Gabriel® (Ride Control, LLC) continues its aggressive NPI (New Product Introduction) schedule, adding coverage for more than 15 million light vehicles in the past 12 months. The company has added more than 273 new light vehicle SKUs in 2013.
Gabriel is very strategic in its determination of NPIs, doing its own, independent analysis of what is needed, where opportunities lie, and choosing higher VIO NPI’s for maximum SKU efficiency.
Included in 2013 NPI’s are parts with higher VIO vehicle coverage such new Gabriel Ultra™ Struts that cover:
• 1,000,000 VIOs on 2009-2012 Toyota Corolla and Pontiac Vibe/Toyota Matrix
• 900,000 VIOs on 2008-2012 Chevrolet Traverse and Buick Enclave
Continued Expansion of Premium, OE-Designed ReadyMount Line
An area of huge demand is in fully assembled struts and Gabriel responded in 2013 by expanding its ReadyMount line by 50 to almost 200 SKU’s, rivalling competitors’ lines. Of these, 40 were New/First-to-market applications.
Gabriel’s plans for 2014 will push this total to 240 ReadyMount SKUs with 31 of these being First-to-market applications.
All new premium ReadyMount designs are precision-engineered back to the OE design. This is unique in the marketplace and not every supplier has the engineering capability to do so. In fact, Gabriel has benchmarked competitors’ parts against its ReadyMounts and found that many copy each others’ Non-OE designs, and deviations.
Gabriel engineers know that it requires engineering each individual part in the assembly, and an awareness of the original vehicle, to ensure that all the parts in a fully assembled strut fit and work together properly and optimally. Gabriel then conducts more than 10 durability tests our new ReadyMount designs for durability and proper function to make sure they operate within tight tolerances of the OE design, before it fit- and ride-tests each new design to ensure it is installed as expected. Only then are the new designs released as NPIs.
New ReadyMount NPIs for 2013 included such high VIO applications as:
• 800,000 VIOs on Mid 2000’s Honda Pilot and Acura MDX
• 500,000 VIOs on Mid 2000’s Grand Prix
“Gabriel offers one of the highest-quality and broadest light vehicle product lines available. And Gabriel combines it with aggressive NPI and coverage that’s competitive with anyone else out there,” concludes Lipski.”Good, better, best premium, specialty and fully loaded struts, Gabriel has you covered.”
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