Bendix At 90: A Legacy Of Safety, A Future Of Possibility, And Making A Difference Every Mile Of Every Day

Mar 30, 2021 - 4 years ago

When Bendix Aviation Company and Westinghouse Air Brake established the Bendix-Westinghouse Automotive Air Brake Company in 1930, the internal-combustion-engine truck itself was barely 35 years old.

Bendix At 90 - Legacy Of Safety

Ninety years after that merger established the origins of Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems, the company’s innovation, leadership, and global collaborations have never stopped improving the safety of North America’s roadways.

“As much as today’s trucking landscape – from its broad scope to its cutting-edge driver assistance technologies – would have been almost unimaginable to the Bendix team members of nine decades ago, the vision and dedication that fueled those innovators still remains a part of every employee today,” said Bendix President and CEO Mike Hawthorne. “And while we’re incredibly proud of the legacy of Bendix’s industry contributions over the years, we’re even more excited about the path forward that those achievements have made possible. Even at 90, we’re more energized than ever by these dynamic times, and the promise and potential of the road ahead.”

Bendix, the North American leader in the design, development, and manufacture of active safety, air management, and braking solutions for commercial vehicles, was initially based in Wilmerding, Pennsylvania. It moved its headquarters to Northeast Ohio in 1941, and in 2002 joined the Munich, Germany-based Knorr-Bremse, the world’s preeminent manufacturer of braking systems for rail and commercial vehicles.

Moving Technology Forward For Safety
Since its inception, Bendix has consistently provided solutions that help fleets and drivers operate increasingly safer and more dependable commercial vehicles. Bendix air management systems, wheel-end braking components, and driver assistance technologies are all available as original equipment options – often in standard position – through all major North American heavy-duty truck manufacturers.

“There’s a long line of industry firsts in our portfolio, always with an eye on increasing value and what’s needed today for a safer tomorrow. The impact of our products is a legacy we’re proud of,” Hawthorne said. “Recent evidence of this is the next generation of Bendix Wingman Fusion with Enhanced Feature Set, elevating the capabilities of our flagship camera- and radar-based collision mitigation system. We worked closely with North America’s biggest truck manufacturers to develop factory-installed versions of the system to pair with each builder’s designs, needs, and priorities, and they’re already making a difference to the men and women behind the wheel, as well as everyone on the road around them.”

Bendix’s global ties as part of Knorr-Bremse have also enabled the expansion of its expertise and capabilities. Earlier this year, steering gear manufacturer R.H. Sheppard Co., Inc. became a Bendix company, strengthening the technology links between steering and braking that signal the next evolutions in advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

Additionally, the dual factors of ADAS and electric-powered vehicle development are driving the North American industry toward the adoption of electronic braking systems (EBS), which have been in use in Europe for more than 20 years. Bendix is positioned to lead the change, which will enable smoother braking, improved brake balance, and optimal ADAS performance.

Through this complete portfolio of technologies, Bendix delivers on safety, vehicle performance and efficiency, and lower ownership costs, backing its components and integrated systems with robust post-sales support and training. These efforts are crucial to fleets and owner-operators and help improve their return on investment in safety systems, leading to safer roads.

Growth And Community Impact
Adding to its Northeast Ohio headquarters, Bendix began expanding its North American presence in 1980, opening a 30-worker manufacturing and distribution center in Huntington, Indiana. Today the location employs nearly 450 people across a multi-plant campus. The Bendix Distribution Center in Huntington is the company’s primary aftermarket distribution facility.

Since setting up operations in Acuña, Mexico, in 1988, Bendix has grown that bustling center of operations to four facilities accompanied by a sales and distribution facility in Mexico City and an expanding R&D Center in Monterrey.

And in Bowling Green, Kentucky, the state-of-the-art wheel-end production plant that currently employs 400 Bendix team members opened in 2007 following the consolidation of the company’s Frankfort, Kentucky, plant and the Glasgow, Kentucky, plant of its former joint venture partner, Dana Corporation. A recently completed 130,000 square foot expansion on 8.5 acres ensures the wheel-end group can expand engineering capabilities and increase air disc brake production capacity to keep pace with accelerating customer demand in North America.

The company added its all-makes reman steering production site in Lebanon, Tennessee, following the acquisition of the ProSteering business in October 2018; and in June 2020, acquired R.H. Sheppard, based in Hanover, Pennsylvania, with manufacturing and remanufacturing operations in Hanover and Wytheville, Virginia. With the addition of over 725 Sheppard employees, the total Bendix roster now sits at roughly 4,100 team members across North America.

The company is currently constructing a new, over 218,000-square-foot North American headquarters on approximately 60 acres in Avon, Ohio, with an expected phased move slated for fourth quarter 2021. The site will remain the home to Bendix’s administrative functions, as well as its R&D and engineering home base.

The new headquarters will incorporate a host of environmentally friendly features, plus boast employee amenities such as an on-site fitness center and walking track, a family wellness clinic, and lab and office space conducive to the company’s Agile-based collaborative approach to product and technology development.

“Each of our communities is a place we’re glad to call home, and we take great pride in all the efforts our team members put into supporting their friends, neighbors, schools, and more,” Hawthorne said. “Last year, Bendix employees donated more than 8,600 volunteer hours to dozens of community projects, significantly exceeding our goal and surpassing the collective efforts of each of the past four years. The more we do, the bigger difference we make, the more active we all want to become. It’s inspiring.”

At a corporate level, Bendix supports communities in areas of education, social cohesion, youth enrichment, health, and the environment. Habitat for Humanity house builds, community enrichment projects, post-natural-disaster construction projects, robotics camps, and more were all among the ways Bendix and its employees reached out and got involved in 2019. Corporate community involvement donations totaled $521,000 last year, on top of $300,000 in grants donated by Knorr-Bremse Global Care North America, Inc., the North America arm of the global giant’s philanthropic foundation.

Contributing To A Healthier Planet
Bendix also sets its sights on helping protect our planet through corporate sustainability efforts that include reducing energy consumption and waste reduction. Over the past five years, the company has lowered its energy usage by more than 10 million kilowatt-hours.

In November, Bendix announced it reached a major milestone – diverting an all-time high of 99.8% of total waste in 2020 – toward its company-wide goal of achieving zero-waste-to- landfill at multiple of the company’s North American facilities, validated through a detailed self- certification program. Nine Bendix locations, as well as the Elyria corporate headquarters, achieved the company’s official Zero Waste to Landfill Certification.

This means the sites are consistently diverting 100% of both industrial and nonindustrial wastes from landfill, through recovery, recycling, composting, or another diversion method or technology, including waste-to-energy. The locations utilized innovative technologies, processes, and tools, and the engagement of employees to drive reduction or elimination of wastes.

“It’s hard not to be a bit awed when you consider being part of an organization that’s succeeded and excelled at the pace we have for 90 years,” Hawthorne said. “And not just one that’s achieved bottom-line goals, but a company that’s made a real-world difference in terms of putting better trucks on the road, helping drive remarkable technology advancements, supporting the fleets and truck drivers who are essential to our country, and seeing everyone home safely at the end of the day. That’s why we do what we do; we’ve been at it for decades and we’ll keep at it for decades to come.”

Source: Bendix