Equipment manufacturer Hendrickson blooks amind wilting truck sales; forges realignment

Doug Sanford, left, and Gary Gerstenslager discuss Hendrick's new group. (The Trucker/Kevin Jones)

By DOROTHY COX
The Trucker Staff

10/10/2007

DALLAS – How does a major truck equipment manufacturer bloom during a tough year when truck sales are wilting?

If you’re Hendrickson, you focus on rebuilds and replacement vehicles for the U.S. military, on aftermarket components and also on the vocational segment, which said Hendrickson’s Doug Sanford, has always been the company’s “mainstay.”

Then if you want to stay on top of things, you take a firm foothold in the global truck and trailer equipment market.

“We’re taking a look at the Chinese market and also [at a] venture in India,” said Sanford, vice president and general manager of Hendrickson’s Truck Systems group.

Yet, one must go circumspectly, for these markets are fraught with pitfalls.

Hendrickson’s foray into China will be a “crawl, walk, run” sort of approach, said Hendrickson President and Chief Operating Officer Gary Gerstenslager at the Great American Trucking Show (GATS) here.

Not the least of the pitfalls is intellectual property protection or the lack thereof, Gerstenslager told The Trucker.

He said Hendrickson representatives have met with companies in China which make similar products and also with truck manufacturers there and in the U.S. to determine the best direction to take.

The number of truck builds has grown “phenomenally” in China over a short period of time, said Gerstenslager, from an estimated 50,000 trucks manufactured in 1995 to an estimated 350,000 in 2005.

Also, said Gertstenslager and Sanford, Mexico is going through an engine pre-buy, another focus of the company.

And, while truck sales continue to decline in the U.S., Europe is experiencing significant build rate increases, Gerstenslager said. “In Canada, we’ll be making products and marketing them for Europe.”

And, although flatbed builds have been, well, “flat,” he added, the market isn’t too bad because that business was so good in 2006.

To prepare the company for its global future, Hendrickson during GATS last month announced a company realignment of its truck segment, merging four truck industry business entities to form Hendrickson Truck Systems Group.

Sanford assumed duties as vice president and general manager of the newly formed organization which oversees the former Hendrickson Truck Suspension Systems and Hendrickson Spring.

Hendrickson Auxiliary Axle Systems and Hendrickson Bumper and Trim will continue to operate under their business unit structures as semi-autonomous organizations in the new truck systems group.

“In addition to presenting a single Hendrickson face to the industry and our customers, restructuring allows us to better partner with truck manufacturers and fleets in the development of new products and support of growing industry needs,” Sanford said.      8