Glaeser Inc.

But these are not ordinary washers. They could seal a major deal for their manufacturer if they can pass the test — a test based not on their strength nor their content, but on their cleanness.

In today's high-tech manufacturing environment, the components used to make engines, fuel-injection systems and other sophisticated parts that go into autos, jets and other products demand a cleanness that is not measured in a speck or smudge but in micrometer particles invisible to the naked eye.

Checking for those impurities on components is one of the newest companies on Tuscaloosa's business scene, Glaeser Inc.

Glaeser, a family-owned German company that officially opened its first non-European office on Hargrove Road East on Thursday, is a small operation that might be easily missed by passers-by.

But the work that it will do has become an important part of today's manufacturing and reflects the maturing growth of Tuscaloosa's automotive industry.

"It is a piece to another layer of the supply services to the auto industry," said Dara Longgrear, executive director of the Tuscaloosa County Industrial Development Authority.

"Tuscaloosa already enjoys being the center of the largest automotive sector in the state," he said.

But as the county continues to build its automotive industry, which includes the Mercedes-Benz assembly plant in Vance and a host of automotive parts manufacturers, it needs companies that can provide those manufacturers with knowledge-based technical and support services, he said.

Having knowledge-based service companies like Glaeser "will allow us to recruit more companies" that need such services, Longgrear said.

Western European automotive suppliers considering investing in their first plant in the United States look for the support services they are accustomed to in Europe, he said.

Having Glaeser and its next door neighbor, MB Tech — a German automotive engineering solutions company — will make Tuscaloosa a more attractive location for those building new plants, Longgrear said. In effect, it becomes another incentive Tuscaloosa can offer to help them succeed.

"The number of workers Glaeser will have is not as important as the specialized services it can provide" to other industries, Longgrear said.

Michael H. Johnson, an honorary consul general for Germany, noted that Glaeser's move to the South, where German automakers have concentrated their U.S. plants, follows a model favored by German industry.

"The German model is the leaders in the technical services arena are small and

medium-sized companies," he said Thursday while visiting Glaeser.

Large manufacturers like Mercedes, BMW and Volkswagen rely on such companies for knowledge-based technical services, said Johnson, a Birmingham attorney. It's a model with which German companies are comfortable.

It's that model that prompted Glaeser to look at the Southeast for its first plant outside Germany.

Witza, a Glaeser vice president who set up the Tuscaloosa facility and for now is its sole full-time staffer, said Glaeser has working relationships in Germany with Mercedes, BMW, Volkswagen and large automotive parts suppliers like Brose, all of which have plants in the Southeast.

Those companies and their suppliers are among the businesses Glaeser hopes to serve.

But Witza said Glaeser also wants to serve others in the automotive industry and other industries that need cleanness testing, too,

The Tuscaloosa facility plans to serve customers in the U.S., Canada and South America.

In Germany, Glaeser serves component manufacturers in aerospace, medical applications, wind energy, shipbuilding, heavy vehicle construction and agricultural technology. Those are industries it wants to attract here as customers, she said.

So how does Glaeser's testing work?

"We will take things like screws, seals, mostly metal parts and check them for residual dust particles," Witza said.

"We work in an environment that is near zero particles," she said.

The testing is done in a special "clean room," where components like the metal washers are put into a dust-free analytical machine made by Glaeser in Germany.

A special solution washes the components to remove the microscopic particles, which are captured in a membrane that is removed and examined under a high-powered microscope and weighed in a highly accurate lab scale.

Martin Horn, a manufacturing representative for Glaeser, said the membranes are weighed before and after the particles are captured. The lab scale will detect weight differences to thousandths of a gram.

Every manufacturer has set its own specifications on the maximum number of particles it will accept on its various components, Witza said.

In viewing the membrane under a microscope, the particles are counted and variance in their sizes can be measured, with that information being furnished to the client company.

The amount of minute particles on even the smallest components is important because they can cause the component to crack, leak or not hold up under stress, Horn said.

That, in turn, can cause the engines, fuel-injection systems or other key parts to break down or malfunction. And if that happens, a manufacturer can be looking at costly repairs or even product recalls.

"For a fuel-injection system, there is a very slight tolerance for impurities," Horn said.

Too many microscopic particles will disrupt functions, he said. "If you have big particle build-up on valves, for instance, they will not close or operate properly," he said.

Manufacturers will determine how frequently they will want component samples tested. Every manufacturer has its own specifications, Witza said.

If a manufacturer specifies that a particular component it buys must have less than 500 micro-particles present and it tests at 495, the manufacturer might require the supplier to test weekly. If the test shows 10 micro-particles, it might not require another test for six months, she said.

Glaeser was founded in 1976 in Horb, Germany, a city in the Black Forest region near the Swiss border. It started by making hydraulic control blocks and selling hydraulic components. It still does that, but later started making the cleanness-testing apparatus and operating them in its clean room labs. It has about 50 total employees in all its operations.

Glaeser's founder, Fritz-

Joerg Glaeser, has retired, but the company now is run by his daughters, Claudia and Christiane Glaeser, both of whom were in Tuscaloosa on Thursday for the company's formal opening.

CEO Claudia Glaeser said the company employs 10 technicians in clean-room labs in Germany who test more than 250 parts per month for customers from as far away as Brazil.

Glaeser also makes the analytic machines for manufacturers that want their own in-house testing labs and trains the technicians who operate them.

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