on the expanded portfolio of housed units, ball bearings, chain, couplings and related products, including seals, lubrication and monitoring equipment, led by Hans Landin.
Also, Research and Development will be driven by Dr. Stephen P. Johnson, who will lead a team focused on process and product technology, materials, prototypes, metrology and testing. The R&D group will support the product line leaders with technology fundamentals and services.
“Doug, Amanda, Hans and Steve have extensive knowledge of our products and the marketplace, and their proven ability to foster change and drive results that create value make them particularly well-suited for these new roles,” said Christopher Coughlin, Group President, who set the project in motion several months ago and to whom the product line executives will report. “We’re organising for speed and focus and expect DeltaX to ensure we work on and invest in what matters most to our customers and ultimately to our shareholders.” The new configuration will change the way nearly 400 employees work as well as how they interface with colleagues and customers, impacting teams located at the new world headquarters in North Canton, Ohio, and the company’s other three key engineering centres in China, India and Romania.
Coughlin noted that the company expects to increase the number of new products and features the company introduces to the market by approximately 30%, and that nearly 200 engineers and related technical resources will be hired over the next three years to help fuel development of newly designed products and processes. “We expect the increased accountability for growth and profitability as well as acceleration of development activity to be an exceptional investment,” he said.
