SolidWorks Success at K9 Industries Limited

K-9 Industries is a specialist manufacturer of premium level mountain bike frames and components – all designed using SolidWorks CAD software. The company’s mission is to create ‘downhill’ style mountain bikes featuring an innovative new suspension design.

User friendly
Having been introduced to SolidWorks during his engineering studies, K-9’s MD Luis Arraiz put the CAD software at the centre of his engineering business. He found it incredibly user friendly and intuitive: so easy to use in fact, that all it took was a few hours of guidance to get up to speed on the software.

Speed to market and design cost control are critical to K-9’s success. SolidWorks covers all the company’s design requirements, allowing the team to manage every element of the process in-house. This starts with initial ideas and design concepts, which can be quickly developed into 3D models and used for the development of tooling and machinery.

Test scenarios
The ability to use the software to run test scenarios is a key benefit. As M.D. Luis Arraiz says, “SolidWorks enables K-9 Industries to run tests like finite element analysis to evaluate component strength, and motion analysis to assess how our products will work in real life. Based on this data, we can refine and optimise our designs before progressing towards the production of engineering drawings - ultimately it helps us to manufacture the best possible products.”

The company reports that SolidWorks has delivered a series of commercial benefits, reducing the time and costs involved in prototyping, perfecting product development and speeding time to market. In addition to using SolidWorks for its own products, the K-9 team use it to deliver engineering consultancy services to other manufacturers and contractors, too.

Beyond manufacturing
K-9 have found SolidWorks so impressive and easy to use that they now even use the software at trade events and exhibitions to give sales demonstrations. “We can actually demo our 3D models and show image rendering and video simulations – it gives people a highly realistic picture of our products and capabilities, and how products will look in specific materials etc. It helps us a lot when we’re talking to the media, manufacturers, partners and customers,” confirms K-9 Industries’ M.D.

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