Precise tooling and experienced engineers
work together to deliver high quality parts.
Making a Better Part
In March of 2001, on a routine sales call, the Vice President of Steel Forming Systems, Inc. was visiting an automotive and truck parts manufacturer. After a short conversation with the buyer, it was determined that the company was not in the market for SFS’ services. The buyer was kind enough, however, to give the VP a short tour of the facilities.
While walking through the assembly plant, our VP happened upon a set of tarnished and dusty roll form tooling. He asked the buyer which part it formed, and the buyer was stumped. More investigation led them to discover that it formed a cargo door track for a delivery van, a common part that was made in house on a brake press. According to the production manager, the roll form tooling had been purchased about seven years prior to help make the track more cost effective and to keep up with increased demand. They could never get it to work properly though, and the program was suspended. Now several years later, a costly investment sat on the shelves while the parts were still being made in an inefficient manner.
SFS’ VP asked to borrow the tooling for a short period to investigate the problem. At SFS’ own expense, we took the tooling through several part layouts and a few minor alterations by our highly-skilled tool room staff. We even purchased a coil of tryout steel to test it out. A week after accepting the tooling on loan, our production manager brought back samples of the track. The customer was extremely surprise and thrilled. To this day, we still produce this part to a very high degree of quality, using the same tooling.
At SFS we take great pride in doing things the right way. We enjoy making components and tooling better than anyone else. If your company has a problem with an existing part or set of tooling, let us develop a solution for you.