Why we changed our brand name

In 1989, Rubien Chen established a warehouse and sales office in southern California to sell bearings from China under the name of RBI.  At that time we were a Chinese bearing broker importing products manufactured at various plants in China that we had started to build business relationships with.

Five years later R.B. International, Inc. was formed as the parent company for RBI Bearing.  A sales office and warehouse in the Chicago area was opened to concentrate on the large OEM markets in the Midwest and Eastern part of the USA, and the following year RBI Canada was established in Toronto.  During this time, Mr. Chen began to develop stronger relationships with our Chinese factories that resulted in several joint ventures to make RBI products exclusively for R.B. International.

The RBI name was recognized throughout the USA and Canada as a higher quality Chinese bearing and RBI Bearing was registered as a brand name in the USA in 1997. Over the next eight years the company firmly established itself as a manufacturer by building its own factories in Chengdu , Wuxi and Ningbo, China. The RBI brand continued to build on its reputation as a high quality Chinese bearing throughout the world.

R.B. International began the legal process to register RBI Bearing as a worldwide trademark in over 130 countries in 2005. Unfortunately, protecting our U.S. brand name in certain other countries became very difficult. Therefore, the company made a decision to develop a new brand name that we would be able to register around the world.

RBtech was selected as the brand and a logo developed that we felt would clearly show the relationship between the RBI and RBtech. The RBtech brand represents high quality Chinese bearings from a company you trust – RBI. RBtech will eventually become the single brand of bearings from RBI Bearing throughout the world.

RBI Bearing will continue to operate as a company in North America under the RBI Bearing, Inc. name. We will promote our new brand of RBtech bearings through RBI Bearing, Inc.

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China Update
A monthly look at news from China
Click the title to read the story

Rolling Stones to make China debut
The Rolling Stones will hold their first-ever concert in China in April, three years after canceling a pair of shows on the mainland because of the SARS outbreak.

Old habits die hard
Beijing is launching a campaign to stamp out widespread public spitting in an effort to clean up its image for the 2008 Olympics

China slaps a tax on chopsticks
China will slap a tax on chopsticks and a range of goods ranging from yachts to petrol in a bid to save trees and protect the environment.

China's space quest gathers speed
China has mapped out an ambitious space program for the next decade that includes a space walk in 2008, a lunar robot lander by 2012 and a possible space station after that, according to state-run media.

RBI Milestones

Technical Corner
Why must a lubricant be used if the bearing surfaces are already smooth?
by Mike Mortensen - Director of Engineering RBI-USA

Although bearing surfaces appear to be very smooth, a microscopic view shows that these surfaces can be, in actuality, very jagged. An illustration of these jagged features can be seen in Figure 1. Bearing wear is the result of these jagged surface peaks impacting each other during operation. With this in mind, the goal is to minimize these impacts by allowing these edges to ride on a layer of lubrication.

Three types of surface contact are possible; boundary, mixed, and full-film. Illustrations of these different types of contacts are shown in Figure 2. Boundary contact is characterized by a predominant surface-to-surface interface between the rolling element and the raceway. Under a boundary contact condition, excessive wear occurs rapidly and bearing life is often undesirable. Mixed contact is characterized by a combination of a lubricant film and surface-to-surface interface between the rolling element and the raceway. Under a mixed contact condition, there is some wear and bearing life will be reduced. Full-film contact is characterized by a predominant lubricant film interface between the rolling element and the raceway. Under a full-film contact condition, an optimal film layer exists and bearing life is maximized.

Again, the goal is to achieve a full-film lubrication condition. This is accomplished by choosing the proper lubricant for the application. Bearing load, speed, and operating temperature are factors that must be considered when choosing the proper lubricant.

Figure 1 . Close-up view of the rolling element and raceway interface.

Figure 2 . Types of surface contact.

Technical Article Archive

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Final Word - Spring

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.

- Doug Larson

We Get It Done.

RBI Connections is a publication of RBI Bearing, Inc and is intended to provide useful company and/or industry news and information. We understand and respect your need for privacy. Email addresses in our files are from our customers or published materials. Please accept our apologies if you believe this email to be unsolicited. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Any personal information provided to us will be stored in a secure environment and will not be misused. RBI Bearing, Inc. does not make email addresses available to third parties for their use. RBI Bearing would like to send news releases and special promotions to you from time to time. If you would not like to receive these emails from us, please click this link and type the word "unsubscribe" in the subject. © 2006 RBI Bearing, Inc.