Textron Acquires ALSTOM Gears; Acquisition Establishes Preferred Supplier Relationship and Enhances Technological Offerings

Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) announced today the acquisition of U.K.-based ALSTOM Gears, part of ALSTOM, a leading supplier of components, systems and services to the world's energy and transport infrastructure markets. ALSTOM Gears manufactures and sells a range of gears and gearboxes, including high-speed epicyclic and parallel shaft gearboxes, for the industrial, rail and marine industries. The acquisition will be fully integrated into Textron's Power Transmission Products business, part of the company's Fluid & Power Systems Group. For the fiscal year-ended March 1999, ALSTOM Gear's revenues were approximately $10 million. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

"Textron's acquisition of ALSTOM Gears further strengthens our power transmission capabilities, adding a range of technologically advanced gearbox systems to our existing product brands, including David Brown, Cone Drive and Textron Industrial gears," said Textron Fluid & Power Systems President Bob Geckle. "Furthermore, the acquisition establishes a multi-year preferred supplier agreement for Textron with ALSTOM for power transmission products," he added.

With approximately $1 billion in annualized revenues and locations in 23 countries, Textron's Fluid & Power Systems Group is a leading manufacturer of mechanical power transmission, motion control, fluid handling and electronic systems and components. The Fluid & Power Systems Group is part of Textron's $4 billion Industrial Segment.

Textron Inc. (NYSE:TXT) is a $10 billion, global, multi-industry company with market-leading businesses in Aircraft, Automotive, Industrial and Finance. Textron has a workforce of over 64,000 employees and major manufacturing facilities in 23 countries. Textron is among Fortune magazine's "America's Most Admired Companies," and Industry Week magazine's "Best Managed Companies."

Multispeed gear transmissions - Andantex USA Inc.'s new products

A new line of multispeed gear transmissions from Andantex features two, three, four, six or nine speeds within one gearbox housing and from 12 to 288 speeds by coupling up to four boxes. Applications include agitators, capstan drives, vertical drilling machines and track drives.

The gearboxes feature form-ground gears that are shrunk onto the shafts, eliminating the use of keys, which eliminates fretting, the company said. The housings are manufactured from precision iron castings with a cubic configuration which allows installation in any position. When coupled in tandem, overall length is held to a minimum by a design which eliminates the need for external shaft couplings.

Available in seven sizes over the entire ratio range, the gear boxes are 96 percent efficient with ratings from 5 to 800 hp at 1500 rpm, the company said. Output shafts can be supplied to rotate in the same direction as input, or in the opposite direction. Reversing boxes can change direction either manually or electrically. Motor flanges are available for direct motor coupling.

New gearbox assembler set for smaller, high-volume production

With all that has been chronicled regarding the trend toward OEM outsourcing, it's easy to believe that most equipment manufacturers have shopped out large portions of their sub-assembly work. Seeking to capitalize further on this trend, a new gearbox assembly operation has been established to serve the higher volume, smaller size assembly requirements of off-highway OEMs.

Drive Systems, Inc., located in a 6000 sq.ft. facility in Antigo, Wis., traces its roots directly to both the gear and gearbox industries through its two principal policymakers. Bill Sims, Drive System's president, was formerly with Cotta Transmission and Terrell Gear Drives, while Eric Schumann, a financial partner in Drive Systems, is also the president and owner of Merit Gear Corp.

"The springboard for Drive Systems was the fact that Merit Gear customers had begun expressing the desire to buy an assembled gearbox, as opposed to doing their own work," explained Sims. "From the beginning, our actual and anticipated accounts are the companies that are already buying the gears, but would prefer to buy one ready-to-use product, rather than the multiple components needed to assemble these units."

Initially the company will focus on assembly operations for a variety of geared products that have been previously designed and built by OEMs. These will include special motor drives and right angle gearboxes, as well as worm and planetary drives. "One of our first products, for example, is a very special, hydraulically driven two-speed planetary gear reducer," said Sims.

As the company develops, Sims added, Drive Systems would offer drive packages which might incorporate hydraulic motors and pumps or brakes. Sales and engineering support will be a combination of factory-direct and manufacturers representatives.

