The Heavy Duty Parts Report
Each week Jamie Irvine and his guests have conversations that empower heavy-duty people. They discuss tips, tools, and technology that help heavy-duty parts manufacturers and distributors sell the right parts to fleets, repair shops, and truck operators.
The Heavy Duty Parts Report
True or False: Remanufacturing is in Decline
Episode 326: We start this episode discussing the essential phases of remanufacturing—including disassembly, thorough cleaning, failure analysis, reassembly, and testing—and reveal how you can apply these steps to identify and resolve issues in your heavy-duty parts business.
Our featured guest is Joe Kripli, President of APRA, the Automotive Parts Remanufacturers Association. He explains that reman has always been part of the history of heavy-duty and there will be even more need for it in the future. We also discuss the importance of right-to-repair legislation and the environmental benefits of not sending your cores to the landfill.
Show Notes: Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com for complete show notes of this episode and to subscribe to all our content.
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You're listening to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I'm your host, jamie Irvin, and this is the place where we have conversations that empower heavy-duty people. Welcome to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I'm your host, jamie Irvin. In this episode, we are going to discuss a five-step structured process to solving problems in your heavy-duty parts business that follows the same steps that are done at a remanufacturing plant. In addition to that, we are going to answer the question whether it's true or false that remanufacturing is in decline, and we're going to conclude this episode by talking about how to capitalize on the cores that you have in your system. Capitalize on the cores that you have in your system. Let's get started. Let's talk for a moment about how the remanufacturing process actually works.
Jamie Irvine:There's a big difference between rebuilding something and remanufacturing it. When you rebuild it, you basically take it apart, you clean it, you put it back together and you get what you get. The remanufacturing process is completely different. So let's go through the five phases of remanufacturing. The first is disassembly. This is where the worn out parts or the cores are completely disassembled into all of the sub components that make up the one part. So think of an air valve, for example. You're going to take it all apart and what you're going to have on your bench is you're going to have the body of the valve, the cover, you're going to have perhaps springs, pistons and other components that are internally inside of that valve, and all of that has been disassembled. The next step is to clean all of these components, and a thorough cleaning is necessary, and you have to use a variety of different tools to clean these components. So, for example, depending on what the component is made of, you might use solvents, detergents or other cleaners. You might sandblast the parts, but the goal here is to clear away all of the built-up grime and dirt and anything else that contaminates those internal components, as well as the housing or the external components. You want to have everything as clean as you can get it.
Jamie Irvine:The next component of the remanufacturing process is not something that most people spend a lot of time thinking about, but when you are a remanufacturer, the third phase of remanufacturing is a failure analysis. Over time, remanufacturers build up a data set of failure analysis where they start to understand what conditions and what are the underlying causes of a specific kind of failure. This provides engineers with the opportunity to upgrade certain internal components to give the part better overall performance. The goal for most engineers working at remanufacturing facilities or companies is to produce a part that actually performs better than the original equipment manufacturer's original part.
Jamie Irvine:The fourth phase of the remanufacturing process is to reassemble the part. Now replacement parts like new seals, maybe pistons, springs, things of those nature are going to be put into this part when it is being remanufactured. Oftentimes, when the reassembled part is complete because we've stripped everything away in the cleaning process it either needs to be painted or powder coated, and sometimes this is done throughout the reassembly process. But certainly by the time the part is completely reassembled, it is now ready to go into that vehicle and to perform at least at the manufacturing or the original equipment manufacturer specs. But in many times it'll perform even better. But the final step before sending this part out into the world to be installed on a commercial vehicle is the testing phase. This is a critical final step to ensure that this part indeed is performing at the level that is expected. And again, the goal is to make this part operate at the minimum of the same specs as the OEM. But in most cases we're looking to remanufacture this part and get it to perform better than it did when it was brand new off the assembly line. So now we have a good understanding of the remanufacturing process and I want to apply this to the five steps the five steps that you need to apply in your business when you're trying to solve a problem, either in your heavy-duty parts manufacturing or perhaps your distribution or dealership business, or maybe you're in the service side of the business and you either want to get into the parts business or you already are in the parts business. In any case, in any of those different types of heavy-duty parts businesses, you can apply these five steps to solving heavy-duty parts business problems. Let's go through them and let's see the correlation between our five-step process that we're going to teach you and the remanufacturing process.
