A Fitting Solution to a Big Problem
Learn how Genfit has created a fitting solution that can save fleets, repair shops, and owner-operators money.
Episode 243: If you’ve been in the trucking industry for any length of time, you know that fittings are a big part of repairing and maintaining equipment. In this episode, we talk about a fitting solution to a big problem facing the trucking industry today.
My guest today is Norbert O’Brien the President of Generational Fitting LLC.
Norbert has a 46-year history in all aspects of the connector industry. The last 31 years have been focused on the Heavy-Duty Aftermarket.
Guest Website: GenFitLLC.com
Watch the Video Version
Disclaimer: This content and description may contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, The Heavy-Duty Parts Report may receive a small commission.
Sponsors of this Episode:
- Want to look up parts but don’t have a part number or the VIN? Download Diesel Parts for free on Desktop or on your Apple or Android device.
- Looking for high-quality fuel injection for heavy-duty applications? Buy now from AMBACInternational.com/Aftermarket
- Looking for suspension, steering, and 5th wheel parts? Buy now from SAMPA.com
- Looking for OEM genuine parts? Buy now from AlliantPower.com
Buy Parts:
Are you looking to purchase heavy-duty parts and get your commercial vehicle repaired? Get access to one of HDA Truck Pride’s 750 locations across the United States and Canada. Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/BuyParts.
Transcript of Episode:
Jamie Irvine:
You are listening to The Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine, and this is the show where you get expert advice about heavy-duty parts that keeps trucks and trailers on the road longer while lowering cost per mile.
If you’ve been in the trucking business, any length of time, you know that fittings is a big part of repairing and maintaining equipment. Might be on your air system, might be on other systems on the truck, but commercial trucks and trailers, they got a lot of fittings. And when you’re selling fittings, a lot of times when you’re in a repair shop, they have large bolt bins. And as someone who sells parts, you’ve gotta go in and restock.
There’s a bunch of issues related to that that we’re going to talk about today. We’re actually going to talk about a fitting solution to a big problem, so I’m very happy to have with me Norbert O’Brien, the President of Generational Fitting LLC. Norbert has a 46 year history in the business, and his last 31 years has been focused on the heavy-duty aftermarket. So this is someone who knows the business well, knows our industry well, and I’m very excited to have him on the podcast. Norbert, welcome to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. So glad to have you here.
Norbert O’Brien:
Well, thank you, Jamie. Thank you very much for having me. I’m excited about having the conversation with you.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah, we had the opportunity to get introduced by one of the sales agent reps that I know, and he just called me one day and he says, Jamie, I’ve come across a product, you absolutely need to meet these people and talk about it on the show. So it’s been a little while to get us together, but here we are. We get to talk about the solution. But before we get into that, let’s kind of talk about some of the trends.
As I mentioned in the intro, when I was a salesperson, I spent a lot of time going to repair shops and they’d have these big bolt bins and they’d have these big fitting bins and you’d spend a lot of time going through one bin at a time, checking for what fittings they have, making sure that they were stocked up, but somehow there always seemed to be a repair at five in the evening that needed to be done, and they’re missing one fitting. in all of your years of experience, I’m sure you saw the same thing.
Norbert O’Brien:
Absolutely. And what we have found is that when someone comes in with that unique product, the counterman is baffled and they don’t have really any recourse to be able to help the customer at that time. And I think there’s nothing worse than being able to tell your customer that we don’t have that. And so we believe that this product will resolve that issue in many ways.
Jamie Irvine:
Well, and in the years that you’ve been in the business, I know I’ve seen this too, there’s been a big shift in the types of fittings used by OEM manufacturers. At one point it was all the brass fittings and then there was the quick connects and there’s just been a big shift in that. Can you talk a little bit about the shift in technology on fittings over the last few years?
Norbert O’Brien:
Because I’ve been in it for 46 years, I go back a little bit. Even before nylon air brake tubing was used with the fittings I go back to copper tubing era where they had long nut airb brake fittings and the long nuts were used because they reduced vibration on the copper tubing so they wouldn’t come loose. And then they came up with using nylon tubing and when they did that, they shortened and nut up, they put a insert in.
So when you compress the feral onto the tubing, you’re not collapsing it. Then the next generation was the push to connect fitting and it was mostly brass. And that probably began in the early nineties. And then about 10 years ago, 12 years ago composite fitting came out. It’s the same concept as the push to connect fittings as the brass, but it’s just a different material. And they did it for weight purposes on vehicles. That’s really one of the big drivers of it.
Jamie Irvine:
And when I came into the industry, there was still a lot of that compression fitting out there. And then that push to connect was just starting. And there was all, I remember all kinds of issues with push to connect when it first started. Lines popping off and leaks and things like that.
