SAF Holland Refocuses on Aftermarket Parts

SAF Holland is bringing its electronic catalog up to date and focusing on field sales and timely order fulfilment. Photo: SAF Holland

Twenty years ago, in the wake of an acquisition, newly formed SAF-Holland made a strategic decision to focus on OEM sales. At the time, the move was at odds with the industry's long-standing practice of installing firth wheels at truck dealerships or independent shops.

“As far back as 1985, Holland was a 100% aftermarket company,” said Carl Mesker, vice president, aftermarket, for SAF Holland. “But truck OEMs increasingly began to install fifth wheels at the factory, and the Holland company began to slowly transition to meet this new trend.”

In order to better serve this new market, Holland went on a buying spree, acquiring jack manufacturer Brinkley in 1991 and Fruehauf's axle business in 1997. Neway's air ride suspension business followed in 1999 and landing gear supplier Austin Westran in 2005. The following year, the company merged with SAF, and soon after, the company began to reevaluate its aftermarket strategies.

But after successfully meeting OEM needs, the need to provide better aftermarket support to fleets was obvious, Mesker noted. Today, SAF Holland's primary goal is to make the experience of finding, purchasing and obtaining aftermarket parts so easy for fleets that they request SAF-Holland products on their next purchase.

In order to do that, Mesker says the company is currently rewriting its sales catalogs and maintenance manuals – some of which date back to the 1960s – while bringing its electronic catalog up to date and focusing on field sales and timely order fulfilment. “We are really stressing internet functionality,” Mesker said. “This encompasses objectives like quick and easy information for parts on demand, availability lookup, price checks, and freight rates. We're redesigning our system to make sure fleets and ...Read the rest of this story

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International Ships First Trucks With A26 Engines

International's A26 12.4-liter diesel is being shipped in new LT and RH trucks.

International Truck announced it has started customer shipments of its first International LT Series and RH Series trucks with the company's new A26 12.4-liter engines.

The company's internal testing shows these products are delivering up to 9% better fuel economy over the comparable models built only a year ago.

When it unveiled the engine at the Technology & Maintenance Council annual meeting in February, the company said the A26 was developed through an initiative called Project Alpha that brought together a team of trucking industry powertrain engineers. The developers focused on emphasizing simplicity over complexity and using only proven components.

The truck and engine maker listed these as key features of the A26:
• Components engineered to maximize uptime
• Light weight of 2,299 pounds
• The most efficient engine in International's on-highway lineup
• The quietest engine in International's lineup
• Hundreds of thousands of hours of testing
• Millions of real-world test miles

"Delivering our 12.4-liter engine is a significant milestone for Navistar," said Persio Lisboa, Navistar executive vice president and chief operations officer. "We continue to receive great customer feedback on the products we're delivering today. Customers will continue to experience outstanding levels of quality, reliability and uptime with our new family of Class 8 on-highway trucks, now complete with the A26 engine."

Related: Navistar Rising: A26 Engine Signals New Chapter

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The impending telematics takedown

Six months to go for the new ELD (Electronic Logging Device) rule to take effect. Some of you may be able to wait until 2019 to get a fully compliant device, because you've already been using some sort of device.

What can I say that has not already been said? BEWARE! Today, there are the old stalwarts of the industry, the companies that have been pursuing this space for the last few years, and the new startups that see great potential. The latter group may entice you with extremely low costs for standalone devices. BEWARE!

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