Jamie Irvine:So when you have a problem in your heavy-duty parts business, the first thing that you want to do, the first step, is problem identification. This is where you have to take the problem apart. Don't just look at the symptoms, but identify all of the aspects of the problem so you really understand it. And, like I said, this is very much like disassembling a core. You got to take that problem apart, break it down into its individual pieces. The second step is to do a root cause analysis, or RCA for short. Now, a RCA or root cause analysis, is essential to find the underlying problems that you are going to need to understand to truly develop a solution that will work. Now, this is very much like the cleaning stage of the remanufacturing process. When you're doing a root cause analysis, you're clearing away all of the different things that might disguise or hide the actual underlying problems, and once you've cleaned that all away, you can get a good sense of what the problem actually is and this will help you to develop a solution.
Jamie Irvine:The third step in solving a problem in your heavy-duty parts business is your failure analysis. Now, there are seven things that we have identified that consistently cause heavy-duty parts companies to have problems or to not meet their goals or to actually fail in certain circumstances. And those seven things. This is all part of your failure analysis and really correlates to the failure analysis that is done at the remanufacturing level. So remember, in the remanufacturing process they were looking at all of the failure points and trying to understand what those reasons, right, the root cause of the failure is, and trying to understand, well, if these things fail consistently, what could we do to upgrade them so they don't fail again. So, just like in the remanufacturing process, you have to do this in a business. It's a failure analysis that needs to be done and, like I said, there are seven common reasons for heavy-duty parts business failure.
Jamie Irvine:Let me go over them quickly with you. One is overproduction producing sooner than needed. Now that's producing parts or the production that your service or your people put out, regardless of what we're talking about, just overproduction. Second waiting Anytime there's idle workers or idle machines. That is something that often leads to failure.
Jamie Irvine:Number three inefficient operations. Now, this can be inefficient systems, things that aren't necessary or things that are being done that don't necessarily add value to the company any longer. Number four excess movement. We could be talking about materials, products, information, people and activities. Five inventory More inventory than needed, not enough inventory. In both of those situations we have a problem and it can lead to failure. Number six poor quality. Now, this could be obviously poorly made products, but it can also be poorly designed systems. So, whatever the services that you're doing, whatever your people are doing, the system is poorly designed and this is causing a quality issue on the output.
Jamie Irvine:And number seven incorrect job modeling. This is underutilizing your people or having a mismatch for the job that a person is, with their skillset, with their traits, with who they are as individuals. These are seven things that are often identified during the failure analysis process. But this is such a critical stage and sometimes business owners of heavy-duty parts companies kind of skip over this and try to jump right to the solution that maybe they've done the root cause analysis and they have an understanding of it, but they don't actually look at the actual failure points and come up with a solution to fix that. So this is such a critical stage Okay, moving on no-transcript that increase the results, that solve the problems permanently and help the company to move beyond them and to perform at a better or higher level.
Jamie Irvine:Okay, and finally, the fifth step in really addressing a problem in a heavy-duty parts business is to check the results. This is just like the testing phase of remanufacturing you have to test to make sure that the things you're doing are actually creating better results. We have to account for things like unintended consequences and we have to be checking to make sure that we're getting better results. At the Heavy-Duty Consulting Corporation, we work with manufacturers, distributors and dealership groups and service companies that either want to get into the parts business or already in the parts business, and are experiencing challenges, and we help them to overcome problems by using this process. We'd love to talk to you about that If you'd like to meet with us to discuss a problem that you're having. Head over to heavydutypartsreportcom and in the top menu you will see a consulting button. Just click that. It'll take you right through to our consulting website and you can learn all about what we do.
Jamie Irvine:Okay, we're going to take a quick break. When we get back from the break, we are going to find out. Is it true or is it false that remanufacturing in the heavy-duty parts industry is in decline? We've got a great featured guest. Come back and listen to that interview. We'll be right back.
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Jamie Irvine:We're back from our break, and now it is time for our interview with the president of the Automotive Parts Remanufacturing Association, the APRA, since 2004, has sponsored and supported the HDRG, which stands for the Heavy Duty Remanufacturing Group. So this is not just an automotive-focused organization. They are focused on both automotive and heavy duty, and I'm really looking forward to sharing my interview with the president of the APRA. Enjoy the interview.
