Author: Ben Nussbaum

ZF announced its line of Electric Blue brake pads in July and officially unveiled the product line at Automechanika in Frankfurt in September. The pads are meant for electric vehicles, with technology that particularly targets brake noise. Since the beginning of 2019, the line covers 97 percent of the European…

INTERNATIONAL BRAKE INDUSTRIES (IBI) AT A GLANCE IBI is a maker of aftermarket brake hardware, selling to retail, wholesale, and remanufacturers worldwide since 1967It manufactures complete brake hardware kits, including clips, bolts, boots and springs, as well as complementary products like caliper pistons, electric wear sensors and brake linesIBI has…

If you haven’t bought a bicycle in a while, you might be surprised at the revolution in braking. Hydraulic disc brakes with calipers and pads entered the market around 1997, first appearing as aftermarket equipment on mountain bikes. They’ve become steadily more common since then and are now standard equipment…

The BRAKE Report continues to examine additive manufacturing by talking with Brian Crotty of 3YOURMIND. The company, based in Germany, has had offices in the United States since 2016. It works with additive manufacturing service bureaus and large companies that require management of their additive manufacturing across many production locations.…

ESSEX PARTS SERVICES AT A GLANCE Located in Cramerton, North Carolina, with 20 employeesA distributor of high-performance brakes for track useExclusive North American distributor for AP Racing race components and Ferodo racing pads The BRAKE Report continues to take a look at companies in the industry through a series of…

COMEC AT A GLANCE Comec grinding machines are used in manufacturing brake pads, brake shoes, and truck liningsThe Comec brand is part of AFT, along with the Arga and Fabes brandsAFT has about 50 employeesAFT is located in Piacenza, Italy, about 50 miles southeast of Milan Comec grinders are a…

On January 1, Césare Savini became Vice President and General Manager of ITT Friction Technologies, reporting directly to Motion Technologies President Carlo Ghirardo. Savini’s career has embodied the global nature of the brake industry. He spent the first year of his career in his native Italy before spending eight years…

It’s no secret that people in the brake industry are interested in 3D printing. The technology may — or may not — revolutionize engineering, manufacturing, and distribution. It may – or may not – do so in the near future. The BRAKE Report spoke with Michael Bogomolny, one of the…

AxleTech doesn’t have the word brake in its name – but the company produces a huge variety of ways to stop moving vehicles. “If you visit AxleTech’s facility in Troy, Michigan,” says Robin Stow, “it’s probably the only facility in the world that’s making drum wedge brakes, and cam brakes, and air…

As brake emissions continue to trend toward the spotlight, several companies are developing solutions. In 2018, The BRAKE Report spoke with MANN+HUMMEL about its brake dust filter. This week, we spoke with Christophe Rocca-Serra, founder of Tallano Technology. His company’s solution to brake emissions is a vacuum that aspirates particles…

The BRAKE Report spoke with Tim Duncan on Friday, shortly after LINK shared the news that it is opening an office in Mexico City. Tim is the Executive Vice President for Business Development and Global Test Operations at LINK. The theme of the talk was the year ahead at…

TAM CERAMICS AT A GLANCE Located in Niagara Falls, New York, with about 100 employeesMaker of engineered ceramic powders, including components for brake padsIn addition to brakes, major applications of TAM Ceramics products include thermal-barrier coatings for aerospace applications; investment casting, in which ceramic forms a mold; welding consumables; and…

Eric Denys has joined Meneta as its new General Manager for North America. In this role he is responsible for Sales, Engineering, Production, and any other aspects of the business. The industry veteran has spent 26 years in the brake field, including 16 years in brake shims. He has previously…

The Raybestos brand has been around since 1902, when A. H. Raymond started the Raybestos-Manhattan Company. In the 1920s, the company won more than half the automotive brake business in the U.S. The company survived the Great Depression, produced parts for the military during World War II, and in 1950…

It has 1.3 billion people, increasing affluence, and unsafe roads. That makes India a logical place for a brake manufacturer to focus. Continental believes in India’s future. The company employs more than 8,000 people in the country and has been adding headcount and capabilities, both organically and through acquisition. From…

SBS FRICTION AT A GLANCE Located in Svendborg, Denmark, with about 200 employees Daughter company of SBS A/S, which is also the owner of SBS Automotive, a maker of parts marketed under the NK brand Makes aftermarket and OEM motorcycle brake pads as well as other brake components and friction…

“Training is important. We need to keep investing in people and training them to make the best of their ability,” says Scott Irwin, Head of Technical Training at TMD Friction.  Irwin was promoted to the position in November. The BRAKE Report spoke with him to find out more about his new…

The World Health Organization released Global Status Report on Road Safety 2018 today. Highlights are below. From the Foreword by Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General, WHO: But road traffic crashes are not “accidents”. They are completely preventable. This report shows that the problem is getting worse. Deaths from road traffic…

Companies have reported their November sales, with some clear trends. Sedans continue to decline, pushing Honda and Toyota into year-over-year declines. Fiat continued to boom, led by strong sales of vehicles in the Jeep and Dodge brands. Overall, the strength of the SUV category led to sales results that slightly…

The latest motorcycle to get Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) in Royal Enfield’s product portfolio is the Thunderbird 500X. The company has priced the Thunderbird 500X at Rs 2.13 lakh (ex-showroom) and the on-road price will be around Rs 2.50 lakh. Royal Enfield has also discontinued the non-ABS version of the Thunderbird…

Brian Hearing is an engineer and acoustics expert. He previously worked for the Department of Defense on sound-related projects, such as technology that can listen for distant tanks or helicopters. Now Hearing is exploring the civilian aspects of sound. In particular, he hopes to create waves with BrakeAudit, a company…

MANN+HUMMEL is a filtration company that saw an opportunity to make brakes cleaner by developing a filter that fits on the brake. The BRAKE Report spoke with Lukas Bock, a lead product engineer and expert for the MANN+HUMMEL brake dust particle filter. TBR: MANN+HUMMEL is not a brake company. How…

MEYLE AT A GLANCE Hamburg-based MEYLE offers a range of about 24,000 different parts. The company’s network employs about 1,000 people; about 500 are in Hamburg. Production takes place in its own production plants Turkey and in facilities of selected partners internationally. Holding company Wolf Gaertner Autoparts AG wholly owns…

Theodoros Grigoratos has been studying brake-related emissions since 2013. He’s a leading expert, but he’s quick to point out that the field is still struggling with incomplete information and a lack of standardized testing. At the SAE Brake Colloquium in October, he gave a presentation titled “Brake Emissions — A…

The Integrated Brake Control (IBC) system from ZF made a splash in October when the company announced it would be included in the 2019 Chevrolet Silverado. The BRAKE Report spoke with Dan Milot, VP Brake Engineering, one of the key architects of the technology. What is it? The IBC is a…