Although the sky over Blue Springs, MO threatened showers, the mood at the Haldex Commercial Vehicle Systems manufacturing plant open house was bright and festive for the 25th anniversary celebration of manufacturing and assembly in Blue Springs. All former presidents and general managers (including the first Blue Springs president, Arthur Bowers) as well as employees and members of the community gathered at a tent on the front lawn to commemorate the day, which also marked the production of Haldex’s 50 millionth automatic brake adjuster (ABA) worldwide (www.hbsna.com).
Plant manager, Russ Sims, officially welcomed guests to the event and executive vice president and head of Haldex’s Commercial Vehicle Systems division, Chuck Kleinhagen, offered his perspectives on the day. “Values and value are the reasons for our success,” he observed. “We believe in doing it right the first time and making it better every time and we deliver value to our customers.”
Kleinhagen also talked about the strong sense of family at Blue Springs—a facility that generally operates 24/7 every day of the year except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter-- noting that, “We have a large number of employees who will voluntarily reduce their hours rather than have the person next to them laid off. That is how we deal with industry cycles here.”
The mayor of Blue Springs, Steve Steiner, also made a presentation at the open house, noting that leadership, good jobs and community involvement helped to set Haldex apart. The company was recognized in 2006 as one of the fastest-growing businesses headquartered in the greater Kansas City region by area business magazine, Ingram’s.
The company took advantage of the public occasion to also warn customers and distributors about the number of “knock-off” or imitation Haldex ABAs that are currently offered for sale worldwide. “About 35 companies around the world are copying or trying to copy the Haldex ABA,” said Paul Chappell, director product management, foundation brake, Commercial Vehicle Systems and a plant tour guide for the day. These imitation ABAs are made with lower grade materials and manufactured using sub-standard processes and inferior quality control methods, he noted.
Recently, Haldex announced the availability of its Self-Setting Automatic Brake Adjuster (S-ABA) for truck and tractor applications as well as for trailers. The S-ABA is designed to solve adjustment problems due to incorrect installations, by establishing its own reference point to maintain a constant and uniform distance between the brake drum and lining regardless of the control arm angle.
In addition to its automatic brake adjusters, Haldex also provides other air brake and suspension control system products, including air dryers, condenser/separators, Life Seal spring brakes, suspension and height control valves, ModulX air disc brakes and a trailer rollover stability system as well as other products through engineering, manufacturing and sales facilities worldwide. Haldex Commercial Vehicle Systems is a part of Haldex Group ( www.haldex.com).