Jamie Irvine:My guest today is Joe Crippley. He is the president of the Automotive Parts Remanufacturers Association, also known as APRA. He has over 40 years of experience in remanufacturing, both with automotive and heavy-duty components, and so I'm very excited to talk to Joe today. As many of you who have listened to the show for a long time know, I started my career as a remanufacturer in a proper remanufacturing facility, not just a rebuilder, and so today we're going to talk about the things that really make remanufacturing important, why we think that this is something that should be continued. In heavy duty, we're going to talk about the difference between OEM and aftermarket. It's going to be a great conversation. So, joe, welcome to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. So glad to have you here.
Joe Kripli:Hi Jamie, thanks for having me, I appreciate it.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah well, we've been looking forward to this conversation for some time. Let's get into it right away. For some people who hear words like sustainability when it comes to manufacturing or a circular economy or green parts, for some of those people who hear those words they might think that that's kind of a new development in heavy duty parts. Is that true?
Joe Kripli:No, not at all, and I laugh at the fact that we're green now. We've always been green. I mean we've been green for over 80 years, go back to when Cummins started and the cats and that and Detroit Diesel. They've been remanufacturing components and engines for all those years. If I look at the automotive side, it all started during World War II because Ford, gm, chrysler, they all turned into the war machine, right, and they started making tanks and Jeeps and airplanes and all that. You couldn't get an automotive part, you couldn't get a starter and alternator. You had to rebuild the part you had because there was nothing else you could do. And heavy duty has always been that way, only because especially started with tractors and stuff. You know it's typical. You go to a farm. They got a 50 year old John Deere tractor, right. I mean you're remanufacturing the components or rebuilding them because you don't have a choice. They've stopped making them. You know, 20 years ago. If you will, it's always been around for us.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah and my.
Jamie Irvine:As I said in my intro, my first introduction to the industry was to work for a remanufacturing plant and what I really loved about what we did is we didn't just take stuff apart, clean it up and put some new seals in it and throw it back on the shelf.
Jamie Irvine:We actually specced all the internal components. We did short-run manufacturing of new replacement components to go inside those units, and what we were doing it for was for pneumatic controls, for logging and mining, and then we transitioned into different components for the commercial truck sector. It was such a great introduction to the industry and it really opened my eyes to the opportunities out there. When you look at the trend since those days 25 years ago when I started, certainly when I look at where the OEMs were in the amount of market share they had back then and you fast forward to today, they've done a pretty good job of taking a fair amount of market share from the aftermarket. So what's your thoughts on the OEMs and their OES dealership groups with their new kind of push towards all makes? What is the future of the aftermarket, not just rebuilding, but the aftermarket in general when it comes to heavy duty parts?
Joe Kripli:And you've got a couple of different things that play into that, you know. First, you've got the quality side, and I'll just give you an analogy. In the early 70s, I had a Mustang Ford Mustang. I replaced the starter every year. It was just normal. I replaced the starter every year. I fast forward today. One of my vehicles I have is a 2013 Ford Expedition. I've never changed the starter on it, jamie. It's got 160,000 miles. It runs fine. So quality has played a role in this as far as affecting the industry in that.
Joe Kripli:The other thing is you've got the OEMs that some of them that have gotten very good, and I'll use Caterpillar as an example. They are the benchmark. Caterpillar retains 96% of their cores. You cannot remanufacture without a core. You have to have the old product to remanufacture it. So they're only letting out 4% into the market. You think about that. So now I've got a finite number right. It's not like I can remanufacture everything out there. They've got the cores. I don't have the core, so I can only touch 4% of the market. So they're doing very good job at retaining that market share and controlling it, if you will. So I think.
Joe Kripli:And then you've got the other players like you talked about. They're trying to pick up the aftermarket with like road choice and different avenues like that. The aftermarket with like road choice and different avenues, like that, which is good. But a lot of them are utilizing that same aftermarket supplier, if you will, so they're just reaching out in different ways. Will it affect the aftermarket overall? I think it does.
