Another American success story is TRW, which has been making automotive components in Navarre for 22 years. The plant, which produces for the USA and Asia, is one of TRW's 10 in the world for passenger steering systems. Sixty percent of production is exported.

Cleveland-headquartered TRW, a company with 66,500 employees and 132 facilities in 23 countries, makes engine components, steering suspensions, electronic controls, fasteners, seat belts and air bags for the automotive market and additional products for its space/defense/satellite communications business. It is no small player, with close to $10 billion in sales.

TRW came to Pamplona in 1975 as part of its European expansion strategy. Felix Huarte, a Navarre entrepreneur with a big vision 50 years ago, created many companies in the automotive area. TRW, in the mid-70s looking for a southern European steering gear manufacturer, bought 50 percent of Huarte's Torfinasa company, which had been dedicated to making screws and nuts and later rack and pinion steering gears. In 1982 TRW acquired the entire business and added another product line -- full integral gears. Yet another line -- power rack and pinion steering gears -- came on in 1994. In 1996 TRW Direcciones de Vehiculos S.A. supplied one million power rack and pinion steering gears and 100,000 full integral gears. The 280,000-sq. ft. (26,000-sq. m.) facility employs 614.

"At the time we came to Navarre, labor costs were not high," says Javier Chacén Unzué managing director of the Pamplona plant. "Today labor is not cheap, but productivity and quality are very good. We were clever enough to grow in quality and productivity to justify today's costs."

Customers for passenger car components include Ford, VW, Renault and SEAT. The company makes truck gears for DAF, Iveco, Nissan, Scania, Volvo and RVI. This is the company's only European production site for truck gears.

"These are the most prestigious truck manufacturers in Europe and we have to supply top quality to them," says Chacón, citing the company's numerous quality awards.

This is the best factory in the world from a profit viewpoint for TRW for the last two years. For quality, it is also top ranked in faulty parts per million -- chalking up better quality records than TRW's plants in Italy, Germany, France, the UK and the Czech Republic. It also competes well in quality measurements against TRW's U.S. factories.

Like Eaton, TRW Pamplona has a remarkable success story to tell. The story tells a lot about the potential for profit in Navarre, as well the character of the Navarran worker.

In 1993 turnover was $35 million. In 1997 it will reach $170 million, nearly five times the 1993 level.

"If a company comes to Navarre with a clear vision of what it wants to achieve, it can grow rapidly," says Chacón, who came to the Pamplona plant in 1993 and is the mastermind behind the five-fold increase in revenue over the last four years. He reduced absenteeism by 50 percent, boosted training to 72 hours a year per employee (it was just 10 hours a year previously) and developed an employee involvement plan.

"In this country a company can grow because the people are tough workers -- very, very tough" says Chacón. "They come from an agricultural background. They have a pioneer sense of life. They believe in their abilities to do great things."

This means, says Chacón, that the workers are trusting of business relationships. "It is quite simple to keep your credibility," he says. "You have to make only a few promises, but you must keep them. In other areas, you may have to make many promises to win employee commitment, and you will probably find it difficult to keep them."

The company, a pioneer in cost and waste reduction and continuous process improvement, operates under lean production. These were concepts the Navarran workers readily understood. "You can make changes in Navarre because Navarre has no long industrial tradition and people are far more accepting of change," Chacón says. "In some other European countries, it takes years to implement changes."