John Leavitt of PenSafe Inc.
Interview with a Forged Products Industry Customer
About John Leavitt
John is the President of Pensafe Inc., a Manufacturer of fall protection hardware used for a wide range of high-risk industries including construction, rescue, law enforcement and the military.
Q: Tell me about your company's business and industry position.
A: Business – How are we doing? The million dollar question… we’re doing fine now. We were under siege or have been for about four years from Taiwanese or Asian competitors. All our manufacturing was North American, Canadian based so high labour content, high material prices. So we started a new company in China, so we now have about ¾ of our production coming out of China. If it wasn’t for that I would be out of business. It’s that simple. We’re still in the process of making the switch from being a pure manufacturer to being more of a design and engineering company and marketing company…we never really spent a whole lot of time worrying about that. There was very little competition. All of a sudden somebody showed up with products identical to ours and they were selling for what it cost to make our products.
Industry – If you classify on how we market, we’re part of an industry called Personal Protective Equipment. That’s about a 12 billion dollar world wide market. We play in a small sub-set of that called Fall Protection. Now that’s how we market. From a manufacturing stand point, we’re metal bashers. We forge and stamp. Certainly the biggest dollar value of our sales has some degree of forged product in it. As far as end users of our products, our distribution channel is a little odd. From an end user stand point, anyone who is working at height uses our product, but they don’t buy it directly from us. They buy it from a Safety Supply house…a distributor of safety equipment who buy it from the people we sell it to. So we’re about two steps removed from the end user.
We sell to manufactures of Fall Protection Equipment. So we’re really an original equipment manufacturer. We have probably 250 - 300 customers in total but 10 of which are huge multinational organizations. There are basically three levels…multinational, small regional and there’s small mom and pop shops. The multinationals probably make up about ¾ of the world market.
What CAD system did you use before implementing SolidWorks?
Prior to SolidWorks, PenSafe used 2D ANVIL which was big in the Forging business.
What were the primary business challenges and technical requirements that led your company to evaluate SolidWorks?
I think there are two of them…time to market and the other is off-shore competition. We needed to be better at designing to compete with off-shore manufacturing. And it’s really hard to ask a customer to look at a 2 dimensional drawing and say “what do you think?...because most people can’t read drawings.
How did you find out about SolidWorks?
SolidWorks was already there when I started, so I’m not sure what the history there was. I can hazard a guess…AutoCAD was too expensive. Pro/ENGINEER was too expensive. Around that time SolidWorks was becoming almost the de facto, product of choice.
How did you find our about Javelin?
They are the regional distributors for SolidWorks.
Did you evaluate any other CAD systems? Which ones?
Don’t know, we could ask Bob Claus. (BC) There was no formal evaluation. Bob talked to other companies to get their input. Pro/ENGINEER and Autodesk were considered too expensive and overly complex for PenSafe’s needs.
Why did your company choose SolidWorks?
We’ll get Bob to clarify that. (BC) "SolidWorks provided the functionality at an affordable price point".
Were there one or two product features and related benefits that were most important in your decision to purchase SolidWorks?
Let’s ask Bob. (BC) SolidWorks allowed an easy migration path from the old 2D world to the 3D world. It was quickly becoming the de facto standard in the marketplace.
How many licenses do you have?
Four in total.
What version of SolidWorks do you have?
One license of SolidWorks Premium and three licenses of SolidWorks Professional.
Do you think that SolidWorks technology is innovative? If so, how? Can you provide any examples of capabilities or functions that you would consider especially innovative?
Yes, I think what they’re doing, is they’re bringing what used to be very expensive technology and making it affordable. If you look at SolidWorks Simulation, 10 years ago you were going to be spending $50,000 to $100,000 dollars to get that technology. Now it’s a fraction of that. I would say they’re doing a really good job of delivering the technology to basically companies who don’t have the ability to cut a cheque for $100,000. And every year, there are new features. Like some of the automation features that are out now, again five years ago, it would cost you a fortune to get that. SolidWorks Simulation F.E.A. is innovative. There are a couple of things that we’re intrigued with. One is Photo Realistic Rendering – you can actually get better looking pictures for a catalogue using SolidWorks, then you can from actually taking a photograph.
