PLAINFIELD, Ind., (June 14, 2004) — With truck repair shops busy across the continent, ArvinMeritor’s Commercial Vehicle Aftermarket group is poised to take a bigger share of the remanufactured parts business after making major improvements at its reman facility here.

Both quality and efficiency are on the rise, including smarter packaging and custom kitting that will benefit distribution outlets and end users alike. The QS-9000-certified facility supplies parts under both Meritor and Euclid brand names. It’s also the central CVA return facility for the U.S.

The company’s CVA group has a broad line of remanufactured products for the heavy-duty truck aftermarket. Meritor reman offerings include axle carriers, brake shoes, transmissions and Lucas brake cylinders. Euclid reman products include brake shoes, hydraulic brake cylinders and calipers. All told, the aftermarket arm of ArvinMeritor has 21 key product lines and more than 115,000 individual part numbers.

The 275,000-square-foot Plainfield reman plant was opened in 1999, initially producing – as it still does — axle carriers, Meritor transmissions (not the ZF Meritor FreedomeLine), and wedge brakes. S-cam brake shoes and Lucas hydraulic brake cylinders have since been added. With the recent introduction of ‘lean’ manufacturing techniques, plant-wide productivity has increased 20 percent and fill rates are said to be at record levels.

“Remanufactured components are a growth market right now,” said Harry Howard, vice president and general manager of CVA, speaking during a recent press tour of the facility, just outside Indianapolis.

The plant now processes 35 percent more remanufactured class-8 brake shoes annually than previously possible, and during the heaviest months (February to May) that means eight truckloads a day.

“If you lined up the reman brake shoes produced [in Plainfield] in one year, they would stretch from the Plainfield plant to New York City (700 miles),” said Howard. Brake shoes are remanufactured with an OE-genuine core lining and hardware and are not simply relined or rebuilt. Many different friction formulas are offered, each designed to accommodate different truck operators’ needs.

The recent process improvements have freed up 25,000 square feet of space that can now can be devoted to other functions, Howard said, including additional capacity or new product lines. Further efficiencies to be created this year will make another 16,000 square feet available.

Some of the changes are dramatic. The differential reman section, for instance, has been compressed from 22,000 to just 8000 square feet. Or take the transmission area, which used to be two – teardown and rebuild – that were 150 feet apart. Now combined, this area is down to 3947 square feet from 15,361, material handling has dropped by 80%, and throughput time is down to two hours from 16.

ArvinMeritor CVA operates a second remanufacturing facility in Brampton, Ont.