Takata airbag review panel members named by Skinner

Former Transportation Secretary Samuel Skinner today released a list of six experts -- including Cerberus Chairman John Snow -- to serve on an independent panel that will oversee Takata Corp.’s efforts to ensure that its airbag inflators meet federal safety standards.

Snow, the former head of railroad giant CSX Corp. who later served as secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department from 2003 to 2006, has been with the Cerberus private equity firm since 2006 and has served numerous roles in the U.S. business community over the years. 

Skinner, who was named by Takata on Dec. 3 to chair the newly formed panel, said in a statement today that the panel also will include:

• Marion Blakey, who served as administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration from 2002 to 2007, and chairwoman of the National Traffic Safety Board from 2001 to 2002
• Nelda Connors, a former executive at Tyco International, Eaton Corp. and the Fluid Power Group from 2002 through 2011
• John Landgraf, executive vice president of Abbott Laboratories
• Julio Ottino, dean of the school of engineering at Northwestern University
• Jeffrey Runge, the former administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 2001 to 2005.

Snow presided over Cerberus' ill-fated $7.45 billion acquisition of Chrysler from Daimler AG in May 2007. Chrysler filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy two years later and was then taken over by Fiat S.p.A. in a U.S. government-sponsored reorganization.

In an interview today with Automotive News, Skinner said the panel will examine Takata’s current manufacturing practices, the chemical makeup of its inflator propellant, and the dynamics of corporate decision-making in Tokyo.

But the panel will not attempt to determine the root cause of the malfunctions that have caused some inflators to explode, scattering metal shards into the cabins of several vehicles.

The panel also will not investigate allegations that Takata engineers secretly tested the inflators in 2004, then concealed evidence that they were defective.

“Other people will be looking at that,” Skinner said. “That’s not our charter.”

Engineering firm

To assist the panel, Skinner plans to hire an independent engineering firm to provide expertise in metallurgy and chemical engineering. It may take several months to line up an engineering lab, Skinner said. 

The examination of Takata’s inflators “is going to be a complicated assessment,” Skinner said. “We’re going to hire someone who does this for a living.”

The panel eventually will deliver a report to Takata, which has pledged to make those findings public.

Mexico plant

The panel is taking shape as Takata ramps up two new assembly lines at its factory in Monclova, Mexico to produce replacement inflators. Once those lines are at full volume – perhaps as early as this month -- Monclova will produce 450,000 replacement inflators per month.

Skinner says he plans to scrutinize the Monclova plant as well as Takata’s other factories.

Takata is struggling to keep up with demand for replacement inflators. Competitors Daicel Corp. of Japan and Autoliv Inc. of Sweden also are expected to help product inflators to meet the recall-fueled demand.

Honda Motor Co. and other automakers are urgently seeking inflators because Takata can’t produce replacements quickly enough. About 24 million vehicles with Takata airbags have been recalled globally since 2008, according to Reuters’ estimates.