Integration of North American Research and Development Organizations

In order to focus on development for the North American Automotive Market, a decision has been made to integrate the NTN Technical Center (hereafter referred to as NTC) into the NTN Automotive Center (hereafter referred to as NAC), a division of the NTN Bearing Corporation of America, and dissolve NTC by the end of June 2002.

Founded in September of 1988, NTC has functioned as a research and development organization in North America conducting R&D and performance testing of bearings and other automotive products. It has also conducted studies on technical trends in the U.S.

NAC was established in Detroit in March of 1999 to swiftly respond to the diverse needs of automotive manufacturers and to build a total development-to-sales structure through the integration of technical development and design/experiment functions of the engineering department with the sales department.

At NAC, the engineering and sales departments strengthened customer communications and support structure through close cooperation. This latest integration is aimed at improving the efficiency of management resources as well as speeding up the development of areas directly related to customer needs. This move will enable NTN to handle the expected surge in orders from the three American auto giants as well as the Japanese auto manufacturers, and at the same time, provide fast and efficient technical support in areas of development.

Further, NAC will continue to employ necessary NTC research personnel, and is fully able to cope with the cost of the integration through such things as the sale of land and buildings.