When a Canadian company needed a relatively small amount of prototype fasteners in a short amount of time, its leadership team turned to Big Bolt for help.
The company tests noise, vibration and harshness (NVH) on engine mounts. So, while they don’t always need large orders, this time, they were in a bind: they were almost ready to start testing but didn’t have the fastener they needed.
The company asked Big Bolt to manufacture a few hundred stake studs. The stake studs are driven or hammered into the engine mount, so the engine won't fall out when it is dropped in. An automated arm is then used to fasten them into the studs.
Unfortunately, the studs were overlooked and testing was only weeks away. At the last minute, the company was searching for a company that could manufacture them quickly.
The biggest challenge was turnaround time. Big Bolt was given three weeks to review the blueprints and get a custom-finished product back to the company so that it could move forward with testing.
Big Bolt is known throughout the industry for making high-quality, specialty fasteners quickly. And custom parts are always made from blueprints. Big Bolt requested the blueprint for the needed stake studs, and once the schematic arrived at Big Bolt’s facility, the manufacturing team went to work producing them to the needed specifications.
Big Bolt is familiar, even comfortable with creating specialty fasteners or ‘blueprint specials,’ as they are often called.
Regardless of order size, requests can be fulfilled in days or weeks — not months.
The plan was to get the initial batch of prototypes to the company in three weeks, and if they tested well, Big Bolt would mass produce more.
The tester stake studs were delivered to the company within the three-week window and passed the test. Big Bolt then ramped up, manufacturing thousands more for production. Today, over 20 years later, Big Bolt remains a trusted partner for this company.
Big Bolt is one of the only manufacturers in the fastener industry that thrives on mission-critical situations. We have the capability to make small batches of complex products the company needs. Even fasteners with tight tolerances or special threads and thread lengths can be produced quickly and to an exacting set of specifications.
This allows the company to do all its tests before sending a vehicle to the production line. Its engineers already know the fasteners for the engine mounts will work, being confident in Big Bolt’s precision manufacturing capabilities. In the long run, this approach saves time and money.
This is part of what makes Big Bolt the industry's primary partner for emergency, low-volume specialty fastener needs.