Joe Kripli:From the standpoint that there's a dealership in every town, they have kind of the distribution side which is very strong and you can get that part that same day. You know where a remanufacturer or a WD might be shipping it and you're not getting it until the next day or the day after. They're strong in that category, you know, but they still they're not going to stock the 10-year-old part. The 12-year-old part I mean the average age of vehicles these days is like 14 and a half years. I mean they just don't stock those older components and the dealerships I don't think they necessarily want to work on them. People don't take after five years, after you're on a warranty, are you taking your car to the dealer or your truck to the dealership? People typically don't. They're taking it to a mechanic to repair a garage and that's where the aftermarket plays at.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, and I know, like I said when I started, so go back 98 to 2000,. 2005 kind of time period. There was this big influx of offshore products in the aftermarket, but quality was man, it was horrible. Aftermarket, but quality was man, it was horrible. And a lot of people kind of got seduced by the low purchase price but they got hammered on the total cost and so we kind of saw the pendulum swing and then it started to swing back to us because people were like we need a quality product and we can't trust these offshore products. You fast forward to today and I've had guests on the show like one of them. They're in the process of patenting or trademarking rather, the expression core is a four letter word and their contention is is that they can produce a new aftermarket replacement part that has a quality that is at par or greater than anything that could be remanufactured. So what do you say to something like that and those trends?
Joe Kripli:Yeah, and I hate to say this, I shouldn't say I hate to say it but China's getting better. I mean, you're absolutely right, jamie. Back in the late 90s, oh it was horrid, right. I mean the stuff was failing left and right. They had used cheap metal, whatever. They've gotten smarter. All the overseas companies go to Turkey, brazil, wherever. They've all gotten smarter and gotten better and their quality is getting better, whether we like it or not. And they still have the low-cost labor. So we have to battle that.
Joe Kripli:But then you got the other side of it, where governments everyone's pushing for environmentally friendly, keep things out of the landfills. What's your carbon footprint? All this In order to meet those expectations. You have to have remanufacturing, you have to have solar power, wind generated, all these different things to meet that expectation that the consumer is looking at saying, hey, I don't want to. Just, I want to buy something that helps the environment. You know that is starting to get. You know, catch on, if you will. It's more the circular economy and that Europe drives it big time. I would say they're probably five years ahead of us right now from that standpoint and they're putting legislation in place to drive that also and that's going to help out remanufacturing. But you're right, they're getting better. The products are getting better, the action markets are getting better. The other thing you have, though, the OEMs are getting smarter from a standpoint, since things are becoming mechatronic and electronic.
Joe Kripli:I'll give you an example knock sensor. There's a Mac knock sensor and there's an aftermarket version, and when you put the knock sensor, when you install it, it talks to the computer and says hey, I'm here. And the computer asks a question, kind of electronically, and it says are you the right part? Yes, I am OK. Great, here we go. And it says are you the right part? Yes, I am Okay, great, here we go. Well, mac changed that software to where you put on an aftermarket. It asked a different question and it says oh wait, you're not a genuine Mac sensor, you're something else. I'm sorry, I can't run, I can't install you, you can't play here. So that side of it is happening too.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Well, that actually brings up another definite thing that has become so predominant in our conversations and that is right to repair, and that is something that over the last few years, it has emerged as a topic that we really need to give our attention to, especially if we work on the aftermarket or the remanufacturing side of the business. So talk to me a little bit how right to repair factors into the equation.
Joe Kripli:Yeah, this is a game changer for the aftermarket. We have to have it, we've got to get all. I wish it was more federally driven than state driven, because to go through all 50 states is taking a lot of time. But there's a big push going on with everybody there, and especially I mean I saw John Deere came out. This was a couple of years back and they came out and they said you have to take your tractor to the John Deere dealer, hands down, you can't take it anywhere else.
Joe Kripli:And the farmers went in an uproar. You know they're like wait a second, I can't just put this, put this on a trailer, take it to you, have it for a week, whatever, you know, I need to be able to fix these things myself if necessary. One you don't have enough technicians out there. You know the other thing I can google just about everything and figure out how to do it, you know. And so they got a huge pushback and they reversed themselves. They said, okay, you know what. You're right. You just bought, you know, a $100,000 tractor or a $150,000 truck or whatever it might be. Yeah, I need to be able to fix some of this stuff myself. I can't take it in every single time it needs an update or something. So that's, you know, that's.
