The bicycle components industry is moving to embrace a hybrid of low-carbon aluminum and recycled aluminum for production, but both metals can be hard to source in sufficient quantities.
Through its Modus brand, VP Components is stepping up to bridge the gap between certified low-carbon aluminum sources and Taiwanese manufacturers who want to use the material. “Modus is an aluminum provider for extrusion parts. We supply recycled material as well as hydropower aluminum. We import billets from our suppliers to use in extrusion processes. The parts can then be supplied for forging to all industries, like with IKEA who use recycled aluminum in all their products. Modus is a Tier Two vendor already,” said VP’s Sales and Marketing Director D.C. Liao.
VP Components: Recycling material as an ongoing challenge
Post-production aluminum in the form of faulty parts is treated as recycled aluminum, but the dilemma is that this aluminum comes from defective parts. “If you have a lot of defective parts it means your defective rate is too high. For example, 70 percent. If you have 70 percent faulty products it means you only produce 30 percent acceptable parts. Getting enough recycled material will be an ongoing challenge for the Taiwan industry. Not only for bicycles, but for all industries. And if you can’t get enough recycled aluminum then you have to start thinking of buying low-carbon aluminum. But in Taiwan, we don’t have that.”
To solve the issue, Modus purchases low-carbon aluminum billets from Malaysia, which uses waterfalls, or hydropower, to generate the energy aluminum manufacturing requires. “The General Manager and I made the trip there, talked to the Vice President and got a deal to purchase low-carbon aluminum from them directly,” said Liao.
VP Components: Recycling material as an ongoing challenge
The strategy for the future is to target other vendors and get the word out that VP can supply middle- to high-end series 6 and 7 low-carbon aluminum. A potential obstacle is customer confidence in the strength of either low-carbon or recycled aluminum. “We use our own products. We have a rim production line to produce rims from this material. Sometimes people doubt it and say, ‘That’s just the rim,’ so we created a wheelset and added it to our product line.”
Liao said that Modus is starting small and working up to supplying bigger quantiles. “It’s a long process. You need to build confidence in yourself. Then you can convince your customers,” he said.
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