Design for aftermarket – a complicated captive audience

In many core industries, global competition has created a scenario where many mainstream OEM’s are literally breaking even on their production products, and designing customized designs for components so that they can control a more profitable aftermarket.

Design engineers who could easily design standard nuts, bolts, washers, O-rings, and other standard products are instead being directed to create unique, customized components for their products so that customers are “slaved” to the OEM when maintenance is performed and replacements parts are required.  Since the industrial marketplace is becoming more fragmented, there isn’t enough volume of product for manufacturers of component parts to develop tooling to compete with the OEM for the aftermarket.  This gives the product OEM the leverage to charge exorbitant prices for their custom aftermarket products with minimal competition.  Industries like automotive systems, hydraulics, pneumatics, pumps, heavy equipment, and valve systems are creating unique designs for components as a regular practice, as the majority of margins are realized in aftermarket sales.  In many cases, OEM’s are actually selling production product at margins as low as 2% in order to command the aftermarket business!

In most cases, the OEM customer does not understand why the prices are so high, and why they cannot simply purchase their spare parts needs from local, trusted sources.  We have all experienced the “sticker shock” of purchasing replacement ink or toner cartridges for our printers, and the industrial marketplace is quickly following suit.

Since most OEM’s are cumbersome to deal with, aftermarket “kit packagers” have taken over much of the aftermarket business.  The OEM’s have pushed the “custom” design components in order to thwart the kit packagers’ ability to cut into their aftermarket share.  Kit packagers normally have to purchase a complete OEM machine in order to reverse engineer the individual components, so when they find they cannot source the components with standard product and available tooling, it raises the threshold for their costs, and makes it more difficult to compete.  To complicate matters further, OEM’s are specifying unique colors, material specifications, and even specific part number identification on the surface of the aftermarket part.   Although these tactics may make it more difficult for aftermarket copycats to produce conforming parts, it also complicates the sourcing for the OEM.

Twenty-first century, high tech approaches are also being tested.  Much like software and other high tech products, some OEM’s are experimenting with hologram imbedded images and/or tiny identification chips to authenticate their aftermarket products.  As the cost associated with this sort of identification continues to go down, and as production techniques allow for more complex means of modifying finished products, the battle will continue.

When it comes to rubber and plastics seal products and mechanical components, Real Seal has a long history of providing conformance to customer specification.  Real Seal is adaptable to customer requirements, and pragmatic enough to make these adaptations without undue cost.  Our engineering support services may offer alternative tooling and production methods that will meet your objectives competitively.  Please contact us for more information.

From the beginning when man took his first tentative steps into outerspace, space propulsion has remained largely the same. Even with the incremental advances in the efficiency of chemical fuels and O rings, the basic nature of rocketry is still defined by the basic Delta V Rocket Equation with all its limitations; be it the powerful boosters used to obtain orbital velocity or the low impulse Ion Thrusters used to power deep space missions. This backward approach to propulsion limits both the potential flight parameters of deep space missions and the life span of earth orbiting satellites in a wide range of applications.

The electronics and gasket seals of the satellite may last indefinitely in earth orbiting satellites; the useable lifespan of that satellite is limited by the availability of on-board propellants used for orbital maintenance. Under normal operating environments, a space vehicle’s components, such as its rubber o-rings and silicone seals can go on and on.  It is only once the chemical propellant is exhausted, when the satellite no longer has the capability of maintaining a station properly. This is where electro-magnetic propulsion and electro-dynamic braking comes in.

Chemical propellants allow the International Space Station to offset orbital decay. The need and use of these chemical propellants increases the potential for catastrophic accident, increases the cost of operational maintenance, and requires the commitment of launch capacity for that purpose. Interplanetary and deep space missions face similar limitations inherent to dependence on chemical propellants for propulsion.

Obtainable velocities, launch windows, and other flight parameters remain severely limited by dependence upon the same Newtonian Propulsion methods used by the ancient Chinese to power their rudimentary rockets, despite the fact that gravitational assist has been a regular tool used in both navigation and imparting changes in specific orbital energy. Even Ion Propulsion, which uses electro-magnetic acceleration of the ion fuel to achieve impulse, is still a type of Newtonian Propulsion where the total energy imparted is limited by exhaust velocity and total available fuel mass as defined by the basic rocket equation. Newtonian Propulsion may have gotten us to earth orbit and beyond; but it will be Electro-magnetic propulsion that will carry us to the stars. In the mean time, its development will allow us to achieve flight parameters previously unattainable with only chemical propellants as the means of space propulsion.

Both Electro-magnetic Propulsion and it’s inverse, Electro-dynamic Braking, when combined with the now and near term future technologies related to super conductivity, dielectric capacitance, and other related technologies; will introduce a new paradigm in space propulsion and the space program as a whole.  For additional information, visit www.real-seal.com/ at 1971 Don Lee Place, Escondido, CA 92029 to learn more.