The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) is a premier destination for industry professionals and auto enthusiasts from around the world. This yearly event is attended by millions of people who come to Detroit to view the vehicle introductions and concept vehicles from all leading manufacturers. The show ran from January 11th to the 24th in Detroit, Michigan.
NAIAS kicked off the festivities with the Charity Preview event. We were personally proud to be a sponsor of 2016 AUTOGLOW: The 25th presented by Ford Motor Company. This event was held at Ford Field on the 15th, and supported children’s charities through The Children’s Center. For over 85 years The Children’s Center has been providing therapeutic mental and behavioral health services to families and children to help them overcome emotional and intellectual challenges they may suffer as a result of trauma from abuse, neglect, or poverty. Each year over 7,500 children and families from the greater Detroit area receive services through The Children’s Centersupported children’s charities
Our sponsorship helps to provide the resources the center needs to support group play therapy and art supplies for children who have suffered trauma that they cannot verbalize.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of AutoGlow and, since its beginnings in 1976, the Charity Preview has raised over $100 million for the children of Southeastern Michigan. We were happy to attend and support this exclusive and high-profile fundraising event to champion the children of Michigan and empower their future.
Gage Products has been in business since 1936, and in these almost 80 years and 3 generations of family ownership, we have celebrated many holiday seasons. What we have learned is that the holidays are a time for family and friends. As a family-owned company, our family and friends include the men and women we work with every day. Without the support and dedication of our employees, Gage couldn’t reach the quality and service standards we are committed to uphold.
Every year we host a holiday celebration to show our sincerest appreciation for our work family. This year we will be celebrating on Dec. 11 with our annual Gage Holiday Party. It’s a fun event where everyone has a chance to relax and unwind with good food and good company. The holiday party is our way of saying thank you for all the hard work and dedication our employees give to make Gage’s products and services the best in the industry.
Over the past year we continued our commitment to delivering customer-driven products that meet the most demanding requirements. Our customer service team is empowered to apply their knowledge, skill and creativity to apply the standardized tools and documented practices that improve customer satisfaction. We consistently meet or exceed environmental laws and with the Gage Production System we will continue to be the world’s preferred supplier of chemical related products and processes. Operations in North America, Brazil, and Europe support the global effort of high-quality manufacturing.
As we close out another year, it’s the perfect time to extend our heartfelt thanks to our employees and our loyal customers.
From our family to yours we hope you all have a happy and healthy holiday season!
In order to promote improvements in public health and environmental quality, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) recognizes projects that “eliminate or reduce the generation of pollutants or wastes at the source or projects that conserve natural resources.” The Pollution Prevention Award was recently presented to the General Motors Fairfax Assembly Plant in Kansas City for its Purge Thinner Reduction Project.
The goal of this project was to find ways to reduce the amount of the thinner used to clear paint lines when changing colors. The plant began the project by forming a Purge Reduction Committee that examined and analyzed the current process and materials. In monthly meetings they looked at how the thinner was used to determine where reductions could be made without sacrificing quality or productivity.
By switching thinners from the one they were using to Gage purge solvents, they realized the savings and benefits almost immediately. Our high-performance formulations are designed to improve the quality of paint applications using less solvent than is required by other products. Using the new product reduced paint per vehicle as well as lowered material and waste disposal costs. And, best of all, environmental compliance is increased and less thinner is needed to complete the purge process.
By reevaluating the process of purging the paint line piping between color changes and switching to Gage purge solvents, GM decreased thinner use by 101,894 gal, lowered VOC emissions by 92,700 pounds, and saved $405,500 over 12 months.
Using Gage purge solvents improved efficiencies at the Chevy Malibu and Buick Lacrosse assembly plant and resulted in clean, efficient, and fast color changes. Process variability and system costs were reduced which maximized the plant’s efficiency while minimizing wastes.
Gage develops high-quality solvent solutions and specializes in:
• Uniquely designed purge solvents • Solvent recovery and solvent blending solutions • High performance blended solvent and water borne purge solutions
We are continually working to shrink the environmental impact of our products and are proud to have been involved with the GM Purge Thinner Reduction Project and the recognition it received through this award. For more information on our sustainable products check out our website.
At Gage, we follow some straightforward ideals: quality, reliability, innovation, customer focus, and environmental stewardship. With the opening of our new Gage Innovation Center we have put all of these concepts into overdrive to strengthen our commitment to vehicle manufacturers and the automotive and industrial suppliers we serve.
Our commitment to advancing research and development efforts for new products and continued growth is evident in our new center. This multi-million dollar facility, located at our 12-acre Ferndale headquarters site, is important for many reasons: It lets us bring the Quality Control (QC) and Research & Development (R&D) departments together under the same roof for easier collaboration and in-house testing. We celebrated the official opening on Oct. 15th with community leaders, state and local officials, and, of course, all of our valued employees.
One of the most exciting aspects of this new center is the state-of-the-art laboratory outfitted with highly technical equipment. Our scientists now have access to gas chromatography and mass spectrometry equipment, both of which are critical to the multitude of tests we run. In the past, it was also time consuming to deliver reports and findings across departments — the new computerized, integrated information system allows technicians to share QC and R&D testing results much more quickly and efficiently.
