When the neighbors complained about the noise, Tracsa moved into one of Pamplona's industrial estates and began producing differential heads for Eaton. As Eaton gained confidence in the local management and potential of the business, it acquired a majority of the shares. Then, in the late 1970s, believing that Spain was an excellent location from which to expand into Europe, Eaton bought full capital stock.

Through the years, Eaton invested in expansions of the Pamplona business to produce products for the truck and bus industry. The Pamplona Axle Business Unit is part of Truck Components Operations Europe. Principal products today include power distribution and control equipment, axles, engine components and hydraulic products for such customers as Iveco, Volvo, MAN, BMC, Volvo, Chrysler, Nissan and Otasan in Turkey. One-third of the output goes to other Eaton plants in the USA, South America and the Far East.

Eaton Pamplona is the worldwide No. 1 manufacturer of axle housings. This facility is Eaton's largest for that component.

Eaton employs 520 in its 280,000-sq. ft. (26,000-sq. m.) plant. Because of peaks and valleys in the USA market, its main customer, the plant needs to be highly flexible as to employee count, and the company drops and adds workers as business demands dictate.

Eaton is proud of the quality its plant achieves. Last year the plant was named best in quality among Eaton operations.

"Within this environment of multinationals we are a leader in quality," says José Zugaldia, Axle Unit Business Manager. The company achieved ISO 9000 in 1990 -- one of the earliest companies in Spain to reach that goal.

The key to success of the facility is continuous process improvements, and Eaton's Pamplona plant has a huge productivity improvement success story to tell. The number of housings per employee is now 750 per year which is 120 percent higher than three years and 400-plus percent higher than in 1980. The next goal -- for the year 2000 -- is 1,000 housings per employee.