Do you have SolidWorks Simulation? SolidWorks PDM? SolidWorks eDrawings? If so, how does each benefit your product development process?
SolidWorks Simulation – we have that.
SolidWorks PDM – Just finishing up getting our drawings inside of it so they’re controlled. We haven’t really tackled the routing stuff where you can get approvals. But it’s one step at a time. The single biggest reason we bought it, was version control. There are lots of other side benefits that we will take advantage of over the next year or two, but its version control. We were always getting our wrist slapped on our I.S.O. audits for that. When you have a manual system it’s hard. We sent the wrong drawings to suppliers more than once. And I’m sure we’re not the only company in the world who has done that.
SolidWorks eDrawings – Yes, we use it extensively. We can get much quicker feedback from customers and end users. When we sent off the first one, I’d have to get on the phone and explain it to them. Now people expect it and will tell you to send them an eDrawing. It’s the standard.
Are there specific tools and capabilities that are especially beneficial? If so, how?
I’ll defer to Bob on that one...Collision detection – important for our hook designs as they all have moving parts. Mating components to allow motion.
How much has SolidWorks reduced your product design process, for example, from four months to three weeks,” or “50%?”
In terms of design to prototype approval, probably cut it almost in half. Because we don’t prototype in steel any more, we can take our 3 dimensional model fire it off to our prototype company and get a nylon version back the next day. Where as before we used to have to cut steel, forge the product and finish it out, or send it out to a CNC shop. Also to get a steel prototype, if you machine it, it’s a couple thousand dollars a piece. If you forge it, you’re probably looking at a $5,000 investment and to send it off to an SLS shop, you’re probably looking at a few hundred dollars. So the savings is in both time and money.
How much money you have saved in your product development process with SolidWorks on a particular project or as an overall by percentage? Are you savings related to producing fewer prototypes or less scrap and rework?
Specific example, yes, we have about 20 projects on the go…but one in particular… There’s a big change in standards for fall protection equipment right now, so we’re having to redesign virtually our whole product line. So we have a new product and it’s what we call a form hook. I can send you a picture of the form hook. If a guy is working on a construction site with lots of concrete… these are big hooks, about five or six inches long. I can send you a picture of it. In this particular case, we had a prototype in our hands from the original concept with in three weeks. Which is, I’m going to guess four or five times faster than what we would have done with 2 dimensional software and cutting it out of steel.
There’s good news and bad news with that too. You go to a customer with a plastic prototype now in literally days or weeks. Then, because they know you can turn it around fast, they have higher expectations and say “well that’s good, but do this”. Now, that’s good because you end up with a better product. You do a couple of things is easier to do one or two
Cost savings…Nylon prototype that’s about $500. The old way, out of steel with 2D software and cut a forge die …even a prototype die, we would have been 10 times that to have a finished product on our hands. If we’d gone the CNC route, with 3D software, probably looking at $1,500 or $2,000.
How have SolidWorks design capabilities improved the quality of your products? Have you been able to reduce the number of design errors, and if so, by how much?
There’s a bunch of things. You can now put in standards that the software automatically puts in whether they are tolerances or radiuses (Radii, I guess is the word.) Those are automatically there for the designer they don’t have to go and put them in manually. Things like SolidWorks Simulation allow us to test the strength of the product before we cut steel. Not only strength, but it allows us to take weight out. We can estimate the weight of the product and figure out where we can cut metal out to save weight. The third thing is, it anticipates the interferences…when you have parts that are moving, it will show you where they are going to hit.
Also, don’t underestimate the visual aspect of SolidWorks compared to 2D products. The majority of the world can’t interpret a 2D drawing. It’s easier to explain the concept to someone in 3D. As a result, if you’re doing your job right, you end up with a product that’s more appealing.
Reducing the number of design errors…that’s more a function of discipline in the designer, I think what it does do, because it automates a lot of things like tolerance and that sort of thing, it takes away a lot of noise from the designer. There are fewer things for them to worry about now. They can concentrate on the design.
Have product innovations enabled by SolidWorks increased your company’s market share or gross sales? If so, could you indicate or estimate the increases?