But the technologies come a long way when you think about managing inventory, like the world that we’re working in right now with supply chain issues, with the challenges around inventory, anything to reduce the number of SKUs that a parts company has to keep in stock or their repair shop wants to keep in stock at the shop, that’s a good thing. And what have you seen when it comes to demand from your customers?
Norbert O’Brien:
Yeah, you’ll have the person that’ll carry 2000 different SKUs and then you’re going to have the people that only wanna carry 200 of the most popular. So they both serve a purpose. But I think that what this is happening is that you’re going to have to come to the realization that having 2000 SKUs is a lot of money sitting on the shelf for you and a lot of space in your facility that’s being unused. And you’re going to have to reduce that number to something that’s manageable.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah, I totally agree. And that’s what we’re here to talk about is how to actually do that. So after our break, we’re going to talk about this great product that your company has been selling and I’m looking forward to learning more. We’ll be right back.
Commercial Break:
Don’t have a heavy-duty part number and need to look up a part? Go to parts.diesellaptops.com or download the app on Apple or Android to create your free account.
Looking for high quality fuel injection for heavy- duty applications? Having one supplier for fuel injection allows you to better serve customers by providing them with a complete line which increases your sales and profitability. Learn more at ambacinternational.com/aftermarket.
Parts availability and quality have a big influence on fleets and owner operators total cost of operation. If they can’t find a part, it means more downtime. If they install a low quality part and it fails, it means even more costs like tow bills, hotels, meals for the driver and lost revenue.That’s why we recommend Sampa. They manufacture a wide range of advanced parts for commercial vehicles. Their website has an intelligent product search engine and broad coverage of suspension, steering and fifth wheel components. Expect more. Expect Sampa. Visit sampa.com.
Jamie Irvine:
Today we’re back from our break and before the break we were talking about the trends with inventory. There’s supply chain issues. We also learned a lot about the history of fittings. It’s a small thing, but it’s a small thing that could actually render a commercial vehicle basically grind it to a halt if something goes wrong, especially with the air system, if you lose air.
So Norbert, when we’re talking about that situation where we have some people who have like 2000 SKUs, and like you say, it’s a lot of real estate on the shelf, it’s a lot of money tied up in inventory and it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve got the part that you need.
On the other hand, you have people who go the other route and they just take the top 10% most common stuff. But then of course you’re always going to be short if something comes through the door that’s a little bit outside of the norm. So let’s talk about the product that you’re here to promote today because like I said in the intro, we had a salesperson reach out to us and say, you’ve got to see this product. So we’re all anxious to learn more.
Norbert O’Brien:
Well, great. So what the product is the product that is manufactured by Kongsberg Automotive, which is a Norwegian company, and it’s called a raufoss fitting, R A U F O S S. And what it is is the composite air brake fitting. It’s a modular fitting where you can take the shape that you’re looking for, whether it be an elbow or 45 degree elbow, a T, a Y, an F, and you build the specific fitting you want into that building block. And what it offers, it offers you a multiple of different types of connections on the threaded side, then also on your tubing side.
So you can mix and match metric threaded products with standard US tubing and the opposite of that. And you can reduce your number of in a dramatic fashion. We have a kit that we have made that is 35 SKUs.
With those 35 you can make up to 450 different configurations and metrics, 90 degree elbows, 45 straights. You can do female pipe, male pipe. Again, I said metric tubing to standard or standard to metric tubing. It’s a fitting that has a lot of different capabilities for you to decide what to do and how to resolve the customer’s issue. And I think that’s what this is all about, is how do you manage your inventory numbers to be able to resolve your customer’s issues. Now, I can’t say that it’s going to cover every one of them, but your ability to cover the largest portion with the smallest inventory numbers is greatly enhanced.
Jamie Irvine:
Yeah, that’s really exciting. So okay, I’ve got a couple questions. So if I’m a parts reseller, do you sell these as kits that I can sell out the door to mechanics that are coming to my parts counter? Is that how it works?
Norbert O’Brien:
We have looked at it as being three really different avenues. Okay. And one is you sell the kit to somebody who wants to have it in their shop, just like the bolt bin setup that you have, but it’s a …
Jamie Irvine:
Lot smaller
Norbert O’Brien:
A suitcase. Yeah, suitcase. You can sell it to the individual that’s an over the road repair person where they have limited space in their vehicle and they’re able then to enhance what they’re going to be able to offer to the customer when they’re in a service call and then sell it to the individual stores or heavy-duty distributor. And they work through that or they decide, okay, I’ll put these 40 items or 35 items in stock, but I’ll put ’em in a fashion that we’ll be able to sell a thousand elbows if we need to. So they’re a number of an individual product will go up, but the numbers SKUs will go down dramatically.
Jamie Irvine:
Okay. So if we’re buying or selling that suitcase to someone, if I’m running a parts store and I sell that suitcase to a mobile repair technician that buys parts from me and now he needs to replenish those parts, can I buy them in bulk or do they only come in those kits?
