EFC Product Modification
Brand Hydraulics would like to notify all of its distributors and customers of an upcoming design change on our EFC valve. We have decided to switch suppliers of the coil and cartridge that are used to shift the orifice spool. EFC valves shipped after May 5, 2003 will have the new coil and cartridge assembly.
The new cartridge is designed so that the cartridge and push-rod are one part instead of two, simplifying assembly.
The new coil has a Metripack 150 male connecter which allows the customer to hook directly to the coil with no intermediate splicing. We will still ship all standard EFC valves with E1361 assembly (assembly includes Metripack 150 female connecter and 12 in. lead wires). The part number for the cartridge and 12 VDC coil are C960 and C961 respectively.
Note: All of the model codes that have been used in the past will remain the same in the future. For instance, EFC12-10-12 will still be EFC12-10-12 after the design change is made.
Authorized Distributors
Brand has acquired too many distributors over the years either by way of expansion through multi-location distribution houses or by promises made to Brand that have not come to fruition. We do not feel this is in the best interest of Brand or our distributors. Brand has written a new stocking distributorship policy included in this mailing. We will be reviewing our distributors during the course of 2003 for the following activity: Adherence to our stocking distributorship policy, sales volume, whether your sales are OEM or user based, whether you request technical assistance from our engineering department in order to obtain new business, competing product lines, and your efforts and willingness to work with Brand to obtain new business. Since the beginning of 2003, Brand has already dropped three distributors. At the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004, additional distributors will be dropped.
Product Installation Sheets
In the future Brand Hydraulics will be sending a product installation sheet along with the packing copy. There will be one installation sheet per item sent. The installation sheet is also available for download at our website www.brand-hyd.com. Simply click the product catalog button and then open the page of the product you are looking for. Finally, click the product installation button that is below or next to the catalog download button.
Individual Product Boxing
In our continuing efforts to provide our customer with higher quality products, Brand will be individually boxing each product. The program will go like this:
Many products, but not necessarily all products, will be individually bagged in a thick plastic bag and then the bagged product will be individually boxed (all products will be individually boxed). When necessary,
packing peanuts will be used as filler inside the individual box. These packing peanuts have already been recycled once. The packing peanuts are clean, dust-free and they meet or exceed MIL SPEC. B-81705B. Brand will also be implementing a packing peanut recycling program (information on this program will be provided with the packing copies). After the product is individually boxed, Brand will then place a label on the outside of each box that will include the part # and item description. Then the products will be boxed in our shipping boxes and the excess area filled with expanding foam.
To our knowledge almost nobody in our industry goes to these lengths to protect the product during transit, to make warehousing products this easy for distributors, or to extend the shelf life of our product in this manner.
On a semi related topic, if your purchasing department includes their e-mail address on the purchase order, Brand will automatically have our UPS computer e-mail you a tracking # for each shipment. This will greatly reduce the number of phone calls you have to make, time involved and provide your customers with information faster.
Return Goods Authorization (RGA) from our website
Brand is in the process of developing a Distributors commerce site, under our primary website www.brand-hyd.com. At this time you can download our new price list, dated 1-13-03, and you can submit a request for an RGA # to return product to Brand for warranty, credit or customer paid repair.
To access this site you must have a user name and password which you can obtain from the Brand sales department. After accessing the site, click on RGA form. Choose the reason for returning the product, i.e. warranty, credit, customer paid repair. Then proceed to fill out the rest of the form. Certain fields must be filled before the RGA request is submitted. If the form is not filled out properly then it will prompt you when you try to submit the form. After completing the required fields you can submit the form to Brand and print yourself a copy of the form. Submitting the form automatically loads your information into our RGA program thus eliminating re-keying the data.
The sales/customer service departments will then review the submitted data, approve it or disapprove it, and return the RGA # to you via fax. Brand will be doing all RGA requests this way in the future and will be doing away with form SAV004 rev. C.
In the future Brand will be adding other features to this site such as price and availability, order status, shipping information, invoices and account history. As these new features come online we will let you know.
If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact sales/customer service department and they will be happy to assist you.
Brand Hydraulics Picnic
Brand Hydraulics will be closed on June 13th from 12:00 to 5:00 P.M. while our annual picnic takes place.
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