Crain's Detroit Business - December 20, 2010 - (Page 3)

December 20, 2010 CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS Page 3 Snowstorm rattles supply chain Trapped trucks, closed bridge cause shutdowns BY DUSTIN WALSH CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS Inside TI Automotive plans to hire. Q&A with CEO Bill Kozyra, Page 6 Company index These organizations appear in this week’s Crain’s Detroit Business: ArvinMeritor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 ASG Renaissance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Auto Club Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Bartech Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Bodman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Business Leaders for Michigan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Last week’s record-breaking winter storm caused a logistics logjam that led to some short-term scrambling for auto suppliers and their customers. The storm, with frigid temperatures and nearly 20 inches of snow, closed the Blue Water Bridge to commercial traffic — one of two main supply arteries between the U.S. and Canada — for three days. Case in point: Six Detroit-based Churchill Transportation Inc. semitrailers hauling automotive parts were trapped on Highway 402 in Ontario for 36 hours. The six trucks contained parts headed to Chrysler Group LLC’s Brampton, Ontario, assembly plant but were delayed by the storm last Sunday and Monday, which disrupted auto production. Parts shortages caused automakers to shut down lines. General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group all reported parts shortages that shut down lines Tuesday and Wednesday in the U.S. and Canada as suppliers struggled to get parts across the border to assembly plants while Canadian authorities cleared the highway after the storm blustered through Michigan and into Canada. Paul Haelterman, global managing director of the automotive consulting group for Novi-based IHS Automotive Group LLC, said 70 percent of automotive freight traveling between the U.S. and Canada crosses the Blue Water Bridge, which links Port Huron and Point Edward, Ontario. Southfield-based Lear Corp., Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Inc. and Aurora, Ontario-based Magna International Inc. are among the long list of suppliers that deliver parts to OEMs on both sides of the border. While all three declined to go on record, it’s expected that the suppliers had to reroute some of their shipments more than 70 miles south to the Ambassador Bridge or Detroit-Windsor Tunnel. “When plants go down, it’s an See Supply chain, Page 5 Engineering firm scores World Cup 2022 work PAT plans to increase staff BY BILL SHEA CRAIN’S DETROIT BUSINESS PHOTO COURTESY OF SLOT MODS U.S.A. Churchill Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Clark Hill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Comerica Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Community Central Bancorp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Deloitte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Detroit City Council . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Detroit International Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Detroit Medical Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau . . . . . 6 Detroit Pistons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Detroit Symphony Orchestra . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Donnelly Penman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Dow Automotive Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 DTE Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Dykema Gossett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Elder Automotive Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Focus: HOPE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Foley & Lardner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Ford Motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Ghafari Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Henry Ford Health System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Honigman Miller Schwartz & Cohn . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 IHS Automotive Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Jaffee Raitt Heuer & Weiss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Kelly Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Kitch Drutchas Wagner Valitutti & Sherbrook . . . . . 7 Lear . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Masco . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Michigan Economic Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Michigan Economic Growth Authority . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Michigan Supreme Court . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Michigan Tax Tribunal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 MPI Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Oakwood Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Olympia Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 PAT Engineering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Plastipak Packaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Raleigh Michigan Studios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Right Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Slot Mods U.S.A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Taubman Centers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Quantum Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Suburban Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 TI Automotive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 UBS Financial Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 University of Michigan-Dearborn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 William Beaumont Hospitals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 David Beattie's slot-car business started in his Mt. Clemens basement and has grown into a full-time job. Playing to win Entrepreneur gathers speed with custom, high-end slot tracks BY GREG MIGLIORE CRAIN NEWS SERVICE The graphic details are stunning. The colors, the textures and the visceral appeal of auto racing are all there. From the Dunlop Bridge at Le Mans to the tunnel at Monaco, some of the most iconic features of the most famous race tracks in the world are there, too. Not in some dusty museum case or motor sports hall of fame but in a real-life, easy-to-play slotcar track beckoning drivers to do a hot lap. A basement in Mt. Clemens is the development lab for a growing business of slot-car tracks, called Slot Mods U.S.A. These are not your everyday plug-and-play plastic configura- “ People are as inquiring from far away as Dubai. I’ll do any track that anyone asks for. ” David Beattie, Slot Mods U.S.A. tions. Rather, they are handcrafted, custom-made reproductions aimed at a clientele with money to burn and who simply enjoy playing with cars. The tracks can be tailored to individual tastes and sizes. If you want to stage Le Mans every night in your living room, Slot Mods can make it happen. Company founder David Beattie is the first to admit that the tracks aren’t basic necessities, but they’re spectacularly executed and lots of fun. His first big creation is an evolving test track in his basement, dubbed Legends International Raceway, with 170 feet of track. It’s been a work in progress since 2006, and it took a year and a half before it was ready even for a few laps. In addition to Le Mans and Monaco, elements of Monza and Targa Florio are evident in the setup, which also has real dirt, detailed trees, tar strips and Gulf, Pirelli and Esso signs that are rufSee Slot tracks, Page 5 Madison Heights-based PAT Engineering USA LLC plans to expand its two-man staff by up to 10 people and will seek a larger local office next year as the firm ramps up work linked to the 2022 FIFA World Cup for its Mideast-based parent company. The office is the North American satellite for PAT Engineering WLL in Doha, Qatar — the tiny Persian Gulf nation that on Dec. 2 was awarded the international soccer tournament. It beat the United States, Japan, Australia, and South Korea for the 2022 World Cup. The games are played every four years. Qatar already has $57 billion worth of World Cup infrastructure projects set up for the next three years, and another estimated $43 billion needed beyond that. Nine hundred construction contracts were activated the day after Qatar was named the host country by the World Cup’s ruling body, The Guardian newspaper in London reported. PAT Engineering USA seeks products and services for jobs contracted by its parent corporation, which does most of its work in the Mideast, India and South Korea, along with joint-venture work in See World Cup, Page 4 Department index BANKRUPTCIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 BRIEFLY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 BUSINESS DIARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 CALENDAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 CLASSIFIED ADS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 KEITH CRAIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 MARY KRAMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 THIS WEEK @ WWW.CRAINSDETROIT.COM Interested in special events? Check Crain's 10 Things To Do This Weekend, updated every Thursday: crainsdetroit.com/tenthings Know what the foodies know Get the latest on the restaurant scene from Crain's reporter Nathan Skid: crainsdetroit.com/skid OPINION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 PEOPLE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 RUMBLINGS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 WEEK ON THE WEB . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 http://www.crainsdetroit.com/skid http://www.crainsdetroit.com/tenthings

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crain's Detroit Business - December 20, 2010

Crain's Detroit Business - December 20, 2010
Department Index
Keith Crain
Mary Kramer
Opinion
Calendar
People
Business Diary
Classified Ads
Briefly
Rumblings
Week on the Web

Crain's Detroit Business - December 20, 2010