"The concept of Drive Systems is to eventually be able to control the engineering input for the drive package design and assembly," said Schumann. Stressing that the new company is an entity completely separate from Merit Gear, Schumann said Drive Systems will compete for the best component prices on everything from gears and shafts, to bearings, housings and seals.

"Right now, by being an assembly operation, we're going to focus on being a very efficient operation," Sims noted. "We won't have manufacturing as an issue. It's white walls and a very clean operation - no chip-making anywhere, We'll be purchasing the components of our assemblies from extremely high-tech, high-quality machining houses - buying from companies that specialize in that size, that type - whatever it may be. If we are asked to quote on a certain volume, then we'll go to those companies that specialize in that volume and that specific size."

Schumann added, "Merit Gear has done a good job as a gear manufacturer, which is basically a raw material conversion process. Whereas with gear assembly, the gearbox has various components coming together in a particular fashion at some future point of time. It's a different system.

"At Drive Systems we can specialize in assembly and really make that cost effective and then start looking at design. It has been interesting to separate the manufacturing of gears from assembly, inasmuch as the two companies are in more of a niche at either end of the process."

Composite gearboxes could fly

The Center of Excellence for Composites Manufacturing Technology (CECMT), operated for the Navy by the Great Lakes Composites Consortium (Kenosha, WI), is working to demonstrate the viability of resin transfer molding (RTM) in complex structures such as aircraft accessory gearboxes. As a class, these types of parts, currently fabricated of cast aluminum or magnesium, are costly to machine, require corrosion and fatigue-crack preventative maintenance, and produce high noise levels. The weight of the metal components degrades lift efficiency and reduces aircraft payload capacity. According to CECMT, resin transfer molding could reduce part weight by about 30 and life cycle and acquisition costs by some 15 over current conventional machining processes for cast housings.

Researchers chose an accessory gearbox currently in service on the Chinook helicopter's T-55 engine to demonstrate resin transfer molding's payback. They had access to an operational experience database for composite component comparison, as well as an existing T-55 dynamic testing facility for ground evaluations of the composite gearbox under fully loaded in-service conditions. Although significantly smaller than accessory gearboxes for the Navy's V-22 Osprey, the T55 accessory gearbox meets all essential design and fabrication challenges of the larger gearboxes. Once resin transfer molding is proven on this part, researchers will scale up the technology to fabricate and test full-scale composite gearbox housings for the V22 in parallel with the currently base-lined metal design.

Gear Units produce torque up to 370.000 Nm

Designed for medium- and high-power transmission markets, High Power Series features configurable, space-saving design that combines S series planetary gearboxes with PIV's modular POSIRED 2 family of helical and bevel-helical gearboxes. Products come in 5 harmonically developed sizes that offer nominal torque from 37.000-370.000 Nm, transmission ratios from 100-670, and nominal power from 160-950 kW.

(Vernon Hills, IL - July 2005) Brevini's High Power Series is a new development in gear technology, designed to provide the medium and high power transmission markets with a family of products that are easy to configure, offer the highest levels of torque, and are both space saving and extremely reliable. The High Power Series provides these benefits by combining the high efficiency and reduced size and weight of Brevini's new S series planetary gearboxes with the flexibility and modularity of PIV's POSIRED 2 family of helical and bevel- helical gearboxes.

The main features of the new "High Power" Series are:

o 5 harmonically developed sizes

o Nominal Torque from 37.000 to 370.000 Nm

o Transmission ratios from 100 to 670

o Nominal Power from 160 to 950 kW

About Brevini USA

Brevini USA is a supplier of high quality planetary and helical gearboxes for a wide range of industries and applications - from manufacturing to agriculture, transport to mining. The company is headquartered in Vernon Hills, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Its facility includes a large warehouse and assembly area, where the company builds most gearboxes from stock. The quality system of Brevini USA, including manufacturing and design, is registered to the ISO 9000:2000 standard. Brevini USA is a division of the power transmission group of Brevini Riduttorti, S.p.A., Reggio Emilia, Italy, a worldwide manufacturer of planetary and helical gears.