Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems manufacturing facilities are humming this year, as the company reports Monday that it has achieved production milestones across four product lines to meet increasing market demand.
Bendix says it is setting new company benchmarks for numbers of remanufactured brake shoes, air disc brakes, actuators, and vibration engine dampers produced. The company makes brake shoes at its Huntington, Ind., campus; air disc brakes in Bowling Green, Ky.; actuators in Acuña, Mexico; and dampers in North Aurora, Ill.
“Reaching production milestones can happen only when employees work as highly unified teams. At Bendix, team members from every facet of the operation join in the name of accomplishing our safety and quality standards, while meeting our production goals,” says Carlos Hungria, Bendix chief operating officer.
“In this environment of increasing truck build and market growth, it’s as important as ever for everyone across the organization – including purchasing, quality, materials, maintenance, packaging and shipping, finance, engineering, and many more – to work with shared purpose and commitment. It is our ‘One Plant’ approach that makes the difference.”
New Brake Shoe Standard
Bendix began serial production of remanufactured brake shoes at its 74,000-sq.-ft. Huntington facility in the fall of 2012. Since then, the rate of production at the brake shoe operation has steadily increased to meet growing demand from fleets and owner-operators wishing to maintain the quality, performance, and compliance of their Reduced Stopping Distance (RSD) brakes when replacing shoes, while optimizing value.
Today, the center is producing upwards of 7,000 brakes shoes per day, up from a previous high of 6,321 in July of 2016. Bendix says it is on target to produce 1.64 million shoes in 2017, an increase of nearly 30 percent over the former record of 1.28 million shoes manufactured in 2016. The company has produced nearly 5.8 million shoes since the operation’s start in 2012.
The Huntington facility handles the complete salvage, coining, and assembly processes that make up start-to-finish brake shoe remanufacturing, Bendix says.