Joe Kripli:The right to repair is especially important to the aftermarket. And again we go back to the dealers don't want to service products that are 10 years older. You know, they're 10 years old, 15, 20. I mean they're handling all the warranty for the first five years. They've got enough business coming in and again there's not enough technicians. As far as from a dealership standpoint, you have to have that right to repair.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, I totally agree. So we had an episode about John Deere's MOU and how it impacts the trucking industry. We had Ann Wilson and John Adame on that's episode 257. If listeners are interested, we'll put that link in the show notes Because, as this right to repair issue evolves, I think what's really important and what I want to emphasize is that everyone who works in this industry should reach out to their state legislator, to their representative, and talk to them about it.
Jamie Irvine:And actually, if you go to that episode, there is a link to MEMA, which there is actually a form that they've kind of created. It's like a fillable form, very easy to fill out. You just fill it out and you actually, right on the website, can find out who your representative is and send it directly to them. And if everybody in Aftermarket did that and I mean everybody we would get the support from our representatives, because most of them aren't even educated about this issue. And when their constituents come forward with this, I've heard many stories of legislators and of representatives who are like why didn't I know about this? And so there's a real lack of education in a lot of the government that we can help with, and so I definitely encourage people to do that.
Joe Kripli:I filled out my form. I just want you to know you did Excellent, Good Well you're leading by example, fantastic, okay.
Jamie Irvine:So, true or false? Remanufacturing has been in decline for the last 25 years.
Joe Kripli:Oh, absolutely false, Absolutely. It's growing tremendously, especially on the heavy-duty side. I'll give you a stat which blows my mind On the automotive side, if you look at all the components that go into a vehicle, only 2% are remanufactured. You look on the heavy-duty side, it's like 75%. It's day and night, jamie, day and night, which boggles my mind. So there's so much room for improvement.
Joe Kripli:I mean there's so many more products we can remanufacture and what's happening now is, because of supply chain issues, cost of material, all these products are getting more expensive. I mean, you've got turbochargers that are $5,000. Now, of course, you want to remanufacture it for $2,500. Why would you not want to save half the cost and have a product that's as good as new with the same warranty? It makes absolute sense. You've got more exhaust after treatment products, the EGRs, the depth sensors, all those things.
Joe Kripli:Everyone's looking at that, saying, wow, all this technology is bringing more opportunity to remanufacture. So I just see continued growth. And not only that. With the electrification coming in, the OEMs and the tier ones are starting to scale back. They've got to put their money in different places. And guess what? That older product. You know what? I'm not going to make that anymore. Well, there's a lot of that product out there and the aftermarket looks at it and says, hey, we need to remanufacture it or make components for that, because these trucks are still out there. So I see a really nice upswing on it.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, and I think part of the drive for that upswing is also the rise of the next generation of people who are entrepreneurial minded. So not everyone in, let's say, gen Z is entrepreneurial minded, but they've been raised in a culture where entrepreneurship has actually been championed. And you know, back in the day we used to say that anybody who said oh I'm, I'm an entrepreneur, that meant they were unemployed. But that's not the way it is today. Right, like, like these young kids.
Jamie Irvine:You know, I was looking at some information from the wall street journal and they were talking about how this next generation of young people they're renaming them the tool belt generation, because they are heading to the trades in droves and at a much higher rate than the previous generation, which was the millennials. So for me, when I see all of that, what I'm starting to see emerge in our consulting business is these new young people are coming into the industry, they're getting their education, they're getting their feet wet in different aspects of business and then they want to start a business. And so for those ones who, let's say, maybe they are hearing this and they're thinking remanufacturing, I never thought about it. Where are the opportunities? Where should they be looking at remanufacturing and give us some inside information, because you're involved in it every day.
Joe Kripli:I mean, the first thing to look at is you have to ask yourself okay, what's failing? What parts are failing? You know, I go back to my starter story. Right, those aren't failing, as much you know. But EGR is failing because of the carbon that the engine produces and that, so it's caused the sticky valves, and that the exhaust after treatment is failing.
