JUNE 2008

INOPLAST AT IAA EXHIBITION

iNoPLAST was present at IAA in Frankfurt, on the Plastic Omnium Auto Exterior stand last September; many customers took a great interest in our innovations regarding Rear Closure System and Structural Components for passenger cars.



iNoPLAST will be present at IAA in Hanover, international show for commercial vehicle industry, which takes place from September 22d to October 2d 2008.

We will come back to that event in our next news.


R & I : REDUCTION OF CO2 EMISSIONS

Controlling climate change is a complex and global challenge and needs concerted efforts embracing all areas of society.

 A standard project, issued from EC applicable in 2012, will impose a CO2 (Carbon dioxide) emission reduction to 120g/km to the OEM's. Beyond these efforts on motorization, the weight reduction will be an inevitable parameter.

According these developments iNoPLAST has decided to accelerate its innovation program for passenger car structural components basing on its experience on Renault Mégane load floor, Clio, Laguna, Kangoo fender carriers and roof frames for Peugeot Citroën.

This development will be focused on :

  • Rear load floors
  • Motor hood inner skins
  • Structural Front Bloc components including fender carriers
  • Roof structural components
This could lead to a potential weight saving of 10% reducing the CO2 emission to 5%.



MAY 2008

FROM A PLASTIC OMNIUM PRESS RELEASE DATED ON APRIL 24, 2008

Growth in the automotive businesses remained strong in the first quarter, in a depressed business environment shaped by sharp declines in production, which dropped by 5% in Western Europe and 10% in North America.
The increase in revenue was led by higher sales of automotive modules and tooling (up €30 million) as well as deeper penetration in fast-growing automobile producing regions in Asia and South America.

The development of synergies continued in the Urban Systems Division, which now accounts for 18% of consolidated revenue. A plan to restructure subsidiaries in Europe is now underway.

Market conditions remain difficult with :

  • A significant decline in automobile production in North America and Europe, a situation that was recently exacerbated by sporadic strikes.
  • Raw material prices that continue to rise.
  • The continued depreciation of the dollar against the euro.

To respond to these challenges and sustainably improve its performance, Compagny Plastic Omnium has stepped up its worldwide cost-reduction program, in particular with the closing of automotive plants in Blenheim, Canada and Juiz de Fora, Brazil.
Against this backdrop, net profit will be substantially lower in first-half 2008. Barring any change in market conditions, the objective is still for an improvement in full-year operating margin.



APRIL 2008

COMPOSITEC : OUR FUTURE IS SUSTAINABLE
PLASTILIEN Allizé-Plasturgie Editorial March/April 2008 :

The 21st century will be the century of sustainable development.
No enterprise can devise its strategy if it does not include all the components necessary for an economic development which is compatible with the future of our planet.
Composite materials provide a very good asset in this area. And indeed, since their implementation requires less weight and low energy consumption, they show an extremely favorable ecobalance.
In the frame of the ECRC (European Composite Recycling Services Company), of which I am the chairman, we have stressed the advantage of composite relative to other technologies in several Life Cycle Assessments (LCA).
For all that, and more specifically for the thermoset composites, a certain number of significant constraints remain (industry for recycling the end-of-life vehicles, utilization of a certain number of chemicals or products from the oil industry,…) that require advancing the environmental effort in order to find composite materials that are truly "green".
In Western Europe, owing to the importance of labor costs in the production prices, we could be concerned by the risks of delocalization for the transformation of composites. And yet, since these are composites which implementation is complex and where know-how is acquired on the field, it is quite possible to remain competitive provided innovation and training are intensified.
It is with this in mind that I have defined the strategy for COMPOSITEC (Resources Center in Composite materials) based in Chambéry and in North-Ardèche, of which I have been recently elected chairman. The aim is to make COMPOSITEC a key expert in the Rhône-Alpes area - and also over the entire French territory - and therefore become a tool for the creation of new enterprises and the development of the existing SMEs.
I am quite optimistic regarding the development of composites despite the pressures on the prices of raw materials and the increasingly intense pressure from our clients because composites are recent materials which sources of progress are still considerable.
                                                                                                                                                     Pascal DIAZ
                                                                                                                     Chief Executive of iNoPLAST  -  Chairman of Compositec



FEBRUARY 2008

Xieno wins first big automotive order

Xieno, a 61%-owned subsidiary of iNoPLAST located in Jiangyn, China, has posted to date sales of 17m€ primarily gained in the truck sector and based on the SMC, RTM and Hand Layer Up technologies.
It has been more than one year since Xieno launched its diversification towards the Chinese market. And its maiden success is the realization of a study and the prototype phase for a sport vehicle built by carmaker Hama.
DPCA (Dong Feng Peugeot Citroën Automobiles) has just awarded Xieno the contract for manufacturing the Technical Front Panels for vehicles X7 (Citroën C5) and W2 (replacing the Peugeot 407).
This contract comes with 1.2m€ in sales and it will be developed by the Xieno teams with support provided by the iNoPLAST job experts.
SOP is planned for November 2009 with deliveries made to the DPCA site of Wuhan at the rate of 570 parts a day.
Production will take place in the new Xieno building and will follow procedures and operating modes similar to the European standards, with SMC material produced by Xieno.
Thanks to this contract, iNoPLAST is consolidating its position as a global supplier with their traditional clients.