This year, 2023, is the year when one of the stalwarts of supplying to the truck industry celebrates a major milestone, 50 years of Hendrickson in Australia.
Hendrickson Asia Pacific commenced operations on May 29 1973 assuming the distribution of the Hendrickson suspension range from the previous distributors. Hendrickson’s first MD, Lynn Brown, was already involved in the trucking business and knew a lot about it. In the earliest days, Hendrickson Australia operated out of Mount Waverly (Melbourne) with the first parts shipment being delivered onto his nature strip.
The company soon leased a warehouse in Mulgrave but the facility couldn’t keep up with demand, so Hendrickson moved to a purpose-built building in Abbotts Rd, Dandenong, in 1982.
Hendrickson, through unrelenting pursuit of innovation and quality, positions itself as a leading global manufacturer and supplier of heavy duty mechanical, elastomeric and air suspensions; integrated and non-integrated axle systems; parabolic and multi-leaf springs; tyre inflation systems and bumpers and trim components to the commercial transportation industry.
One of the operation’s foundation products, after 50 years of Hendrickson in Australia, was the RT walking beam suspension was ideally suited for the construction industry (where the volume of truck sales was going in those developing economies). The RT suspension paired with a developing Australian market meant rapid growth for Hendrickson.
Today, Hendrickson Asia Pacific has responsibility for Japan, South Africa, South East Asia, Australia and New Zealand.
General Manager Arthur Mitsel’s extensive experience in leading global operations has taken Hendrickson Oceania’s people, processes and systems to new heights, delivering sustainable business growth through market and product development as well as continuous improvement.
“This is going to be my 15th year with Hendrickson,” says Arthur. “I am an industrial engineer by profession, and was first employed by Hendrickson, as the operations manager back in 2008. After a number of roles, I became General Manager in 2013.
“I think our value proposition as a team is to provide bespoke solutions to various markets. So, we’ve got an extensive engineering group, probably more so than some of our competitors. It’s really about taking American technology and customising it to the various Australia market requirements, legislations conditions and so forth.
“We’re really in a low volume, high mix sort of environment, and about 80 per cent of our content is imported, probably even more so now. Being able to manage supply chains, forecasting, sales and operations, planning is a big advantage for us. It’s really all about operations, the integration of the sales, planning and the product offering, to be able to provide a solution that’s more cost effective.
“We pride ourselves on being a technology innovation organisation, as a manufacturer, but also a design house for suspension. We really design and manufacture our own suspension and staying one step ahead of technology is a big part of Hendrickson globally.”
Celebrations
The main celebrations for the 50th anniversary were be around the recent Brisbane Truck Show.
“We’ve got a couple of heads of our US based divisions both trailer and truck,” says Arthur. “They’re going to come and help us celebrate the 50 years. Something that is really important and dear to my heart is really in terms of people. I’d like to think that we’ve built a pretty good culture over my time here, and we’ve got engaged and loyal staff members. So, we’re going to we’re going to do a staff event to celebrate for our staff and their families.
“We’ve got a 10-year club, and about 30 per cent of our staff are members of it. We’ve got long standing employees within our business. We currently sit at 140 staff altogether.”
Under Arthur’s tutelage Hendrickson Australia navigated the tumultuous covid years and came through them stronger than ever, record sales.
“In recent years, we’ve had challenges like everybody else, but we’ve been able to build a pretty sophisticated supply chain model that really enabled us to try and stay one step ahead of all the disruptions,” says Arthur. “We’ve probably won market share during this period, on the back of the fact that we could supply and maybe our competitors couldn’t.”
At the time of Hendrickson’s Australian 50th anniversary, the latest expansion marks Hendrickson’s ongoing commitment to continue to support its customer’s growth within the region by leveraging proven expertise and an ever-evolving quest for innovation within the heavy commercial vehicle industry.
Within the local engineering department, Hendrickson have been at the cutting edge of design and validation tools for many years. In addition to being one of the first in the industry to implement 3D Computer Aided Design (CAD), Hendrickson utilise a range of advanced Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) techniques including Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Multibody Dynamics (MBD) simulation tools.
Alongside these computational techniques, Hendrickson invests heavily in physical validation. This includes physical fatigue testing on test rigs within the on-site R&D laboratory, certification testing and in field data acquisition. These tools are utilised during the product development process to ensure Hendrickson products are up to the task in the Australian market.
Back Story
After 50 years of Hendrickson in Australia story the story began in 1913 with the founding of The Hendrickson Motor Truck Company by inventor and businessman Magnus Hendrickson. This small Chicago-based manufacturing company built trucks, often equipped with cranes or dump bodies. Eventually Hendrickson sold the truck manufacturing operation to focus solely on suspension systems and related components.
Hendrickson presently has sales and distribution facilities and/or state-of-the-art manufacturing centres in North and South America, United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Romania, France, Turkey, India, China, Japan, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand.
In 2008 Hendrickson once again outgrew its Dandenong facility and moved to its current location in Dandenong South. Since that time, the business has continued to grow distribution and support throughout the region. The product range has also greatly expanded to encompass axles for trailers and suspensions to suit trucks, trailers and buses also including very heavy-duty suspensions for mining applications.
The engineering facility has developed into a highly skilled and equipped group with the disciplines tailored to the needs of the Asia Pacific region. It can take a concept, develop and prove it, then ultimately bring it to production.
Global sourcing is a feature of the new facility, using the latest resources and communication the warehouse and staff are able to source from the location most suited to the specification and quality required to maintain the high standard expected from the Hendrickson users.
In March 2022 Hendrickson Asia Pacific expanded its operations by securing the adjacent facility within its current Bangholme location. The additional facility substantially increased Hendrickson’s operations enabling its ongoing growth within the region.
Incorporated within the expansion is a state-of-the-art customer engagement centre which allows Hendrickson to further develop its product training programs and continue to partner with Industry key stakeholders and customers.
“Our vision is to continue to support the industry and our customers in their pursuit of improved productivity and safety within an ever-demanding commercial environment.” says Arthur.
Looking ahead
“The industry is going through a significant disruption and we expect that to accelerate over the next decade or so, with the introduction of alternative fuel, commercial vehicles,” says Arthur. “Australia is probably a little bit unique in its geography, and we see Hendrickson staying at the forefront of that. Part of our value proposition is about innovation, but not just innovation for innovation’s sake, it is around innovating to add value to our customers.
“As our customers transition to new technology, we have got a whole lot of programs to stay ahead. Our value has been around improving the total cost of ownership of the vehicle for our customers. With batteries being introduced the vehicles become a little bit heavier, so weight advantages and reducing the weight of the vehicle overall will become a bigger component.
“We see that as a big opportunity for Hendrickson, to continue to grow and penetrate areas that maybe in the past, we haven’t been able to penetrate. Our product tends to be efficient in its design and we look at how well the product packages in in a vehicle.”
Credit: Source link
