The Bendix family got bigger recently – and we’re excited about what it means for our customers, our employees and communities, and our pursuit of safer commercial vehicles and highways across North America.
In case you haven’t heard, Hanover, Pennsylvania-based R. H. Sheppard Co., Inc. – a longtime industry-leading steering systems manufacturer – is now a part of Bendix. For more than 80 years, the Sheppard team has been developing and producing steering technology in partnership with customers across the commercial vehicle landscape. It’s a storied history we at Bendix can understand and appreciate. And Sheppard’s longevity is more than matched by their team’s reputation for quality and commitment to safety.
A New Family
We’re already begun on an integration effort that we expect to take approximately 18-24 months. From a practical standpoint, Bendix and Sheppard customers aren’t likely to notice much of a difference day-to-day: Continuing as an operating division of Bendix means the Sheppard name isn’t going anywhere, and its manufacturing, sales, and support teams will keep delivering the service and quality that the industry has come to expect. Which means it’s a great fit with the way we’ve always done things – with a careful n eye on quality, responsiveness, safety and performance – as the North American leader in the development and manufacture of active safety, air management, and braking system technologies for commercial vehicles.
Bringing Sheppard into the Bendix family is the latest example of our continued commitment to offer products and services that help improve highway safety and lead the evolution of current commercial vehicle hydraulic steering gears to advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and highly automated driving (HAD). It also means we’ll be able to offer an even more comprehensive range of steering and lateral vehicle control products, performance, and expertise through an expanded suite of solutions.
Building Tomorrow’s Technologies
Sheppard joining Bendix also marks a very exciting development in the DAS, ADAS, and HAD arena. With today’s collision mitigation systems, the response to an object ahead is to reduce speed by braking or dethrottling. Future systems, though, will be able to analyze and assist in side-to-side directional vehicle control in those situations as well.
That means brakes and steering are the main ADAS actuators – in other words, braking and steering control are necessary for DAS/ADAS functionality – and now we’ve brought two teams of industry leaders in those technologies under the same umbrella. Sheppard’s expertise in the field of recirculating ball steering systems meshes very well with Bendix’s brake control expertise and systems know-how, forming the basis for the introduction of torque overlay steering (TOS) systems to our collision mitigation technologies.
With the continued fusing of more vehicle technologies into Bendix ADAS technologies, it’s a natural step to integrate steering more deeply into the Bendix portfolio. Sheppard represents a major addition to what Bendix can offer vehicle manufacturers and customers, whether we’re talking about systems including ADAS functionality steering, or components like OEM and aftermarket base steering gears.
We’re turning the page on a new chapter for Bendix and Sheppard – and we’re looking forward to sharing the story with everyone on the road.
Bendix Blog
Technical and industry insight from OUR experts.
