Haldex, a global manufacturer of air brake systems for trucks, trailers, and buses, is now offering a full line of all-makes air disc brake (ADB) pad repair kits for its North American customers through a joint sales and marketing partnership with Fras-le, which is part of the Randon Companies group.
Through this co-brand agreement, Haldex will market products under the “Midland” brand and assume the primary sales, marketing and distribution roles within this product range partnership. Along with maintaining the manufacturing role, Fras-le will provide comprehensive engineering and application expertise to support the Haldex driven sales efforts.
“We believe that in Fras-le, we have selected the perfect partner for this innovative program,” says Walt Frankiewicz, president Haldex North America and senior vice-president Haldex North America Sales. “Fras-le has earned the confidence of Haldex and many customers around the world and has continuously proven their expertise in the manufacturing realm while demonstrating a proficient understanding regarding the demands of today’s braking applications and developing high performance friction solutions through their strong engineering and R&D platforms.”
With an anticipated launch in January 2018, this program will provide application-wide product coverage along with a full range of sales and technical essentials, providing customers a complete solution in this growing product segment in North America.
Haldex also has partnered with with OptiCat to provide standardized electronic detailed product information. As more customers seek immediate, accurate and detailed information in an expansive electronic world, Haldex, working with OptiCat, now has the ability to provide updated data in a standardized format for our customers.
A study sponsored by the Auto Care Association and performed by PriceDex in 2016, determined that the Auto Care Association Product Information Exchange Standard (PIES) is a viable and attractive standard for the management and exchange of product attribute information for the heavy-duty vehicle industry. Standardizing product content provides quality data, extensive product specifications, images, videos, installation instructions and consistent updated information.
“Over the past 12 months our customers have requested product specification data including: product weight, box dimensions, UPC, images and technical product data,” Frankiewicz said. “Haldex is the first major brake manufacturer specializing in Heavy Duty products to partner with OptiCat, which will support the efforts of Haldex in its development of standardized PIES data for its customers and will work with the Auto Care Association to establish product codes and attribute data for products that serve the heavy duty industry.”
Charles E. Johnson, chief executive officer of OptiCat, said: “OptiCat is excited to partner with Haldex as it paves the way towards providing industry leading standardized data to its customers. The world of electronic data is growing at an accelerating rate across all market segments, and Haldex has shown its commitment to being on the forefront of providing enhanced value to its customers through its electronic data capabilities.”
This initiative will provide customers with consistency of quality data, custom templates for custom data formatting, enhanced image and video accessibility, standardized information requiring less ‘translation’ time as well as the ability to provide assistance with data related issues.
The Heavy Duty study was commissioned as a result of increasing interest and demand from the heavy-duty aftermarket segment to establish a means to standardize and streamline the conveyance of product information through the heavy-duty aftermarket supply chain.
Lastly, Haldex announced that Hendrickson, a leading global manufacturer and supplier to the global commercial transportation industry has recently added the Haldex ModulT air disc brake as a product offering for trailer applications.
The Haldex Air Disc Brake ModulT features a unique combination of low weight and high performance for a broad field of applications.