{"id":40529,"date":"2019-04-15T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2019-04-15T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/?p=40529"},"modified":"2019-04-11T14:10:36","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T18:10:36","slug":"solidworks-puts-ringbrothers-in-the-drivers-seat-to-scale-production-and-propel-growth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/2019\/04\/solidworks-puts-ringbrothers-in-the-drivers-seat-to-scale-production-and-propel-growth.html","title":{"rendered":"SOLIDWORKS Puts Ringbrothers in the Driver’s Seat to Scale Production and Propel Growth"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the small town of Spring Green, Wisconsin resides Ringbrothers, an automotive restoration company that has propelled itself to one of the top American car builders. The company was founded by brothers, Jim and Mike Ring, who shared a passion, imagination, and innovation for building cars from a very young age. The brother duo and the employees within wear many hats, as the company serves as a collision and repair shop to the community, as well as produces high-quality billet accessories, custom fiberglass, carbon fiber pieces, and custom-built cars.<\/p>\n

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Streamlining Design Pipeline and Processes
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\nTraditionally at Ringbrothers, the engineering, design, and manufacturing for numerous car parts were contracted off-site among third-party vendors. This meant that Ringbrothers was at the mercy of other companies to adhere to its high levels of quality control and meet required deadlines. Some vendors fell short, requiring Ringbrothers to invest additional time to manage a range of different suppliers and taking resources away from the company\u2019s quick innovation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving numerous outsourced components created a bottleneck and an energy drain for Ringbrothers,\u201d said Matt Moseman, Product Development Manager at Ringbrothers. \u201cWe wanted the ability to shift more of the design and prototyping in-house and to vertically integrate to better support our vision and growth plans.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Scaling Requires the Right Tools \u2014 and the Right Partners
\n<\/strong>
\nRingbrothers wanted to make its manufacturing and design processes as transparent as possible, with little opportunity for human error. To support this mission, Ringbrothers sought an architecture that would enable the company to scale at its own pace \u2014 adding more equipment, personnel, and software as desired. But, the company was strategic about which design and product development tools to deploy \u2014 and from whom.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a bias towards SOLIDWORKS CAD, as I was familiar with the product and knew it would help shorten our product development time and improve quality,\u201d said Moseman. \u201cThe software had the powerful functionality we wanted, but was also simple to use, and most importantly, could serve as the foundation of our product development solutions moving forward \u2014 seamlessly integrating with other SOLIDWORKS software.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Ringbrothers, finding the right partner was just as important as the product itself. The company was focused on longevity and trust, selecting a technology provider who could provide service and support for the long term and help the company identify new opportunities to advance manufacturing. For Ringbrothers, Fisher Unitech<\/strong><\/a> was the ideal co-pilot for the company\u2019s road to continued growth.<\/p>\n

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Investing in Improved Product Data Management Proves Priceless
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\nOnce Ringbrothers moved many suppliers back in-house, the company faced challenges related to duplicate files, part numbers, and documentation. To get design and manufacturing data under control, Ringbrothers deployed SOLIDWORKS PDM<\/strong><\/a> with the help of Fisher Unitech\u2019s PDM specialist. SOLIDWORKS PDM not only improved Ringbrothers\u2019 product data management process, but it also supported the company\u2019s goal of evolving to a paperless environment.<\/p>\n

By having a single source of product data for design and development, employees gain better insight into which parts have been checked in and out, the current parts inventory (eliminating unnecessary orders) and the most up-to-date part numbers. Plus, if an issue does arise, employees can quickly access an audit trail of product development activities, rolling back to the exact area of concern and driving more efficient resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cReducing the labor is really where SOLIDWORKS PDM comes into play and implementation has been priceless for our organization,\u201d said Moseman. \u201cAt the end of the day, we are still a small shop and this solution has given us control and scalability advantages of a much larger organization \u2014 a true game changer.\u201d<\/p>\n

To further the management benefits, Ringbrothers plans to deploy a Microsoft tablet on every piece of equipment, giving employees instant access to the SOLIDWORKS PDM Viewer to document equipment setup activities, inspections and more.<\/p>\n

Simulating Real-World Behavior Delivers Immediate ROI
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\nIn 2018, Ringbrothers faced a performance issue with one of its billet hood hinges, requiring the company to do a light product recall. The risk was that if the hinge was altered without the proper insight \u2014 relying on flow charts and gut instinct \u2014 it could ultimately affect other products, compounding the issue from a single part to three.<\/p>\n

Using SOLIDWORKS Simulation<\/strong><\/a>, Ringbrothers pulled the hinge into a test environment, subjecting the part to real-world conditions to assess for strength and safety. The software immediately identified exactly where the part was failing, allowing the team to determine the most efficient way to make corrections.<\/p>\n

\u201cSOLIDWORKS Simulation immediately proved its worth, allowing us to hone in on the issue, and optimize design to avoid product issues in the future,\u201d said Moseman. \u201cFor us, it wasn\u2019t about saving money, but more about making the best decision to ensure our parts are safe for the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n

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An Infrastructure and Support Team for Real-time Manufacturing
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\nHaving the SOLIDWORKS architecture in place, backed by the service and support from Fisher Unitech, sets Ringbrothers up for continued momentum. The company\u2019s employees now identify as a team, \u2014 versus specialized CAD or CAM professionals \u2014 which creates the desired transparency, as design and manufacturing processes are no longer tied to specific tasks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith SOLIDWORKS in place, our entire floor is interactive and our processes are vertically integrated, enabling real-time manufacturing,\u201d said Moseman. \u201cAnd, Fisher Unitech helped us get to where we wanted to go, providing the fastest and most responsive support we\u2019ve seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company credits SOLIDWORKS with its measurable growth, as the tools and efficiency improvements have enabled the company to employ five additional people and purchase more equipment. \u201cIf you are trying to build a scalable business and grow a team, that\u2019s where SOLIDWORKS really shines,\u201d concluded Moseman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Learn how Ringbrothers deploys SOLIDWORKS CAD, Simulation and PDM to create its line of custom-built classic cars and parts.<\/p>\n... Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":40527,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,50,26,826,14,159,18,2641,2411,63],"tags":[451,172,153,19],"class_list":["post-40529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cam","category-collaboration","category-customer-stories","category-dassault-systmes","category-design","category-partners","category-solidworks","category-solidworks-2018","category-solidworks-pdm","category-solidworks-simulation","tag-cad","tag-manufacturing","tag-simulation","tag-solidworks-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/solidworksblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}