Skip to main content
Sister Publication Links
  • Sustainable Plastics
  • Rubber News
Subscribe
  • Login
  • Register
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Processor News
    • Suppliers
    • More News
    • Digital Edition
    • End Markets
    • Special Reports
    • Newsletters
    • Resin pricing news
    • Videos
    • Injection Molding
    • Blow Molding
    • Film & Sheet
    • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
    • Rotomolding
    • Thermoforming
    • Recycling
    • Machinery
    • Materials
    • Molds/Tooling
    • Product news
    • Design
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Sustainability
    • Public Policy
    • Material Insights Videos
    • Numbers that Matter
    • Automotive
    • Packaging
    • Medical
    • Consumer Products
    • Construction
    • CEO Issue
    • Diversity
    • Best Places to Work
      • 2022 winners
    • Processor of the Year
    • Rising Stars
    • Women Breaking the Mold
  • Opinion
    • The Plastics Blog
    • Kickstart
    • One Good Resin
    • BRICS and Plastics
    • All Things Data
    • Viewpoint
    • From Pillar to Post
    • Perspective
    • Mailbag
    • Fake Plastic Trees
  • Shop Floor
    • Blending
    • Compounding
    • Drying
    • Injection Molding
    • Purging
    • Robotics
    • Size Reduction
    • Structural Foam
    • Tooling
    • Training
  • Events
    • Plastics News Events
    • Industry Events
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Livestreams/Webinars
    • Editorial Livestreams
    • Ask the Expert
    • Plastics News Events Library
    • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Plastics News Executive Forum
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Plastics News Caps & Closures
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
    • Plastics in Automotive
    • Injection Molding & Design Expo
    • Reuters Responsible Business Europe 2022
    • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
    • Polymer Points Live
    • Numbers that Matter Live
    • Plastics in Politics Live
    • Sustainable Plastics Live
    • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
    • Plastics in Healthcare Library
    • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
  • Resin Prices
    • All Resins
    • Commodity TPs
    • High Temp TPs
    • ETPs
    • Thermosets
    • Recycled Plastics
    • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
    • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
    • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
    • Historic Thermosets
    • Historic Recycled Plastics
  • Rankings & Data
    • Injection Molders
    • Blow Molders
    • Film Sheet
    • Thermoformers
    • Pipe Profile Tubing
    • Rotomolders
    • Mold/Toolmakers
    • LSR Processors
    • Recyclers
    • Compounders - List
    • Association - List
    • Plastic Lumber - List
    • All
  • Directory
  • Custom
    • Sponsored Content
    • Conair Sponsored Content
    • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
    • ENGEL Sponsored Content
    • White Papers
    • Classifieds
    • Place an Ad
    • Sign up for Early Classified
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. News
News
January 07, 2019 01:00 AM

Magna vet plans to transform IAC

Lindsay Chappell
Automotive News
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Print
    International Automotive Components
    Gingl

    At age 70, Manfred Gingl could be off enjoying his retirement after a high-flying 50-plus-year career in the auto business.

    Instead, Gingl is about to shake up International Automotive Components, an interior parts company with 50 factories around the world and 2018 sales of about $4 billion. In the coming days, Gingl, who was named CEO last summer, is expected to announce an overhaul of IAC intended to set it on a new path.

    It's not a corporate restructuring, he clarifies. It's more of a "step one" in a plan to change the way IAC thinks, getting it ready for bigger changes in the years ahead. IAC is the largest injection molder in North America, according to Plastics News research, with $1.6 billion worth of sales in 2017. Magna currently ranks at No. 32 in Plastics News' ranking of top injection molders in the region, with $277 million in sales. Magna's plastics operations dropped dramatically when it sold its interior operations to Groupo Antolin.

    The long-range thinking for IAC comes from a man who has been making business strategy since Lyndon Johnson was in the White House.

    "Maybe I don't have the youth, but I still have the strength to build another company," Gingl told Automotive News. AN is a sister publication of Plastics News.

    The plan is this: He wants to convert IAC's culture from a corporate mentality to an entrepreneurial one. Starting immediately, he says, IAC's factories will loosely operate as independent businesses.

