Q&A: Beyond Bearings – How CCTY Drives Precision & Reliability in Motion Control

Tight engineering tolerances and zero margins for failure make bearings the essential component that underpins the reliability and operational integrity of advanced technological systems. Any failure in these critical components can lead to excessive friction, which could result in accelerated heat generation, accelerated wear, unplanned downtime and even catastrophic damage, making bearings indispensable for reliable performance.

This is especially true in unforgiving sectors such as aerospace, medical devices and high-performance automotive manufacturing, said Evan Poulakidas, CCTY’s North American director, who has dedicated nearly four decades to this sector and is intimately aware of the delicate balance his company’s engineers strike when developing custom bearing solutions that integrate with customers’ demanding machines.

He argues that bearing manufacturers today are evolving beyond traditional product lines by expanding into integrated and customized solutions to meet the diverse needs across industries. The shift reflects a broader market trend where companies are leveraging advanced technologies to address precision, durability and specialized requirements.

More Than a Bearings Company: Less Friction, More Reliability

As an entity, CCTY’s bearings provenance harks back to 1996, when the company was founded in a joint venture between TY, a Chinese bearing manufacturer, and CCVI S.p.A., an Italian distributor and broker. With a sole ownership change in 2015, the manufacturer now headquartered in Zhenjiang, China, changed its name to CCTY Bearing Company and in 2024 updated the brand to CCTY to signal the expanded scope of its product offerings.

The plant in Zhenjiang is nearly two million square feet, Poulakidas told Machine Design by way of introduction. “We’re currently building a new plant in Haiphong, Vietnam, which is about 700,000 sq ft. We manufacture a variety of different types of products. Unlike many bearing companies, we do a lot of bearing assemblies, so we integrate the bearings into the assemblies and work with our customers in that scope.”

In the Q&A below, Poulakidas explains the rationale behind an expansion into Vietnam, the company’s go-to-market approach with its bearing products, and how partnerships in integrated bearings assemblies foster innovation.

Machine Design: I’m excited to talk to you about some of the trends that you are seeing across North America, since you are based here. But you also have roots in other parts of the world. What trends are you observing across North American industrial sectors? And how are you adapting your product lines to meet demand here?

Evan Poulakidas: More and more, companies are getting away from just standardized bearings and going to a world of customization and thinking outside the box. It is an exciting time for our company, because we are being given projects that require a great deal of innovative engineering—and that tends to be a strength of our company.

The projects that we are given take a great deal of time to develop. It chases away some of our competitors, because of the initial investments and low quantities [of bearings] to start, and a great deal of engineering to achieve the goals that our customers set forth. So, I think, the short way to answer that is our customers require high-performance bearings and the smallest type of bearing you can can imagine, and it presents great challenges. I mean, that’s what we’re seeing across all the groups that we work with.

MD: Can you delve a little bit deeper, perhaps giving a couple of examples, and how some of these factors are influencing your own expansion into the bearings market?

EP: We’re working with a number of companies that require just a great deal of lower torque and high performance. And all these aspects lead to developing not only the bearing but materials that go into the bearings. Because we handle all the processes, including weaving our own PTFE and doing our own plastics, we can develop tailored solutions, though it requires a great deal of research and design before we come up with a solution.

That’s happening in almost every industry we work with. Right now, the engineering departments that we work with have come up with an idea, bring us in on the ground floor and ask us to develop a platform that will work for them.

Certainly, they have the idea, but in the end it’s really our design that we come up with.

MD: I’m going to step back a bit to talking about top-level industry trends. How have you been impacted, for example, by reshoring or nearshoring? I’m thinking about how it influences your own supply chain strategy. And does it even affect lead times, given the way that you operate? And what steps are you taking to support domestic reliability?

EP: Reshoring and near-shoring for us really hasn’t been a factor since our home plant is in Zhenjiang, China. But with that said, we’ve been involved in building this new plant in Haiphong, Vietnam. There are two reasons. One, the geopolitical climate between China and the U.S. has not been good.

The projection is, it’s going to be a little unstable. A number of our customers have come to us and said, “Hey, you know we need you to get out of China and start producing someplace else.” That triggered us to align ourselves with Vietnam because of the ability to build a plant there. We’ve invested over $43 million in that plant.

We get asked all the time about bringing it back to the U.S. But to do that, I think we’re looking at probably tenfold what we’re building as far as an investment goes, from the U.S. to Vietnam. So, the Vietnamese plant is solely going to be used for North America. The geopolitical situation was one element.

