DENSO Manufacturing Michigan (DMMI) - As DMMI continues to grow and evolve, so do the products it manufactures. Case in point:Copper/brass radiators and heater cores, DMMI’s original products, will be extinct by the end of the year.

In the 1980s, the auto industry shifted from copper/brass to aluminum heat exchangers as they searched for lighter weight components to help improve fuel efficiency. Using aluminum in radiators instead of copper/brass reduced weight without losing the thermal conductivity necessary to cool hot engines. Not to mention the vast environmental benefits of using aluminum.

Ron Saltzman, superintendent, Manufacturing, Production II, recalled when DMMI produced only copper/brass cores.

“I remember reading an article written by a DENSO associate in the early ‘90s about how copper/brass products were our foundation, and we’d always produce them. Two weeks later an engineer came to us and said, ‘Guys, we’re going to put in an aluminum line real soon.’”

Witnessing the disassembling and removal of the machines associated with the copper/brass lines has meant different things to different associates.

“I don’t miss the battles with paint quality,” remembered Roger Lambert, assistant manager, Quality Assurance, in reference to his time on the copper/brass line. “But I do miss the people who worked on that line. My best memories are of the associates I worked with.”

For others, the generation change in products and equipment allows them to appreciate how they’ve grown and changed as DMMI has grown.

“Many of the people who have moved on from this area are witnessing the ‘retirement’ of their training grounds, the tools which allowed them to advance their skills and move on to new positions,” said Todd Lyons, project supervisor of Production Engineering.

But as everyone knows, change is inevitable and necessary for survival. That change, rather than being negative, has been positive, giving associates a chance to move to new lines, learn new skills, make new products and develop new relationships. All associates from the copper/brass areas have moved to aluminum or other areas. This strong commitment to associates has been a trademark of DENSO from the beginning.

Saltzman agreed. “Copper was our mainstay for a very long time,” he said. “To move ahead,you must change and adapt. What’s in the past is in the past, and DENSO’s nature is to look toward the future.”

—Robert Maas