    Local management teams will establish profit goals. They will make decisions about their own costs, make themselves competitive as standalone enterprises and structure themselves however they see fit. They will even, Gingl says, have the authority to pursue new business when an opportunity presents itself.

    "This company is going to refocus on where the action is — and that's at the factories," he said. "If your management teams don't feel like they have the power and authority to make improvements, then you've got a problem.

    "We want the factories to earn money; otherwise, you're not going to be in business."

    International Automotive Components

    IAC is the largest injection molder in North America and a supplier of interior products such as instrument panels.

    The Magna play

    If the idea sounds a little familiar, it's because it is precisely the business approach Magna used to become a global industry giant. Magna, where Gingl served as vice chairman under his longtime colleague, company founder Frank Stronach, is made up of multiple business groups. Magna stamps steel, injection molds products such as complete rear exterior panels, produces electronics, manufactures complete vehicles for automakers, makes seats, builds body structures and supplies powertrain systems. Each operation competes as an independent business under the Magna corporate umbrella.

    "I learned a lot in my years at Magna," Gingl acknowledged. "One thing I learned was that you can't just stand still as a maker of a commodity product. You have to offer the customer something more — more technology, entire systems or some innovation. That's where we're going to go with IAC."

    IAC intends to develop new products in infotainment, sensors and electronics, engineering new technology into its interior panels and instrument clusters, the CEO reveals.

    "But first," he said, "we're going to bring the company to a very decent level of profitability, and that hasn't happened here for the past 10 years."

    IAC, headquartered in Luxembourg, employs about 22,000 people in 19 countries, making interior door panels, instrument panels, headliners and consoles. The company is an amalgam of the former interiors operations of Lear Corp. and Collins & Aikman, brought together and managed by the finance company once run by U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. WL Ross & Co., a division of Invesco, and Franklin Mutual Advisers are the closely held company's majority shareholders.

    After a rocky year in which the company couldn't find a buyer, sales have tumbled from $6 billion in 2016 to about $4 billion last year.

    Gingl said the company will trim its roster of 50 plants to about 45 as it homes in on more profitable business. "I'd rather have $4 billion that's healthy than $6 billion that's losing money," he said.

    But getting there means lighting the entrepreneurial fire of IAC's factory managers. This year, IAC will establish a new performance reward system. Individual plants will have direct say on business quoting. The company will invest to strengthen local tooling capabilities and give plants more process engineering resources and more enhanced manufacturing automation.

    "We want to create entrepreneurs at the individual companies," Gingl says. "We want them to say, 'I own this plant.'?"

    The immigrants

    Gingl arrived in Canada as an Austrian immigrant at age 18 and went to work at a local tool and die shop owned by Stronach, a fellow Austrian who had immigrated a decade before. That venture would morph into Magna International Inc., which is projected to top $40 billion in 2018 sales. Stronach, now 86, retired in 2011.

    Gingl and Stronach worked closely for years, with Gingl eventually becoming vice chairman of the mega-supplier. But it was early in their working life, when the small business was little more than a stamping supplier, that Gingl pressed Stronach to consider diversifying into other fields.

    "At one point, we were just supplying chrome trim," Gingl recalls of Magna in the 1960s. "We had only two plants. We didn't even have any engineers. I told Frank, 'I really love American cars with all their chrome. But things could change someday. We need to get into plastics.'

    "It's happening again," he says of the current auto industry. "The way people drive is changing, the amount of time they spend in their vehicle and the whole issue of mobility — IAC has to change, too.

    "But first we have to get the company ready for it."

    RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
    Plastics adapt to a rapidly changing auto market
    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Do you have an opinion about this story? Do you have some thoughts you'd like to share with our readers? Plastics News would love to hear from you. Email your letter to Editor at [email protected]

    Most Popular
    1
    One-third of ExxonMobil shareholders back study on virgin plastics risks
    2
    Changes at the top look promising for Plastics Industry Association
    3
    Ford to use 20% recycled, renewable plastics by 2025
    4
    Rehau selling Russian operations as Ukraine invasion continues
    5
    Stellantis replaces North American purchasing chief amid supplier relations woes
    SIGN UP FOR TO RECEIVE THESE EMAILS AND ENEWSLETTERS
    EMAIL ADDRESS

    Please enter a valid email address.