Norbert O’Brien:
No, they can be bought in bulk also.
Jamie Irvine:
Awesome. So once you get it set up, you can just replenish your customer’s suitcase and keep them right up. Once they use something, they come back to your store and you can fill that back up again. Okay. So another question that I had was when somebody’s out there in the field and let’s say they’re driving or they’re part of a fleet that has quite a few different trucks and different applications, is this something that is dependent on application? Was this designed specifically for one type of truck or is it really something that’s an all makes solution?
Norbert O’Brien:
It’s an all make solution. And just to speak to the vehicles that have it on it as original equipment, which are Volvos and Max, they’ve been using them for about three years in the States, about 15 years for Volvo in Europe. So it’s a tried and true product and that they’ve gone through the rigorous testing to make sure that it’s a quality product that you’re getting. And so it would be used in this very similar application to really any other fitting. And so it’s just designing the fitting as you need it.
Jamie Irvine:
Is it only newer trucks that have that style of fitting or is this kit kind of like reverse application where we can go to older trucks?
Norbert O’Brien:
Anywhere you have an air brake fitting, whether it be a 20 year old truck, this part can be a replacement part for it?
Jamie Irvine:
Oh, that’s awesome. I’m on another radio show called Mind Your Trucking Business and one of my co-hosts, he runs a small fleet and his oldest piece of equipment is a 2005 Western Star and he’s got newer equipment. I think he’s got eight power units now. So he’s going to be so excited to hear about this. I’m going to tell him as soon as we get off this recording, because that’s another customer. I think that’s perfect for this, is that owner operator or small fleet operator that does a lot of do-it-yourself repairs. This would be very handy to have in the truck with them.
Norbert O’Brien:
Sure. And we’re in the process of some smaller kits also that would be say for a simple air repair out on the road where all you have to do is splice in a piece of tubing and use the fitting with it.
Jamie Irvine:
So I mean, let’s talk about economic impact here. So that exact scenario. So my co-host James Rogers on Mind Your Trucking business, he’s rolling down the highway. All of a sudden he has to pull over. He’s got a line that’s broken, he can take that kid out, he could fix it right there and get back on the road as opposed to calling on a mobile mechanic, getting a tow truck if necessary, if they didn’t have the parts, whatever the scenario is to get that truck fixed.
We know that unscheduled downtime costs a lot of money because it’s not just the repair, it’s not just the replacement parts, it’s also lost revenue, lost time. Time is money. So this is a small investment that can have a huge payoff later.
Norbert O’Brien:
Oh, absolutely. And one of the really good things about it is don’t really, if you’re doing it a splice, as we’re talking about, you don’t really need any tools. You need a tubing cutter. You don’t need a wrench or to be able to crank down the nut onto the tubing because you cut your broken piece out. The kits come with pieces of tubing for each size, quarter, three eights half and five eights, and you splice it in. You can push the fittings together with your hands and you’re ready to go.
Jamie Irvine:
And James Rogers, he was a combat veteran actually. He saw combat, he was working in the engineering department and he’s a guy who is very proud of his service to his country. Could you actually tell us a story that might be of interest to someone like James about someone who’s using this product?
Norbert O’Brien:
Sure. We have contracted with an individual that is dealing with GSA and we designed a kit that is being put into vehicles in war zones right now. We have our first order for them. They’re going to be shipped overseas within the next week, and they wanted to be put in each vehicle that had an air system on it. So in a situation where a vehicle gets damaged in a war zone, the operators can get out, fix it, and go, and not leave themselves open to any hostile actions.
Jamie Irvine:
So if it’s good enough for the US military, it is good enough for the trucking industry. This is a real innovative solution. Very excited about it. Thank you so much for taking some time to describe it in such detail. I think this is something that pretty much anybody who’s in the commercial trucking, maintenance and repair business needs to know about.
Norbert O’Brien:
I would agree. Again, we look at it as a completely new universe of fittings then what has been out there in the past and that we think this is where it’s going to go. It’s too easy to use and it’s too universal to use that it’s makes sense for everyone to at least give it a try.
Jamie Irvine:
You’ve been listening to The Heavy Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine, and we’ve been speaking with Norbert O’Brien, the President of Generational Fittings, LLC. To learn more about this great product, go to genfitllc.com. So I’ve got it up on the screen here. And for those listening on the podcast, that’s genfitllc.com. Links will be in the show notes. So if you’re driving right now, don’t worry when you pull over, you’ll be able to just open the show notes of the episode. One click and you’re right through. Norbert, thank you so much for coming on The Heavy-Duty Parts report. I hope to have you back on the show and we can talk more.
Norbert O’Brien:
Jamie, thank you very much for your time and for this opportunity to present this product to you and to your following.
