SPE Honors Faurecia and Chrysler Group LLC With the 2011 Vehicle Engineering Team Award

NANTERRE, France and AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Nov. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Faurecia (www.faurecia.com), the world's sixth-largest automotive supplier, and Chrysler Group LLC received top honors from the Automotive Division of the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE) for its work on the 2011 Chrysler 200 and the Dodge Avenger, earning the companies the 2011 Vehicle Engineering Team Award (VETA). The award was presented during SPE's 41st Annual Innovation Awards Competition & Gala on Nov. 9 at Burton Manor in Livonia, Mich.

The VETA recognizes the technical achievements of entire teams comprising automotive designers and engineers, tier integrators, materials suppliers, toolmakers and others whose work—in research, design, engineering, and/or manufacturing—has led to significant integration of polymeric materials on a notable vehicle. This is the fifth time in eight years that the award has been presented.

"Our team worked very closely with Chrysler, enabling us to transform the interiors of the 2011 Chrysler 200 and Dodge Avenger in a record 54 weeks, an effort that could not have been achieved without commitment and dedication from both companies," said Jean-Michel Renaudie, president of Faurecia Interior Systems, North America. "Being honored with the Vehicle Engineering Team Award is a great reward for our teams in the U.S., Mexico, France, India and China who were all fully engaged in the development effort."

The team focused on three key factors to create two distinct interior "personalities" for the two vehicles in the compressed timeframe: a craftsmanship benchmarking report from Chrysler Group, Faurecia's perceived-quality methodology, and a number of carryover components (e.g. a common cross-car beam, instrument panel retainer, glove-box door, and drive-side knee bolster). The team had strong support from both organizations.

Faurecia has previously received several honors from SPE including awards for the most innovative use of plastics and innovation awards.

The SPE Automotive Innovation Awards Competition was started in 1970 to recognize the positive changes that polymeric materials were bringing to the automotive industry, such as weight reduction, parts consolidation and enhanced aesthetics and design freedom. SPE's Automotive Innovation Awards program is the oldest and largest competition of its kind in the automotive and plastics industries.

The mission of SPE is to promote scientific and engineering knowledge relating to plastics worldwide and to educate industry, academia and the public about these advances. SPE's Automotive Division is active in educating, promoting, recognizing and communicating technical accomplishments for all phases of plastics and plastic-based composite developments in the global transportation industry. Topic areas include applications, materials, processing, equipment, tooling, design and development.

About Faurecia North America

Faurecia North America had sales of $3.4 billion in 2010. The Group has 33 production sites in the United States, Canada and Mexico and employs more than 15,000 people in the region. It has five technical and development centers, situated in Auburn Hills (2), Holland and Troy, Mich., and in Columbus, Ind., as well as a customer center in Toledo, Ohio.

For the latest updates on Faurecia activities throughout North America, connect with the company at http://www.facebook.com/faureciaNA and http://www.twitter.com/faurecia_NA.

SOURCE Faurecia

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