UACJ Automotive Whitehall Industries, Inc. is a unique precision fabricator of extruded aluminum parts that primarily services the rapidly growing aluminum market for the automotive industry. Extensive capabilities with aluminum position it to provide services that its competitors cannot. More specifically, the company is able to execute extremely precise extrusion at the upper end of the capabilities scale. David Cooper, President of UACJ Automotive Whitehall Industries, explained, “We design and build our own machinery, and engage in custom sales operations. So a lot of what you see at our plant, we designed and built. Our customer sends us a model of the part they want and we figure out a way to efficiently make it. It’s difficult to find what we have under one roof. The company is utilizing a vertically integrated business model, commissioning everything from development to trial production and mass production. To realize a high-value-added business, the company has a great team of very talented people that have been working together for a long time; some of them as long as 40 years,” Cooper said.

Cooper maintains that the acquisition of UACJ Automotive Whitehall Industries is a good mutual fit, saying, “The M&A this time is a very rare case where everyone in it benefits. By joining the UACJ Group, we now have a financial foundation that is exponentially stronger compared to what we had. There’s also a global reach that we didn’t have before. Another merit that UACJ brings to the table is support in terms of production technologies and R&D. That gives us access to people with expertise that we don’t have. This, too, will help us eliminate waste and streamline manufacturing operations.”

CAFE standards for fuel efficiency are driving the trend towards lighter-weight vehicles, and Cooper noted that parts previously made of steel are now being made of aluminum. The company also has operations in Mexico, a location that was selected because customers were in the vicinity. Business is exploding with requests from the automotive industry. “Orders are coming from new automotive manufacturers, as well as major companies,” Cooper continued. “So that will help us grow in Mexico. A major customer has also given us access to additional electric vehicles. UACJ has access to Japanese OEMs and other customers that we ourselves don’t currently have access to. It is a pretty good time to be where we are, and I don’t think there’s any risk of people fleeing from aluminum for any kind of safety reason.”