CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
13 August 2007
Implementation Investments
Radio Flyer Uses SolidWorks Software to Reintroduce Classics
Radio Flyer , the 90-year-old company famous for every kid's red wagon, is using SolidWorks® software to continually design better versions of timeless products and to launch new products that improve on the status quo.
For example, the Chicago company used SolidWorks 3D CAD software and COSMOSWorks® Designer analysis software to design, analyze, and refine numerous iterations to produce its recently re-launched Inchworm - a childhood classic with a new, safer bounce-and-go mechanism.
The company also used SolidWorks and COSMOSWorks on My First Scooter, the most stable juvenile scooter on the market. The new foldable toy has two wide-set front wheels for stability and a tapered platform that, unlike other scooters, ensures the child's foot clears the back wheel with each kick. COSMOSWorks Designer helped the company determine the optimum design of the blow-molded platform for strength and rider comfort.
"We couldn't imagine doing our work without SolidWorks, which lets us quickly develop, prototype, and optimize sophisticated designs - like the shape of the handlebars or the action of the bounce-and-go - then rapidly complete them," said Tom Schlegel, Radio Flyer's vice president of product development. "If our founder Antonio Pasin, who hand-built wagons in his cabinet shop, could see us churning out exciting new toys using high-tech tools like SolidWorks software, I know he'd be very proud."
Radio Flyer uses SolidWorks software's surfacing capabilities to cost-effectively design shapely parts - a tricycle saddle, for example - that in the past would be painstakingly hand-carved and patterned prior to molding. Manufacturing partners in China use SolidWorks software for collaboration with Schlegel's team in Chicago. Radio Flyer is using PDMWorks® data management software to control file versions as the company adds designers and engineers to its growing team. Schlegel credits SolidWorks' ease of use and his reseller's proven training techniques for quickly making new employees productive on SolidWorks.
"Even a firmly established company like Radio Flyer with timeless product lines needs to constantly reinvent," said Rainer Gawlick, vice president of worldwide marketing for Solidworks. "That means listening to the market, testing ideas, and continuously designing better products."
Radio Flyer works with authorized SolidWorks ' reseller CATI for ongoing software training, implementation, and support.
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