The second reason, tariffs, was another element to the reason to build in Vietnam. With that said, part of the issues with Vietnam is the labor situation. You can only have 10% of your plant be non-Vietnamese. From that standpoint, that’s been an issue that we’ve had to deal with and find ways to one train people and to bring people in that would want to stay in Vietnam for an extended period in order to get the plant up and running.

MD: Thank you for giving us those insights. I wanted to also go back to your point about the types of materials that you use. The bearings market displays a moderate degree of innovation, and it’s driven by advancements in materials and manufacturing processes.

How is CCTY responding to the rising demand for high-performance bearings? And how has it resulted in general, say with manufacturers integrating sensor units into their products? Comment on some of the advances that you see? Also, talk about the materials that you use.

EP: It’s an interesting question regarding sensors and the fact that they’ve actually been around a long time. What we’re seeing is more usage of sensors in applications. And for CCTY, that’s a benefit because we tend to be a high-level manufacturing company that needs to go after high-performance types of applications. The more sensors that are being used, I think is a better opportunity for CCTY to separate itself from other bearing manufacturers.

On the materials we use: There are a number of different materials that we’re developing constantly at the plant. When we look at an application, we try to develop materials that’ll fit that application. For instance, on our bushing line, there are a few different elements that we’re using to meet automotive applications that require a much higher degree of performance than what has been out there in the field. It has allowed us to gain traction in the markets that at one time we weren’t supplying.

For instance, seating has become a big market for CCTY, and the reason being is we developed some materials that are much higher in performance than our competitors. Detroit and all automakers in seat applications require a much higher level and a much higher standard of bearing or bushing to meet the needs of their customers. We have a whole staff of engineers that are developing materials to meet their performance requirements.

MD: What would you consider to be some of the hurdles in your industry? And then bring it down to back to CCTY. What do you identify as some of the risks to your market?

EP: That’s a big question. But certainly, the customers are thinking outside the box. They want bearings and bearing assemblies to last under some severe application, loads and things that have never really been thought of before. Our customers tend to rely on us to design and come up with solutions to their needs. And it is expensive. The engineering resources that go into helping our customers are a requirement that costs a great deal of money, a great deal of resources.

And then there’s the reward. Our average sales cycle is over 18 months. During that time, there are a lot of changes that go on. You’re never working with economies of scale. And we take that on with the thought that if we succeed with this there’ll be a benefit, and these benefits tend to last with over three to five-year contracts.

When we look at a project, our customers don’t bring us projects that don’t eventually have some type of reward. That’s not to say that every time we’ve designed something, it has worked. But we’ve gained back what we invested.

I will say that we’ve been an award-winning bearing company, an innovator of the year, a supplier of the year. And part of the reason for this is the amount of initial work that we’ve put into something to make sure that our customers succeed. So, it’s a strain to come up with some of these solutions. But in the end, it really does separate who CCTY is compared to our competitors.

A lot of big bearing companies don’t want to take on these kinds of projects until they’re already in use and they can make a “me-too” product. Whereas we’re taking situations where not only do we not want to make a me-too product, but we also want to make something that’s different and better, especially on new platforms where we can be involved in the first run of something. That’s really the strength of CCTY.

MD: It does sound to me as though customization or application-specific engineering seems to be your strength. I wonder if you can unpack a bit more how you balance that with the cost and production scalability. What does that mean for your business model?

EP: It’s difficult. Over 95% of all our projects are customized. We have a board that looks at the potential before we take on a project. So, some examination goes in before we take on something.

But with that said, we also know that it's been the bread-and-butter of our company to be known as the company that will try something, even if it’s difficult. We’re invested in that. We’ve become more of an engineering company upfront than a bearing and assembly company. And really, that’s the direction our company has gone in.

We see where the commodity bearing industry is. We don’t want to be that. That’s not who we are. We’re not looking to sell that type of product.

We’re looking to sell a higher-grade product that requires a great deal of engineering, new materials, new thought. Some of the bearings we’re working on, quite frankly, I’ve never seen certain elements of an application integrated with a bearing. There are going to be some new bearings coming out within probably the next six months that I don’t think anybody has seen. Those are exciting things for our company.

At the same time, the reward is not there right away. In the initial stages we’ll produce 100 or 200 bearings, and really the cost of doing that is hundreds of thousands of dollars. Our customers don’t really realize it. But the reward is that it has allowed us to grow in a direction that for us has been the right direction.