Three words: train, train, train
Knapheide started making horse-drawn carriages in 1842. The company has remained a family business for six generations. Knapheide designs with SolidWorks and manufactures truck bodies and accessories in the U.S. (image: Knapheide).
You’ve probably driven behind vehicles with a Knapheide logo. The logo is big and bold and on the back of many a hard-working pickup truck. Knapheide doesn’t make trucks, just what’s bolted onto chassis in the back of trucks to secure tools and equipment. There are many truck bodies from which to choose, each purpose-built for a given trade or need. One completely encloses items; another holds fuel; another holds a crane. The Knapheide logo is on them all.
History of Knapheide
The idea that a vehicle could be adapted to haul equipment or goods came to Harold Knapheide in 1910 after he strapped the body of a horse-drawn wagon to the back of a Ford Model T.
The company had been making horse-drawn wagons since 1848 when Herman Heinrich Knapheide, a German immigrant, settled in Quincy, Illinois. It was the year before the California Gold Rush, and Knapheide’s wagons were used by many for the westward voyage. Knapheide prospered. But then it was one existential crisis after another — the Civil War, the obsolescence of horse-drawn carriages, the Great Depression and two devastating floods.
Through thick and thin, the company managed to survive. Today, it thrives with Harold “Bo” Knapheide at the helm, the sixth generation of family leadership. The company has more than 2,500 employees who design and manufacture equipment mounted to trucks, including heavy-duty platforms and enclosures, road-clearing devices such as snowplows and cranes.
Hotbed of SolidWorks experts
We learned about Knapheide at the inaugural Hawk Ridge Summit held recently in San Francisco from Martin Ohnemus, the PLM/CAD Administrator at Knapheide.
Knapheide is proud of keeping all its manufacturing in the U.S. and ensuring its design and manufacturing software is American, all of it from SolidWorks. Neither company makes a big show of patriotism or waves flags. They don’t need to.
Ohnemus makes no flashy entrance. He doesn’t need to. His work at Knapheide is impressive enough.
SolidWorks has the most rigorous program for certifying its users. The most coveted certificate is the CSWE, or the Certified SolidWorks Expert designation, which comes after passing a grueling four-hour hands-on exam. Most companies are fortunate to have one CSWE among all its users. Knapheide has 28.
“SolidWorks says we have more CSWEs than any company in the world,” says Ohnemus.
Ohnemus oversees 350 seats of SolidWorks and PDM. Knapheide also uses Simulation, SolidWorks Simulation Visualize, CAM, eDrawings, DraftSight, Inspection, and Composer, as well as third-party applications such as Flatter Files and DriveWorks. By day, Ohnemus manages all the company’s CAD, CAM, CAE, and PDM training. By night, he leads the local SolidWorks user group.
Ohnemus counts 450 SolidWorks certifications at Knapheide, including the less demanding CSWP (Certified SolidWorks Professional). Awards are also issued for certifications in specialties, such as sheet metal and surfaces. The SolidWorks site lists 22 possible certifications.
Ohnemus encourages users to get certified in as many areas as possible. Each time a user receives certification, they are issued a sticker they can put on a framed certificate that shows all possible certifications.
Current and former CEOs of SolidWorks Manish Kumar and Gian Paolo Bassi were so impressed with Knapheide’s certifications that they flew from Boston to Quincy (where the company is still headquartered) and visited for three days.
Train, train, train
Instrumental in keeping SolidWorks users trained is SolidProfessor, which Ohnemus refers to as “the ultimate CAD training platform.” It’s a library of lessons on every aspect of SolidWorks and of great use in getting ready for certification exams.
“The nice thing about SolidProfessor is companies can add their standards and documentation,” says Ohnemus.
Every SolidWorks app
SolidWorks is the CAD and CAM software vendor of choice at Knapheide since the manufacturer has used virtually everything SolidWorks offers. Starting with the core SolidWorks mechanical CAD program, they added SolidWorks Electrical for the wire harnesses after first drawing wires as lines without electrical or physical meaning. Ohnemus recalls many mistakes were made.
“SolidWorks Electrical includes routing, but rather than train the EEs in using MCAD, we trained ourselves to use Electrical,” he says.
Knapheide uses SolidWorks Inspection, too. A 90-minute video produced by Ohnemus was enough to get nine engineers up and running on inspection in three weeks.
Knapheide decided to make their videos after watching users get frustrated by having to sort through too many videos of poor quality or irrelevant to their work.
“There are a lot of YouTube videos, and you can almost always find one, but it takes time to sort through them,” says Ohnemus.
Users would also ask each other questions if they didn’t know something, but the other user would often need to learn the answer.
“So, the two of you must go to a third person. Now, there are three of you trying to find an answer and not getting any work done. We estimated it took 45 minutes of lost time every time someone asked a SolidWorks-related question.”
They use Visualize to show design engineers how truck bodies are in pristine conditions rather than use photographs of actual equipment.
“Our stuff is out there in the field and getting banged up,” says Ohnemus. “But in the renderings, it looks perfect.”
Knapheide has found SolidWorks Composer helpful in making shop manuals, user manuals, and assembly instructions.
“We used to give them a stack of drawings and expected the artists to figure out what the parts looked like,” says Ohnemus. “Now we make the illustrations ourselves with Composer.”
With Knapheide in business for so long, they have seen several competitors come and go. He says using SolidWorks’ more specialized modules to keep up with new competition.
“When a new company jumps in, they will be jumping in with all the latest, greatest software,” he says. “We can’t afford to fall behind.”
But even with all of SolidWorks’ and third-party tools at their disposal, there are still times when off-the-shelf software is insufficient, and it’s time to develop own customization. One example is Knapheide needing to show how truck bodies could be nested to get the maximum number on a truck trailer.
“There are programs made to stack containers, but all assume flat, rectangular shapes. Knapheide’s truck bodies are anything but flat and rectangular.”
This is where they had to call in the cavalry, also known as the reseller.
“We got together with Hawk Ridge and explained the need for stacking shapes. They wrote us a program to do it,” says Ohnemus.
Solid models, databases, graphics, and video make for incredible amount of data.
“We were using 40 terabytes of storage when I left [to speak here] and we’re adding 20 gigs daily.”
Ohnemus is a strong supporter of user groups, and with so many users at Knapheide, he has no trouble with membership.
“Our local user group is all Knapheide employees,” he says.
He encourages taking advantage of the SolidWorks user group program, now headed by Dan Wagner, which will provide $400 per meeting.
“That’s enough for food and venue expenses,” he says.
Ohemus encourages users to join or even start their own user group. And don’t be surprised if Manish and GP show up.
