DETROIT – The Society of Automotive Engineers will kick off its 2006 Technical Congress in an atmosphere of unprecedented global participation, though blemished by ongoing reorganizations at General Motors and Ford and bankruptcies of such leading suppliers as Delphi, Dana, Collins & Aikman, and Tower Automotive. The theme of the conference is ?Driving Innovation Through Partnerships.?
The host company for the first time at Detroit?s Cobo Center is BMW AG, whose management board member, Dr. Burkhard Goeschel, is Congress general chairman. Next?s year?s Congress will be hosted by Toyota, and the president of Toyota Technical, USA, Yaksuhiko Ichihashi, will be general chairman.
Running through April 6, the Congress will feature more than 200 technical sessions and make available over 1500 technical papers. A new facility, OEM/Supplier Park, will be unveiled, including special exhibits from the American automakers, BMW and Toyota, plus their Tier One suppliers. U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman will be the featured speaker Thursday night at the annual Congress banquet in the Detroit Marriott Renaissance Center Hotel.
Always held in downtown Detroit, the Congress has been sought by other cities, reportedly Chicago and Cleveland, but SAE?s leadership has voted to remain in the Motor City for the foreseeable future, according to SAE executive Bob Chalker.
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