ArvinMeritor announced March 12 a re-establishment of its off-highway original equipment and aftermarket components business in North America, South America, Europe and Africa to address OEM customers in four continents. Through its long-term joint venture with Xuzhou Construction Machinery Group (XCMG) in Xuzhou, China, ArvinMeritor has been supplying the Asia-Pacific markets.
“ArvinMeritor has been a major player in the specialty vehicles and off-highway components business for close to 100 years, and we are now poised to re-establish this business,” says Tim Bowes, vice president of specialty products for ArvinMeritor’s Commercial Vehicle Systems business. “We have continued to invest in our ability to provide system solutions, including our strong capability to design, test and manufacture our own gearing. Our company’s ability to deliver solutions provides our customers with a distinct advantage in robust product designs, flexibility of design and time to market, as well as overall customer satisfaction.”
Dale Eschenburg, director of engineering, stressed the importance of operating in-house metallurgical laboratories, test fixtures and dynamometers, vehicle simulation software, extensive application analysis, and utilization of gear design-and-manufacturing technologies. “Our customers recognize our gear design capabilities, as well as our resources in conducting parallel engineering and testing,” Eschenburg says.
ArvinMeritor says two major components are enabling the company to support and supply key off-highway vehicle customers – a new loader drive axle and the global hub-reduction axle:
When combined with the Meritor MX-160 front-drive steer axle, the new hub-reduction axle – in either single or tandem configuration – is designed to provide maximum mobility in any operating condition for an advanced-engineering all-wheel-drive solution. According to the company, the global hub-reduction axle family offers advanced technology for highway and vocational applications requiring higher gross combination weight and export markets such as South America and South Africa. ArvinMeritor says the advantages come from several key features of the new fully-dressed axle assembly, including:
