TROY, Mich. – Dayco Products is celebrating 40 years of operation at its Walterboro, S.C., manufacturing facility. The facility surpassed the 40-year mark in June and the company recognized the milestone at the belt manufacturing plant recently.
Dayco CEO Jim Orchard and other invited guests were in South Carolina to help celebrate the occasion.
“The Walterboro facility has seen many ups and downs and many different management teams over the past 40 years. The one constant has been our associates who take the changes in stride and maintain the tremendous pride in the product we manufacture for our customers,” said Tom Green, director of North American Operations, Flexible Components.
Opened in 1973, the Walterboro plant employs more than 130 people, who produce v-belts and serpentine belts for the both the original equipment industry and the automotive aftermarket, as well as performance belts for the ATV and snowmobile market.
In other news, Dayco announced it is continuing its expansion activities into the harmonic balancer manufacturing market with the acquisition of Precision Parts Pty. Ltd. The company will now operate under the name Dayco Precision Holdings Pty. Ltd.
This is the second acquisition for Dayco announced this month. On Sept. 10, the company announced it has acquired Metavation and the damper portion of EPTEC from Revstone.
Precision Parts is an Australian-based manufacturer of harmonic balancers, performance balancers and engine idler pulleys, as well as a supplier of overrunning alternator pulleys for the automotive aftermarket industry and possesses one of the world’s largest ranges of automotive harmonic balancers.
Increasing demand for new balancers in the worldwide automotive market has allowed Precision Parts to invest in tooling to produce an extensive range of new products marketed under the POWERBOND brand. Precision Parts also manufactures NULINE engine pulleys with a manufacturing range that has grown rapidly since its inception.
Dayco will now add harmonic balancers to its line of automotive aftermarket products, which includes serpentine belts, v-belts, timing belts and timing component kits, tensioners, pulleys and hose. Following the recent acquisition of Metavation as well as the damper portion of EPTEC from Revstone, Dayco is now manufacturing harmonic balancers for both the original equipment market and the automotive aftermarket in all global markets.
“Precision Parts’ POWERBOND and NULINE brands are highly recognized in both the Australian and North American aftermarkets," said Ed Rammel, president of the North American and Australian aftermarket divisions of Dayco. "We are excited to add this well-respected line of products to Dayco’s current product offering.”
