PROMOTIONAL ARTICLE ON BEHALF OF JURATEK
As one of the UK’s leading commercial component suppliers for over 25 years, Juratek has built a reputation for producing high-quality brake discs and pads for passenger and commercial vehicles. And now, two years after adding brake calipers to their extensive product portfolio, the team explains why the company has made such a move.
“It was a natural progression as we are a braking company and around 15 percent of a motor factor’s braking spend comes from this product category,” said Matt Leeming, Juratek Marketing Manager. “We talk to our customers regularly and they were keen to have a uniform brand image across discs, pads and calipers, especially given the success they have in selling the Juratek brand in their local markets. They were also keen for it to be a surcharge–free product to cut down on the costs and hassle of dealing with old core.
“We delivered the project from inception to launch in under a year, but this was only made possible by partnering with the best factories with the best quality control procedures. We had some good market data, and our customers helped a lot in terms of the initial range.
“Due to the relationship we have with our suppliers, and the internal procedures we employ, we can react very quickly to customer demand and can introduce new part numbers in around three months,” commented Matt. “Whilst our initial release covered around 80 percent of customer demands, we were able to extend the range to over 240 part numbers by the end of the first year. And now the range is in excess of 280 references, with more to be added this year.”
The Juratek caliper bodies are made on automatic casting lines by an OE supplier of castings to the VM industry. The company has IATF accreditation to 16949:2016 and its product is certified by the TUV. They are 100% tested on the production line for leaks before shipment and are checked for high pressure integrity too, up to 160 bar which is about the limit of pressure that can be developed in a hydraulic system.
“These calipers are also 100 percent new calipers. This means there is no need to manage old core units or surcharges. Each old unit carries a surcharge cost, which the garage has already charged on to the customer, but when the old core unit is returned it may not be in a good enough condition to re-manufacture and the unit may be rejected by the supplier. If this happens either the garage is out of pocket or, as is usually the case, the cost is absorbed by the motor factor. With the supply of brand new units, this problem disappears immediately. Another major benefit to stocking new calipers, is there is no capital tied up in old core units, thus freeing valuable resource which can be used to expand the number of part numbers stocked, which leads to greater sales and less need to buy parts from more expensive sources to fulfil demand.
Despite this added impetus on the caliper range, Juratek is still hard at work developing new discs and friction technology.
“Even whilst dealing with the problems thrown at us by the COVID-19 pandemic, we were able to develop a range of 109 new discs, pads and wear leads in 2020 and have managed a further 32 so far in 2021 with approximately 150 in the pipeline,” Matt explained. “In addition, we are on the verge of launching a new range of braking products to further complement our existing range which will be announced in the coming months.”
“This ensures that we bring products into range from an application point of view, which most other suppliers will do, but we have gone a step further and developed a system where when we are looking at customers’ stock, we can profile their range on their local vehicle population and also make sure that if they have got the discs in stock, then they have the pads. If they have the calipers on the shelf, they also have the pads etc. This increases the availability and service levels of our customers and results in better sales.”
To learn more about the new brake calipers and the entirety of the Juratek range, contact our sales team today.
For more information: 01302 727 312, sales@juratek.com or www.juratek.com
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