Joe Kripli:I mean, you've got things. Detroit Diesel's got that one box right. Dpf thing it's like $10,000. If you go to a dealer, you know there's ways to clean that. Take it apart. Remanufacture it put it back together. Different opportunities like that and the technology that's coming along with the trucks now is just, there is so much mechatronics and electronics. There's tons of opportunity out there that people haven't figured out yet and they haven't looked at it yet. The key, though, is cores. Can you get cores? Because the hardest thing is, you see an item that's failing and they're replacing it with new right now, but it's like but wait, where are the cores going? Is anybody saving the cores? Has anybody started saving the cores? Or what you can do and it's costly though is put new in a reman box and you get the core and you start generating your own cores Costly for the first year, but then you've got a product that you can remanufacture.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, and another strategy that I've seen work really effectively is to go to several customers and, well, I guess, potential customers and say to them look, we want to do some R&D, we want to provide you with this reman product. Would you save the old ones for us? We'll buy them off of you so we can do testing and that can start to build up your core bank as well. There's also an interesting gentleman in South Carolina who runs a consulting business and his whole job is to source and find cores. That gentleman is doing such a good job for one of our clients. So if you're ever interested, if you're listening to this episode, you're interested, let me know, reach out to us on the show and we'll put you in contact with the right people. Let me ask you something how does the APRA support the current remanufacturers and the future remanufacturers that we're going to see come into the industry?
Joe Kripli:So the first thing, right off the bat, is networking. It's having that network. Hey, right off the bat is networking, it's having that network. Hey, where do I buy my sandblaster from? Where do I buy my bearings from? Who sells the gaskets for this, who sells that? That whole network of being able to find parts and equipment and knowledge. You know who's doing this that I can talk to. That might give me some insight to remanufacturing this product. That's the number one. The number two is right to repair it's.
Joe Kripli:We're fighting. We're fighting with the legislation. You know we're working with the MIMAs and that, as far as you know, we're making a big push too. Everyone has to make that push to make this happen. So that's something that we're doing with them. And then we have our seminars, we have our European division, we have an Asia Pacific division Again, all talking to each other, because a lot of these products are on global platforms now and they're being made and sold all across the world.
Joe Kripli:So other people have come up with other ideas and processes that are working that we can bring back to our members and say, hey, this is what they're doing over here in Turkey, this is what they're doing in Brazil. This is kind of a neat thing, you know, and that's what we bring to them. Yeah, and just to support, you know it's supporting them locally, you know and there's local governments in that too If they have a problem getting something across the border. We have a number of things where some cores will be considered waste. So the customs immediately flag to go, hey, you're just sending junk over here, you're just sending landfill stuff. You know it's like no, no, no, these are cores that are going to be remanufactured and brought back. You know it's good for the environment, it's not bad.
Jamie Irvine:If there's one thing that you want our listeners to remember from today's conversation, what's that one thing?
Joe Kripli:Demand remand. Okay, here's my vision, jamie. There's a truck in a side of, roadled it, inspected it, replaced all the worn components and the components that we know fail regularly. But we're not going to put in something we go oh, I know this is going to break in three months. No, we're going to put a new part in there to make that a better unit and we know the inherent warranty issues the product has had. And then we reassemble it and we test it. 100 test it says I feel it's as good as new. So we're able to give it the a warranty that's as good as the oem warranty.
Jamie Irvine:Yeah, and what people don't realize about cores is that when you, when you see thousands of cores, you can do failure analysis and you have a, you have insight into why something is failing, that when it was originally designed, engineered and manufactured, those people never had that opportunity to see all that they don't get to see what happens after it's been in the field and thousands of units have failed and they don't get that opportunity.
Jamie Irvine:That's why those manufacturers like I was talking to one gentleman and he was talking about how Toyota buys back all of the vehicles that cross over a million miles and the reason why, and they'll give, apparently, they'll give you a brand new vehicle. So if you've got like a Toyota 4Runner that's 30 years old and it crosses a million miles, they'll give you a brand new 2024 4Runner and take that. Why? Because they want to do. Why did it last that long? Conversely, when things are failing, they need to know, and so, as a remanufacturer, you just get insight with those failure analysis that engineers who only work on new things never get the opportunity to see, and I think that's a big part of why remanufacturing can be so successful.
