Client Industry: Off-road/All-terrain Vehicle
Part Production: Shock Absorber Body Caps
Material: Forged Aluminum
Challenge:
Finished forged aluminum shock body caps
Famed motocross and mountain bike, off-road and all-terrain vehicle suspension part manufacturer Fox Factory needed to reduce part cycle times on several of its forged aluminum shock body caps. Fox was also searching for a solution to bring part processing back in-house to its Gainesville, Georgia machine shop to decrease manufacturing costs. The company was seeking alternatives to its carbide tooling to extend tool life and reduce the number of tools needed to process part features.
Solution:
After seeing its client roster, Fox Factory contacted West Ohio Tool to explore switching from carbide to custom PCD tooling on several of its applications. West Ohio Tool quickly designed custom PCD solutions for applications that included a variety of intricate part features and sizes as well as a long-tool custom PCD solution to reduce chatter and cycle time in a part slotting process.
Results:
In addition to providing better surface finishes and longer tool life, West Ohio Tool’s custom PCD tooling solutions significantly reduced cycle times and tool changes for Fox Factory applications. Processing time was slashed across the board. Cycle times for one small body cap were reduced from nine minutes to under three minutes, and the part was brought back in house for manufacturing. Cycle time on one of the company’s larger body caps went from 12 minutes to under five minutes, and tools were reduced from 23 to 17.
The custom tool allowed for more internal grooving processes with less tooling
In addition to reducing the number of tools, West Ohio Tool also achieves intricate tool design combining multiple features with stacked tolerances. In another application, West Ohio Tool quickly designed and provided custom tools for a slotting procedure that slashed cycle time by 84% for that process and reduced tool changes by over 25%.
As a result of West Ohio Tool’s design and engineering expertise, tool quality and fast delivery, Fox Factory has saved substantially in production costs while increasing productivity. Fox Factory will now consider West Ohio Tool to supply PCD tooling for all of its production runs.
