Today, our exclusive AMN Executive Interview series features Jayson Keever, VP of global marketing for Toronto, Canada-based NUCAP Industries. In the interview, Keever brings us up to speed on exciting changes taking place at the company, including the launch of a bold new brake pad performance guarantee.

Please give us a brief history of NUCAP and its involvement with brake systems.

JK: NUCAP was founded in 1994, remains privately owned, and has more than eight operating locations in four countries designing and manufacturing disc brake backing plates, shims, hardware, electronic wear sensors, and system solutions like NRS, piston cushions, DRT and Brake Align. We are a major supplier to the original equipment market, and the largest supplier of aftermarket brake components for passenger cars, commercial vehicles and industrial applications. Our mission is to support our customers/partners with innovative braking system products that improve the value, performance, durability and safety.

In May, NUCAP launched a pretty bold promotion – the 100 percent brake pad performance guarantee on ANY brand of brake pad equipped with NUCAP’s NRS technology. Tell us about the technological advancement (NRS) that is enabling you to offer such a guarantee.

JK: NRS is a revolutionary mechanical attachment process for friction material to form the best bond to the brake pad backing plates. The NRS process forms hundreds of hooks on the backing plate, which provides the strongest attachment to the friction. Brake pads equipped with our NRS process are safer, quieter, more durable and last up to 30 percent longer by avoiding common causes of pad failure – like rust jacking, edge lift and friction material delamination. They will not fail. We are so confident in the performance of ANY brake pad equipped with our NRS technology we wanted to stand behind our product with an industry first 100 percent performance guarantee.

What kind of data led you to feel confident that this was the right time to make such a promise?

JK: First and foremost, it is the fact that NUCAP has sold more than 750 million NRS-equipped brake backing plates without a single failure. This is reinforced by our OE and aftermarket customers choosing to use more NRS on more of their applications, as well as positive feedback from technicians. These facts, combined with extensive laboratory noise, performance, durability and shear testing from third party and our in-house, fully accredited R&D lab, support our position. Our R&D group continues to show us examples and data where adhesive (glue) bonded brake pad backing plates are a leading cause of most premature brake system noise, vibration, durability and safety issues.

In what ways do you feel your company’s NRS technology, and the brake pad performance guarantee, will change the playing field in the highly competitive braking category?

JK: Brake pads have been treated as a commodity item where price is the one and only selling point for way too long, and the product has suffered as everyone has been looking to take cost down. We know that many technicians and end-users understand that this ultimately cost them performance and more money in the long run. These customers want to purchase and use high-quality products, and we feel that products like NRS help ensure that they are receiving a top quality product. We hope the 100 Percent Brake Performance Guarantee will help raise awareness for the brands that are providing the best products and solutions as well as bring awareness to products that do provide a safe, quiet, more durable braking product.

How are you getting the message out about this technology, and the guarantee, to your customers, and on to their customers?

JK: NUCAP is holding direct discussions with our manufacturing partners, both OE and aftermarket, on a consistent basis to show them how NRS can improve the quality of their product while not increasing their final production cost. We are also communicating the benefits of a more secure friction attachment directly to technicians and enthusiasts with a fully integrated marketing effort, including trade media, an active Web presence, public relations, direct mail, social media, plus, we are actively involved on 40 enthusiast magazine websites like Hot Rod, Car and Driver and Motor Trend, to name a few.

What’s next for NUCAP? Last year, the company acquired Brake Align. Any plans for additional growth this year?

NUCAP’s mission is to support our customers with innovative, superior brake system products. We are constantly talking to and working with our OE and aftermarket customers and our R&D group to develop components that make brake systems more durable, safer and quieter, but recently we have added weight reduction into these discussions. Every OE manufacturer is pushing hard to meet the new CAFE standards, and reducing weight is one of the many ways they can meet these standards. One of our new innovations, the step chamfer for a lighter-weight backing plate, is under consideration from several Oes, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see that or one of our other weight savings innovations to be standard on a brake system in the near future.