    Please enter your email address.

    Please verify captcha.

    Please select at least one newsletter to subscribe.

    Get our newsletters

    Staying current is easy with Plastics News delivered straight to your inbox, free of charge.

    Subscribe today

    Subscribe to Plastics News

    Subscribe now
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram

    Plastics News covers the business of the global plastics industry. We report news, gather data and deliver timely information that provides our readers with a competitive advantage.

    Contact Us

    1155 Gratiot Avenue
    Detroit MI 48207-2997

    Customer Service:
    877-320-1723

    Resources
    • About
    • Staff
    • Editorial Calendar
    • Media Kit
    • Data Store
    • Digital Edition
    • Custom Content
    • People
    • Contact
    • Careers
    • Sitemap
    Related Crain Publications
    • Sustainable Plastics
    • Rubber News
    • Urethanes Technology
    • European Rubber Journal
    • Tire Business
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Copyright © 1996-2022. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Processor News
        • Injection Molding
        • Blow Molding
        • Film & Sheet
        • Pipe/Profile/Tubing
        • Rotomolding
        • Thermoforming
        • Recycling
      • Suppliers
        • Machinery
        • Materials
        • Molds/Tooling
        • Product news
        • Design
      • More News
        • Mergers & Acquisitions
        • Sustainability
        • Public Policy
        • Material Insights Videos
        • Numbers that Matter
      • Digital Edition
      • End Markets
        • Automotive
        • Packaging
        • Medical
        • Consumer Products
        • Construction
      • Special Reports
        • CEO Issue
        • Diversity
        • Best Places to Work
          • 2022 winners
        • Processor of the Year
        • Rising Stars
        • Women Breaking the Mold
      • Newsletters
      • Resin pricing news
      • Videos
    • Opinion
      • The Plastics Blog
      • Kickstart
      • One Good Resin
      • BRICS and Plastics
      • All Things Data
      • Viewpoint
      • From Pillar to Post
      • Perspective
      • Mailbag
      • Fake Plastic Trees
    • Shop Floor
      • Blending
      • Compounding
      • Drying
      • Injection Molding
      • Purging
      • Robotics
      • Size Reduction
      • Structural Foam
      • Tooling
      • Training
    • Events
      • Plastics News Events
        • Plastics News Executive Forum
        • Injection Molding & Design Expo
        • Plastics News Caps & Closures
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum
        • Plastics in Automotive
      • Industry Events
        • Injection Molding & Design Expo
      • Injection Molding & Design Expo
      • Livestreams/Webinars
        • Reuters Responsible Business Europe 2022
        • Reifenhäuser Technologies Livestreams
      • Editorial Livestreams
        • Polymer Points Live
        • Numbers that Matter Live
        • Plastics in Politics Live
        • Sustainable Plastics Live
      • Ask the Expert
      • Plastics News Events Library
        • Plastics Caps & Closures Library
        • Plastics in Healthcare Library
        • Women Breaking the Mold Networking Forum Library
      • Processor of the Year submissions
    • Resin Prices
      • All Resins
      • Commodity TPs
        • Historic Commodity Thermoplastics
      • High Temp TPs
        • Historic High Temp Thermoplastics
      • ETPs
        • Historic Engineering Thermoplastics
      • Thermosets
        • Historic Thermosets
      • Recycled Plastics
        • Historic Recycled Plastics
    • Rankings & Data
      • Injection Molders
      • Blow Molders
      • Film Sheet
      • Thermoformers
      • Pipe Profile Tubing
      • Rotomolders
      • Mold/Toolmakers
      • LSR Processors
      • Recyclers
      • Compounders - List
      • Association - List
      • Plastic Lumber - List
      • All
    • Directory
    • Custom
      • Sponsored Content
      • Conair Sponsored Content
      • KraussMaffei Sponsored Content
      • ENGEL Sponsored Content
      • White Papers
      • Classifieds
        • Place an Ad
        • Sign up for Early Classified