POWERTRAIN
The global economic
meltdown led to something of a
pause in Meritor’s growth plans in the off-
highway equipment axle segment. But more recently, the
company has been ramping up to meet increasing demand for its off-highway axles and compo-
nents, such as its Meritor Rough-Terrain (RT) crane axles are. The company’s flexible manufac-
turing process offers a high degree of customization with a wide range of overall axle ratios.
BACK UP TO SPEED
After the global economic downturn,
Meritor’s off-highway business back on track for growth
BY MIKE BREZONICK
The world is full of cases where the best-laid plans went astray. Yet in the case of Meritor’s
off-highway business, it wasn’t a situ-
ation where plans went astray. They
were simply delayed a bit.
The history of the Troy, Mich.-based
drivetrain component specialist’s activities in off-highway has been nothing if
not interesting, especially over the last
few years. After more than 50 years as
a significant supplier to the off-highway
industry, in 2002, the company made a
strategic decision to exit the business.
It sold most of its off-road assets to
AxleTech International. At the same
time, it maintained a limited, but significant off-road presence in China
through Xuzhou Meritor Axles Ltd., a
joint venture with Xuzhou Construction
Machinery Group (XCMG), the largest off-highway machine manufacturer
in China. Meritor also maintained its
presence in military vehicles, a related
market to off-highway.
Several years later, as part of a
major realignment toward the commercial vehicle sector and with a goal
to become more diversified and more
global, Meritor began laying plans
to re-emerge as an off-highway supplier, which it did officially in 2008
following the expiration of the non-compete agreement that was part
of its original sale to AxleTech. The
company announced an ambitious
program that included a $10 million
investment in Xuzhou Meritor Axles
to expand that facility’s annual production capacity by more than 20%.
It expanded its scope of supply to
cover axles, transfer cases, brake
systems and related accessories for
wheeled off-road vehicles and equipment. It laid product development
plans covering more than 50 new
axles, including several entirely new
axle families spanning a range of
35,000 to 300,000 lb. capacity.
Perhaps most significantly, it developed and installed an entirely new
axle fabrication technique intended
to provide dramatically shorter lead
times versus traditional castings-based manufacturing. Rather than
employ traditional cast axle housings, Meritor developed a fabrication methodology based on housings
constructed of high-quality plate steel,
designed, cut and welded to meet the
requirements of each application.
That new manufacturing system
would also allow Meritor to leverage its
existing global capabilities — the com-
pany is one of the largest manufactur-
ers of gears and gear systems for com-
mercial vehicles — and facilities in the
U.S., Latin and South America, Europe
and Asia for off-highway manufactur-
ing. That gave the off-highway business
access to cutting-edge planetary gear
and carrier technology and positioned
it in proximity to nearly every important
customer base, primarily encompass-
ing segments such as material handling
and mobile cranes.
