When the OEM Goes Out of Business: How Apex Recreated Discontinued Parts for an Aurora, Illinois Packaging Manufacturer
Discontinued parts become impossible to source through normal channels when a machine’s original manufacturer goes out of business. For one Aurora, Illinois packaging manufacturer running legacy production equipment, that reality was closing in fast.
Their last remaining set of spare gears was nearly depleted, and there was no OEM left to call.
Apex Industrial Automation stepped in, reverse-engineered the gearing from physical samples, and partnered with Martin Sprocket & Gear to manufacture exact replacements. The customer now has a reliable supply of correctly specified gears and a dedicated part number system that makes future orders straightforward.
The Challenge: A Defunct OEM and a Dwindling Discontinued Parts Supply
Legacy production equipment is a fact of life in manufacturing. Machines that were built to last often outlive the companies that built them. When that happens, the maintenance playbook breaks down.
- There's no parts portal.
- No tech support line.
- No authorized distributor.
For this Aurora facility, the situation was growing urgent: a set of gears critical to their production line was running low, and the equipment had been built by an OEM that was no longer in business.
They didn’t know the specifications of the gearing. They didn’t know where to source a replacement. And they weren’t certain what options existed.
With no clear path forward and the risk of downtime growing, they reached out to Apex.
The Apex Approach: Start with the Application, Not the Part Number
Apex gearing specialist took ownership of the problem from the first conversation.
Instead of searching for a catalog match that didn’t exist, the focus shifted to understanding the application: what the equipment demanded, what the gearing needed to do, and what a long-term solution required. The customer provided physical gear samples, and Apex took it from there.
We brought in Martin Sprocket & Gear, a trusted manufacturing resource with the engineering capability to analyze existing components and produce exact replacements based on physical samples.
The Solution: Exact Replacement Gearing, Built from Samples
Together, Martin Sprocket & Gear and Apex successfully recreated the customer’s critical gearing as exact duplicate replacements that matched the original application specifications.
Beyond solving the immediate shortage, Apex established a repeatable process for the future. Each gear was assigned a dedicated part number, tied to the customer’s specific application. Future orders don’t require physical samples, specification hunting, or tribal knowledge. The part number captures everything.
Results:
- Critical gearing recreated to exact defunct OEM specifications from physical samples
- Immediate spare parts risk eliminated
- Dedicated part numbers established for each gear in the application
- Future orders placed quickly, accurately, and without providing samples
- A one-time emergency converted into a managed, repeatable supply process
Why This Matters Beyond One Facility
This project wasn’t unusual for Apex Industrial Automation. Old legacy equipment with orphaned OEM support is one of the most common problems industrial facilities face and is one of the least talked about, because most distributors don’t have a path to solve it.
When a standard part number doesn’t exist, the solution is about finding someone who can work with what you have.
For manufacturers in Aurora and across northern Illinois running legacy equipment, Apex offers a practical alternative to the dead end of an inactive OEM: application-level problem-solving, the right manufacturing partnerships, and a process that doesn’t leave you in the same position again next time.
Running Legacy Equipment in Aurora, Illinois or Northern Illinois?
If your facility depends on equipment where the OEM is gone, the parts are discontinued, or the documentation no longer exists, Apex can help. Our team has experience with exactly these situations, from reverse-engineering worn components to establishing custom part-number systems that protect your operation in the long term.
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