Increases in gross sales is a tough one because the average price of our product was cut by 50% over the last three years. Everyone has done the same thing. The fact that we haven’t lost market share to our off-shore competitors is a huge success. PenSafe has always had a reputation for good solid quality products. We now have a reputation for being innovative. Which is what we set out to do in the first place.
What does it take to compete effectively in your industry? What are some of the challenges involved in maintaining your market position? How does SolidWorks impact your competitiveness?
First and foremost, it’s product innovation. Quality is now assumed. Don’t have to be the lowest cost producer, but you have to be priced competitively. Companies will pay a slight premium for innovative products. Another success factor is end user application knowledge. So one of the big advantages we have over our friends from Taiwan is virtually everyone on our leadership team, has been out in the field working with customers so they understand what it’s like for the guy hanging 100 feet off the ground. We know the specific application. I think another thing that’s important to us is, we are active on all standards committee because all the products are regulated. Whether it’s CE, ANSI, and CSA were active in those, so we can understand what the trends are going to be to change the standards.
Challenges …still under incredible price pressure due to overseas competition. Our customers are always looking for ways to drive costs of their products. There are three things they can cut out: labour, webbing cost, hardware cost. Hardware is typically one of the biggest, so they’re always after us to drive the cost out.
Another challenge we face, is that people like innovation, but they’re slow to adapt it.
How does SolidWorks impact our competitiveness…it facilitates us being more innovative. SolidWorks on its’ own doesn’t make you innovative but it’s a catalyst to help get you there. There’s something really powerful about having a meeting with a customer where they have a specific requirement. So you take the information and sit down with one of the designers and a day later, two days later you send them a schematic and say “what do you think?” It’s responsive…and I think that impresses people when you respond to a need quicker.
Was the transition to SolidWorks smooth? (If moving from 2D to 3D) Were there any capabilities in SolidWorks such as file translation and other built-in tools for preserving and reusing legacy 2D data?
No, not at all. But that’s not a software problem, it’s a skinware problem. It’s hard for people to change.
Yes, we were able to take a lot of our ANVIL drawings and pull in data. We’re in the process of making a product for one of our customers who had a supplier that didn’t want to deal with them anymore, it was expensive, so they literally handed us this part and said we’d like you to quote and make it. No drawings. The drawings they had were dated, they didn’t match the product. We have a C&M machine. Co-ordinate Measurement machine, so we set it up, measured all the parts and pulled it into SolidWorks instead of having to model the whole thing from scratch…a day’s work and you’re pretty much done.
Did Javelin make a significant contribution in terms of training, support and implementation services?
There are few suppliers that I would consider our true partners. Javelin is one and we have an industrial designer that I would consider the other…who also uses SolidWorks. And we have 100’s of suppliers. I probably have 2 or 3 manufacturing suppliers that I would consider as true partners and that’s it. So what would it take to qualify to be in that rarified world?
Anticipate our needs, helping us when we have a problem without worrying about the invoice and most importantly, always suggesting new ways of doing stuff. Whether that’s “here’s SolidWorks Simulation why don’t you try using it?” (or SolidWorks PDM or here’s a new feature for you to try out.)
Could you provide an example of an engineering design project completed in SolidWorks that you’d like to highlight? How long did the project take from start to finish?
The PenSafe Pincer product completely done in SolidWorks, new design conforms to the new standard. This product was developed from the ground up to eliminate the design deficiencies of traditional snap hooks. The result is a patented design that has two important benefits; This non-traditional closure removes a point of weakness from the gate. Second, the Pincer can be opened with gloved hands and when it hooks in, the opening is clear of the hand reducing the possibility of fingers and gloves becoming snagged. This improved convenience means that workers are more productive and more likely to comply with correct safety practices.
What’s different about Javelin as a company from other companies in the CAD marketplace?
I’m not sure there’s anyone at PenSafe that can answer that because there’s no one else in the running.. SolidWorks is the de facto standard now. Javelin Technologies is probably one of the best SolidWorks resellers. How can you go wrong with a de facto standard on both the reseller and the software?
How does SolidWorks help your engineers design better products?
We should drill Bob on that one. (BC) Enforce standards, ability to visualize in 3D, collision detection, interference detection, allows for quick iterations of designs.