This new facility also allows us to add new capabilities. We are now able to:
• Perform aromatic and detailed hydrocarbon analysis for fuels • Determine compound identifications through use of a mass spectrometry upgrade • Execute critical testing on up to 50 distinct fuel properties • Increase storage capacity for customer-product test samples
As one of our missions is for continuous improvement, this new Innovation Center gives our QC technicians better control and focus on the 500+ tests that we run each week. Performing all the tests in our own laboratory, without needing to outsource, lets us deliver results in 1-2 days. If re-testing is necessary, it can begin right away. The benefit greatly enhances the service we provide for our customers.
This new Innovation Center is an investment in our future so that we can expand our capabilities and develop new products while continuing to offer outstanding customer service. Gage is certified for ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 and the new Gage Innovation Center laboratory is in the process of certifying to ISO 17025 standards.
To learn more about our expanded and upgraded facilities and capabilities, feel free to contact us. We’d love to share our new innovations with you!
Gage Products Company is excited to announce our new, state-of-the-art laboratory, which is set to open in August. This new lab will be our dedicated in-house product development facility and will allow us to improve our quality control and analytical capabilities for our customers. We built this new lab to increase our internal capabilities and streamline our current processes to enhance new product development to better service our customers. It will also help grow new opportunities by developing an innovations center and help Gage Products Company meet the needs of chemical and automotive industries for today and the future.
We are thoroughly committed to reducing our environmental footprint through sustainable practices that support the needs of today and for future generations. Our products are all designed, formulated, and manufactured with the care of our natural resources in mind.
Our solutions are known for providing customers with unique and innovative custom technology. We are a prominent supplier of high performance solvent blends, test fuels, calibration fluids, paint line cleaning programs and specialty product solutions for various applications. We firmly believe, as we continue our mission to be the world’s preferred supplier of chemical related products and processes, that we can also build a better world. Our purge solvents are developed with recovery in mind and our closed loop remanufacturing process allows us to recycle solvents and chemical waste resulting in millions of gallons being remanufactured. Additionally, our chemical recycling, fractional distillation, and toll remanufacturing help us to build a more sustainable future.
Since our business opened in Ferndale in 1936, we have dedicated ourselves to earning the trust and respect of our customers, partners and neighbors, which has helped our company grow locally and globally. Gage Products Company now spans three continents and we will continue to grow through careful planning, forward thinking, product integrity and solid customer and community partnerships.
To learn more about Gage Products Company and our new lab, visit our website. We also post more company updates and industry news on our Twitter and LinkedIn pages.
At Gage Products we have been providing our customers with the best chemical related products and for over 75 years we have focused on pioneering new technology and techniques to do so. We are a fully licensed Resource Conservation and Recovery Act facility that remanufactures chemical waste and “off-spec” solvent streams to original product specifications. We have been recycling solvents and chemical waste for over 25 years and were pioneers in developing a sustainable closed-loop recycling systems and toll blending capabilities. We’ve spotlighted these capabilities and their benefits in the recent USA Today’s Green Living Guide on page 49. This process helps to reduce costs and increase effective resource management. To date, we have successfully and safely recycled and remanufactured over 100 million gallons of liquid organic materials at our facility since we began our sustainable manufacturing program.
Our closed-loop remanufacturing process involves removing the recovered purge solvent and paint mixture to the receiving tanks at our remanufacturing plant. We then use an evaporation process that separates the solvent and the paint. The paint waste is repurposed as cement-kiln fuel. The solvent moves along to the distillation process and then the distilled solvent moves to our lab for analysis to ensure solvent quality is the same as raw material quality. It then moves to the purge solvent blending stage and final quality inspection. From there it makes its way once again to the customer’s facility as a virgin quality remanufactured purge solvent blend. This process keeps materials in use that would have otherwise gone to a disposal or landfill facility and helps to reduce VOC’s and HAPS.
Our products are all designed, formulated, and manufactured under the guidance of our own chemical researchers and engineers with the care of our natural resources and our entire planet in mind. By having sustainability ingrained in our process and product mix, environmental management, and corporate culture, we are committed to meet or exceed regulatory standards. We employ the guiding principles of corporate social responsibility to drive continued performance improvement in our programs.
To learn more about our fuels, solvents, and recycling process, visit our website.
NAIAS always showcases the latest and greatest in the auto industry. This year’s event boasted over 102,000 attendees who witnessed vehicle reveals, exclusive previews, and key industry events. At Gage we love to attend to show each year to see trends and new concept cars. However, there is another very important section that can get looked over. Hall E of the event was a select area of the NAIAS which features work done by universities, nonprofits, and the Army.
College and high school students from all across the Americas were able to attend the show to compete in creating hybrid vehicles, which they then get to race. This portion of the show is very important to our company as we place a strong focus on STEM education and sustainability. This competition allows students to get real world experience with building and racing their vehicles and get to meet and interact with racing and automotive professionals. We were able to see some innovative hybrid vehicles, including the Solar Car from the University of Michigan.