Joe Kripli:Absolutely. That's a great story right there, the fact that they bring those vehicles back Because, you're right, one-year warranty, two-year, even a five-year warranty. Those engineers, they get the warranties, data, but they have no idea what's going on. Beyond those dates it doesn't come back. The product doesn't come back, it just gets replaced. And they have no idea that they have a high failure rate. At 110,000 miles, this thing always fails. Why, you know? They don't know that, they don't have the information Exactly.
Jamie Irvine:And that's why the APRA is there and that's why remanufacturing is there. You've been listening to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I'm your host, Jamie Irvin. We've been speaking with Joe Crippoli, president of the Automotive Parts Remanufacturers Association. To learn more about APRA, go to APRAorg. Links will be in the show notes on our website, Joe. Thank you so much for being on the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. So glad to have you here.
Joe Kripli:Thank you, jamie. I appreciate it. Don't forget demand reman.
Jamie Irvine:Well, I hope you enjoyed my interview with the president of the APRA. Joe is a great guy. I really enjoyed learning from him and with his over 40 years of experience, he just has so much to share for the heavy-duty parts industry and he's really emphasized the importance of remanufacturing, and he answered conclusively that it is false. Remanufacturing is not in decline and that is good news for the industry. It's time for our final segment of the show that's Not Heavy Duty.
Jamie Irvine:In this edition of that's Not Heavy Duty, I wanted to talk about how sending cores to the landfill is not heavy duty, regardless of where you are in the supply chain. So if you are maybe a end user or a fleet or a repair shop that works on commercial equipment, or maybe you're even in the middle, you're the parts distributor or you're the dealership group that's selling to these fleets and repair shops and owner operators. Over time, you probably have built up some cores that are not eligible to be returned to the supplier and get a credit. Now what do you do with them? Do you just throw them in the landfill? No, you don't. There are several things that you can do. First, you should talk to your suppliers about whether or not they have a core bank. If you know you're going to buy this stuff again, then put them in your core bank. Buy those remanufactured parts again. You don't have to worry that about paying a core charge Now. If that's not going to work. The second thing you can do is you can actually sell your cores to brokers. Now at the Heavy-Duty Consulting Corporation, we're actually talking to a few organizations that are really core brokers. They buy and sell cores and they're a great place for you to make sure that these cores don't end up in the landfill and for you to get some dollars in return. Now we've had them on the podcast before. We're going to have some new guests coming up pretty soon on the show, so make sure you keep following the show to learn more about that opportunity.
Jamie Irvine:And finally, if none of that will work, then don't just put them in the landfill. Most of these cores can be scrapped for their raw material value. At least you get a few bucks and it keeps them out of the landfill. So that's the heavy duty way. We don't want to send anything to a landfill. We don't have to. Let's keep these commercial trucks and trailers on the road and let's keep the parts going. And if that means sending them in to be remanufactured, then that's what we should try to do, and if not, like I said, don't just put them in the landfill. Try to get some value out of them and, at the very minimum, scrap them for their raw materials.
Jamie Irvine:All right, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Just wanted to let you know that right now we are already starting to think about the fall trade show and speaking season, so there's lots of events in the fall. There's trade shows that we're going to be attending. If you would like to have me as a speaker at one of these events, the schedule is booking up quickly, so please reach out to me. Go to heavydutypartsreportcom, forward, slash Jamie, book a meeting with me and I'd love to discuss being a speaker at your event.
Jamie Irvine:Again, thank you for following the show, listening to this episode. If you haven't already, go over to heavydutypartsreportcom and follow us by subscribing to our weekly email. We send out one email a week. We're not spamming you with all kinds of offers, just one email a week letting you know what new content we've put out, so you never miss out.
Jamie Irvine:We have lots of people who listen on podcast players. If you are listening on a podcast player of your choice and it gives you the option to give us a five-star rating or review. I'd appreciate it if you did that and make sure you hit that follow button for free. There's also a new feature in any podcast player app that you are listening on, you will be able to click a button right at the top of the show notes to send us a text message. We'd love to hear from you, and if you watch the video version of our show, make sure you hit the subscribe button on YouTube. Thank you so much for all of your support over the last few years. We've really appreciated it. If you're new to the show, welcome to the Heavy Duty Parts Report. Thank you for listening and, as always, I want to encourage each and every one of you to be happy duty.