Quickening cycle times: investment decreases the time for an idea to become reality

Concrete Producer, The, Nov, 2004 by Rick Yelton

When Roger Jable walks through his testing lab, he's searching for failure. "We'd rather have a component prematurely break on our lab machine than on a customer's truck," says Jable, the director of engineering for Hendrickson International's truck suspension system unit.

Jable has developed a climate where engineers quickly learn the important relationship between manufacturer and customer. "Trucking has become so competitive, it's important to get the best product possible as quickly as possible into our customers' fleets," says Jable. And performing failure analysis of prototypes and new materials is the best method to reduce customers' problems later on.

For two years, Jable has led a initiative to be more responsive to customers. The goal requires more than studying what engineers believe could be potential problems. Thus, the suspension manufacturer has also outreached to its customers. Jable and other key Hendrickson designers periodically meet with their customers to learn how their products are performing and to learn of any needed changes. His team's goal is to reduce the time to introduce new technology that satisfies customers' needs.

Backed by his company's investment in technology, along with its strong customer commitment, Jable hopes to cut the time for implementing new products or upgrades from three years to 18 months.

Predicting failure

"We're in business to fail parts, so our customers don't," says Jable. Only by understanding failure can engineers design to prevent problems. To accomplish this, Hendrickson has made a major commitment to reinvest. The manufacturer has four engineering labs in North America to focus on providing support to engineers. They, in turn, can create components that are reliable for customers.

For its truck suspension division, most work on reliability is performed in Woodridge, Ill. There, engineers use high-tech computer simulation programs and an extensive full-size testing lab to amass a huge database of component wear information.

"We'd rather use a new engineered approach to a solution that may make obsolete a certain product than disappoint our customers by holding back on introducing a new feature," says Keith Stephenson, the truck manufacturer's senior vice president of global operations.

Jable has seen a great deal of change in his 40 years of truck engineering, but none like the last five years. Investments in powerful software programs now allow engineers to analyze component designs long before they're even made. One key aspect of this computer simulation investment is that several levels of prototypes have been eliminated. "Computers have reduced a formerly lengthy stage of design from months to minutes," he says.

Jable's crews field-test their lab results periodically by monitoring their performance in actual driving tests. Jable's drivers take trucks to the Bosch Automotive Proving Grounds in New Carlisle, Ind. There, the trucks operate 24 hours a day in severe operating conditions, after which engineers can evaluate their durability predictions, relative to real-world results.

Vehicle tests also provide performance test data that help describe a vehicle's roll rate and roll stability. "This data has been very helpful for our work with ready-mix trucks as we learn how suspension can affect roll resistance," Jable says.

Rick Yelton

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