Ralph Cross, an engineer and manufacturer who helped bring modern automation to the postwar auto industry, has died in Grosse Pointe, Mich., at 93.
In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he transformed a relatively small family business into one of the largest makers of machine tools, the huge and sophisticated machines used to cut, grind, bend, drill and shape metal parts.
Mr. Cross, who died June 26, was a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He took over Cross Gear and Machine in 1932 with his brother, Milton.
At the time, the company built engines, transmissions and axles as well as marine equipment. Facing declining sales, the brothers decided to concentrate on the production of machine tools. By 1937 they were able to offer customized products.
The company grew rapidly during World War II, receiving orders for machines to produce tanks and airplane parts, as well as other military equipment.
After the war the company, renamed Cross Co., took a leading role in the retooling of the auto industry, a change known as “Detroit automation,” which saved money and enhanced productivity. For example, one of the company’s machines, designed to make cylinder blocks, automatically performed 539 operations to turn out 100 blocks an hour. The 350-foot-long unit was controlled by one operator.
In the 1960s, Cross Co. developed some of the first machines capable of performing the separate tasks of metalworking, assembly and testing operations. Automakers used them to build transmissions and disc brake assemblies.
Also in the 1960s, Mr. Cross expanded the company overseas, establishing subsidiaries in Britain, Germany, Japan and Switzerland. He was named chairman, president and chief executive of the company in 1967 after his brother’s death.
In 1979, he arranged a merger with Kearney & Trecker, a Wisconsin machine toolmaker, to form Cross & Trecker Corp. The company was among the first to build high-speed machines able to fabricate more than one kind of product.
Mr. Cross retired as chairman emeritus of Cross & Trecker in 1986. The company was bought by Giddings & Lewis in 1991. He was inducted into the Machine Tool Hall of Fame of the American Precision Museum in Windsor, Vt., in 1992.
