When we say we make assemblies, just what do we mean?
Am I talking bags or boxes of material, such as a parts kit? Or am I talking about some sort of sub assembly. Which is it?
The answer is, what does the customer need? What does the use case call for?
For thirty years we at Fast-Rite have provided parts in various containers, plastic bags, cartons, blister packs or other types. These might include fasteners, brackets, stampings, wire nuts or any type of widget that would be assembled to the main product.
But Fast-Rite goes far beyond “putting screws in a box”.
First, We Listen
Fast-Rite works diligently worked with our customer’s engineering staffs to first understand what your real needs are, what your use case is, and then work to develop solutions for the challenges the market provides. In doing so, we do more than provide a widget, we work directly with the engineering and production staff to understand what is really needed and apply our 30 years of experience and engineering expertise to design a solution.
As a result, we can confidently say we are the OEM Optimizer, providing solutions to our customers that optimize the functionality of their components while providing them cost-effective solutions
You’ve seen it!
Many times our work and products are behind the scenes. You would have to disassemble a name brand radial arm saw to see the parts Fast-Rite put into it. Or you might be looking right at parts in a household appliance but because our name is not on it, you wouldn’t know. You don’t see Fast-Rite labels on that custom grill, do you?
But if you’ve ever been in a “Big Box” warehouse type store (and who hasn’t?) you have been surrounded by examples. In most every store, in most every aisle, hundreds or thousands of them.
Let me just cite one example.
A Case Study
It was the mid 90’s, and the big box home improvement business was just exploding
Home Depot, Lowes, Sam’s Club, Costco and other stores were opening new locations every time you turned around.
These stores turned numbers, and that required a lot of stock on hand. So the store designers took a note from the warehouse business, and instead of shelving, they used heavy duty industrial racking to store their merchandize.
So, when the basic structure was complete, crews of installers would come in and start erecting the racks. They would lift the uprights up and attach the cross beams. In those days it was common to use nuts and bolts to fasten the cross beam to the upright. That required a crew to hold the beam, and workers with wrenches or socket drivers to insert the bolts and tighten the nuts.
It’s critical that the cross beams were tightened. Some designs of racking would allow the beams to be mounted without bolting, but that created a real hazard. They could be dropped into the uprights, but then would need bolting or else a misplaced lift truck fork could accidently dislodge a pallet, creating the potential for products spilling out of the racks onto customers or employees below.
But manually bolting took time. It was clear there was room for improvement that would provide absolutely critical safety while simplifying and reducing the workload needed to mount, reposition or remove the cross beams that hold all that stock up in the air.
And the Big Box company was in a hurry – there was a constant construction schedule putting in hundreds of new locations, resulting in many thousands of locations in the US alone, not including the rest of the world.
A Better Mousetrap
If anyone could build “a better mousetrap”, the market was ready to find them.
- A new solution that would greatly reduce the time and workload to rack a store.
- A Tool-Less solution that would allow for instant assembly .
- A locking solution that would securely hold the beam in place and not allow a beam to be accidently lifted out of position.
- A way to simply and easily remove and and reposition Beams.
- A drastic reduction in labor cost for outfitting each store.
Our customer had an idea as to how to do this. But the idea needed refinement, there would be multiple revision needed before the device would be safe for production use. And our customer was simply put, not in the “widget business”. The best solution seemed to be a hardened, multi-piece spring loaded assembly with a locking pin that could be mounted and locked in place instantly, without the need for nuts and bolts.
Multiple tests, revisions, samples need to be made and put into quality testing. Fast-Rite Account Reps worked with the factory engineers to work through design modifications. And finally, the project went live, full production started, and as a result, there are many thousands of locations throughout the world using millions of those devices, enjoying the fruits of those labors.
Hidden in Plain Sight
A few years back we were in a prospective customer facility. The engineer did not know us well, or what we have done. He wasn’t familiar with our products. I simply walked him over to his own warehouse racks, where unbeknownst to him, the patented parts were right there, still effective, 20 years later, serving the needs of his company. He then understood we do more than “put screws in a box”.
Do you need solutions rather than widgets? Do you need a partner than can provide effective engineered solutions, that can think out of the box and work with your staff to devise cost effective solutions? Do you need partners that can provide solutions that enhance the safety and effectiveness of your products? Fast-Rite can work with you to develop assemblies that can effectively improve your products, processes and cost-effectiveness. Contact our Engineering team at 888.327.8077 or email sales@fast-rite.com