To view more photos from the show, visit our Facebook page. We are also active on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ where we post more auto industry news. You can also learn more about how we help the auto industry by visiting our website.
As we welcome in the New Year we wanted to take some time to reflect on some of the events that occurred in our company in 2014 and what we hope to bring to our customers in 2015. In 2014 our company saw growth consistent with that of the automotive industry and we also expanded the reach of our website where we’re happy to share with our readers that our website is now available in seven different languages. We also participated in some educational and fun events. Around this time last year we were preparing for the National American International Auto Show (NAIAS). This auto show is extremely valuable to our company as it allows us to meet with automotive industry professionals from all around the world.
We also sponsored the SAE Clean Snowmobile Challenge. This event encourages STEM education by allowing engineering students to re-engineer existing snowmobiles so that they will be more fuel efficient, promote lower emissions, and reduce noise levels while maintaining high performance. As a company that is strongly focused on sustainability we love to be a part of this challenge and to help future generations discover the value of being environmentally conscious.
Finally, we co-sponsored the Ferndale Rainbow Run last summer. This 5K run/walk is to encourage acceptance and diversity within the community. As we mentioned as a part of our Corporate Social Responsibility we try to play an active role within our community and build on our tenets of community service and environmental sustainability.
Our goal for 2015 is to build on these principles and continue to demonstrate responsible behavior towards ourselves, our community, and our environment. This will be achieved through our business model, which is designed to adapt to developing and changing market conditions. Equally important is that it focuses on sustainable practices, which allows us to deliver superior value to all our stakeholders. To learn more about Gage Products, visit our website or follow us on Twitter.
Last month, several Gage employees enjoyed one of the highlights of the summer for not only many Ferndale residents, but for automotive fans from around the world. The 20th-annual Woodward Dream Cruise was held beginning on August 16th this year. With an estimated annual attendance of over 1 million people, and some 30,000 collector cars displayed for all to enjoy, the Dream Cruise is the largest show of its kind in the world.
The fun began the night before, when downtown Ferndale was turned into a celebration of vehicles roles in first-responder preparedness with the 14th annual Emergency Vehicles Show. The show included over half a dozen retro fire trucks dating from before WWII through the lemon-lime colored vehicles of the 1970s. The Ferndale Fire Department offered free “bucket” rides that rose as high as 70 feet — a favorite for the children in attendance. Historical police vehicles from Auburn Hills were also displayed.
The next day, the one day event officially began, with 1,400 classic Ford Mustang’s comprising Mustang Alley beginning at Woodward and East 9 Mile Road. Other highlights included antique ambulances, the GM Design Staff Show, original Jeeps, and, for the first time, the cruise driving through part of Detroit. Perhaps most impressive, the 20 year tradition boasts a perfect record when it comes to serious accidents or injuries. That streak continued this year, with no such incidents reported.
We at Gage love that our city takes part in an event that reveals all the best things about the auto industry and the local community. It’s one of the many reasons we’re still thrilled to call Ferndale home.
Gage Products is proud to offer a full range of fuel blends and calibration fuels for testing system components. In the past, our advanced fuels technology also has led to our developing specific fuels for individual customer requests. Gage has been a Q1 rated supplier since 1987, and is both ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 registered. Our outstanding services earned us the 2013 Detroit Free Press Green Leaders Award for Automotive Innovation. Additionally, we proudly sponsor the EcoCAR 2 competition, recently won by The Ohio State, by providing the fuel. Some of our capabilities within the fuels segment are outlined below.
Reference Fuels
Our formulary contains more than 1000 reference fuel blends. Gage Products usually requires only a name of a product or a specified need from a customer in order to find the most appropriate solution. We work with EPA, CARB, and European gasolines and diesels. Witha full on-site fuels testing facility, we also provide C of A with all fuels. Chrysler, Ford, and GM are just some of the brands that utilize these blends.
Calibration Fluids
Stay up-to-date with the industry’s fast-paced changes in demand by utilizing our dedicated laboratory facilities. OEMs, Tier 1s, and various testing laboratories utilize Gage Products for their sourcing needs. Our capabilities include simulation of viscosity and flow, determination of critical vehicle systems values, and testing on rails, fuel pumps and injectors. With 25 different calibration fluids available, we can test multiple automotive applications.
Custom Fuel Blends
Our research and development team has experience producing the highest-quality results for even the most specific of customer designations. We offer bulk volume to one-gallon container packaging, and delivery times faster than the industry standard. All of these advantages are available for a competitive price.
Toll Manufacturing
We cater to clients looking for reliable, innovative, and environmentally-friendly solutions. Some of our varied services include: contracted work for unique fuel development, high-yield custom distillation, and blending or packaging for unique specifications.
The North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) is a premier destination for industry professionals and auto enthusiasts from around the world. This yearly event is attended by millions of people who come to Detroit to view the vehicle introductions and concept vehicles from all leading manufacturers. The show ran from January 11th to the 24th in Detroit, Michigan.
