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Article: Forming wheels--by spinning: at Kawasaki, ATV wheels are produced in house--and even for other companies. While other companies may roll form their wheels, they've found spinning to be advantageous to meet the requirements of their production system.(Equipment & Applications)
- Article from:
- Automotive Design & Production
- Article date:
- August 1, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Gardner Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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They're awfully busy at Kawasaki Motors Manufacturing Corp. USA (Lincoln, NE). Not only do they produce all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) at their plant, but they also produce jet skis, motorcycles, utility vehicles, robots, and light rail cars. And in its manufacturing of the ATVs, of which they'll be making some 140,000 this year, they produce their own wheels. Not only do they produce wheels for their own products, but they produce them for other manufacturers, as well. Which puts their wheel production on the order of 1.6-million. It's worth noting that they once outsourced the wheel production. But in order to reduce costs and to control their just-in-time production, they ...