Few industries in the United States have been hit as hard as the automotive industry during the current recession -- a hard pill to swallow for a city as invested in the industry as Buffalo.

American Axle & Manufacturing had to drastically cut its operations in Western New York, even before the recession began. The Ford and General Motors plants in the region had to scale back production when demand for new cars plummeted (though it has rebounded slightly).

Another company, Jiffy-Tite Co. in Lancaster, has weathered the financial crisis in a similar way. The auto parts maker has become smaller, owner Steve Zillig said, but with reshuffling of the company's top brass and an award-winning engine thermostat being launched this fall, it is poised to come out of the recession a leaner, more profitable company.

Sales figures were bleak for Jiffy-Tite as the recession took hold. After peaking in 2007 with $34 million in revenue, it slipped to $26 million in 2008 and $19 million in 2009. Last year, Zillig said, the company remained profitable, barely breaking even, thanks to then-President Ron DiLiddo, who was recently given the position of CEO, as well.

"I credit him with knowing what to do, doing the right thing," Zillig said. "We just reinvented ourselves. We became a smaller company and we stopped spending money, and by God, we got through it," Zillig said. "At the end of the year, we ended up making a few dollars, not much. But we did not lose money."

Reshaping the company involved eliminating its second production shift, which included Zillig's son, and cutting pay and hours for the remaining employees. The number of employees has gone from around 150 in 2008 to 100 today.

"When that happened, people really realized, 'OK, this is real,'" Zillig said. He said his employees understood times were tough, and he made a point of still carrying the health insurance of those laid off.

Founded in 1963 by his father, Robert Zillig, Jiffy-Tite produces quick-connection fluid fittings for car makers and the military. The business mainly made fittings for fluid lines in industrial machines when it was originally run out of the Zillig's house. Since Steve Zillig took over in 1985, the company has primarily been focused on high-performance fittings for automobiles. It's a niche in which the company has specialized and made its mark against larger competitors, always keeping a low profile to protect its production process.

"That's actually a good thing, because we're very small," he said. "We can navigate much quicker, we can make decisions much quicker and we can deliver sample parts and pricing in a matter of days, when they are still trying to figure out what sales guy is going to call on them. So we have a real distinct advantage over the big companies."

In the past five to 10 years, though, Jiffy-Tite has found itself cooperating more with bigger auto parts makers than going toe to toe with them. Since the base of auto parts suppliers has shriveled, the company is positioning itself to broaden its product line, in part by reorganizing the company leadership. DiLiddo became president and CEO while Mike Rayhill was brought on as vice president of operations when former vice president Ron Martin was made general manager of its manufacturing facility in Batavia. The company has its headquarters and assembly operation in Lancaster and a sales office in Detroit.

"When things get tough, it's the character that comes through," Rayhill said. "When I first met Steve, that's what I thought of his company. It's a company founded on innovation."

The main innovation born out of the economic downtown will be the company's TMAX Transmission Thermostat Kit. Jiffy-Tite is using technology that has been around for decades, redirecting transmission fluid back to the transmission instead of the cooler when the transmission is running too cold, to create an aftermarket product that it claims can make an engine 8 percent more energy efficient. TMAX won an Editor's Choice Award from Popular Mechanics at the 2009 Automotive Aftermarket Products Expo in Las Vegas.

It's the type of product, Zillig said, drivers and auto makers will demand as fuel economy becomes a more important consideration when buying a car.

"We're just in the right place at the right time. Engines are going to dramatically change over the next decade," Zillig said. "We're going to go from big V8s down to small displacement turbo-charged engines."

dgrandoni@buffnews.comnull