Automotive Manufacturer Slashes Costs with Standard CAD Parts Configurator

Shiroki North Amerca Saw Its Largest Cost Savings After Working with MISUMI and Using Their Standards Parts Configurator

Shiroki North America is a top-tier automotive supplier and manufacturer, producing seat tracks, door frames, window regulators and other parts for Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi as well as others. In an effort to reduce costs they have begun several initiatives to streamline their tooling and manufacturing processes utilizing standard CAD parts.

In addition to manufactured parts, Shiroki creates the actual fixtures and jigs required to create the components they manufacture for their clients. With help from MISUMI to standardize their components and designs, they have been able to streamline their design process, generating both cost and time-savings for the shop floor.

Brandon Johnson, Assistant General Manager of Engineering and Maintenance for Shiroki North America ads, “Once our engineers design a part to the precise dimensions and specifications required, that part is standardized to help us save time and control costs, and MISUMI assigns it a unique product number, which greatly facilitates re-ordering.”

In addition to standardizing their parts and processes, Shiroki has taken advantage of MISUMI’s CAD configurator to generate standard CAD parts for their designs. “This capability has been helpful in reducing the need for time- and labor-intensive fabrication of custom parts, whether in-house or by an outside supplier,” explains Johnson. “Also MISUMI’s CAD support, which offers automatic download of native CAD files, is a big plus for our engineers because it means we do not have to spend time drawing components − or pay an outside supplier to draw them.”

As a result of their efforts to standardize by using MISUMI’s products, standard parts configurator and Downloadable files, Shiroki has seen direct results to their bottom line. Adds Johnson, “MISUMI has enabled us to build a sizable machine development group and actually manufacture the machines within our own company, rather than undertake the time, hassle and expense of outsourcing. This initiative has, in fact, led our company to the largest cost savings in our history.”