Archive: Feb 2016

Repairing the Nation’s Infrastructure – Roll Forming to the Rescue

Every four years, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) produces a report card to grade different aspects of the nation’s infrastructure. With a few exceptions in the most recent report card, ASCE handed out C’s and D’s across the board, calling for the U.S. to make massive investments in all essential infrastructures from bridges and airports to dams, roads, and railways.

The 2013 Report Card found a huge backlog of maintenance on current infrastructure, as well as an urgent need for modernization. Despite these challenges, the ASCE projected that the U.S. can develop a plan to promote sustainability, and renew and maintain its infrastructure by 2020, a commitment that would require an estimated $3.6 trillion.

Identifying everyday opportunities to optimize your manufacturing processes will help to defray the high cost of an infrastructure overhaul. One diverse application offering many cost and production benefits is roll forming. This metal forming application is a suitable alternative to stamping, extruding, and press brake bending, especially for longer applications with higher volumes.

Roll forming can process pieces up to 80’ long and 27” wide in high quantities. The tooling is less expensive than stamping and can manipulate a wide variety of thick, high-strength stock materials into standard or complex geometries; it is the only process capable of bending a curve in three different directions within the same operation.

In addition to the money saved on tooling costs, roll forming can consolidate secondary operations into one process, saving additional money that would normally be spent on outsourcing these services. The production and cost savings potential of roll forming make it the ideal solution for manufacturing a vast range of large-scale infrastructure components such as bridge deck sections, guardrails, signs, and more.

Cargowall Ltd. has over 20 years of experience manufacturing a broad range of durable signage and fencing products including two-piece assemblies, delineators, mini-posts, fence posts, and highway guardrails. We offer roll forming services, as well as a host of secondary and finishing services like stamping and welding.

Cargowall Ltd. is committed to providing our customers project assistance from design inception to completion. To learn more about roll forming and how it will help American industries renew the nation’s infrastructure, we invite you to download our free eBook, “How to Make Roll Forming Your Cost-Effective Parts Manufacturing Process.”

Roll Forming for the Transportation Industry

Transportation manufacturers of vehicles such as tractor trailers, trains, and school buses often face the challenge of needing large format components that are difficult to source. These parts must be able to support a great amount of wear, tear, and weight. To reconcile the heavy-duty machining required for these parts with cost-effectiveness and quick turnaround, many manufacturers have turned to roll forming.

Roll forming is a sheet metal manufacturing technique that continuously bends or rolls sheets in large quantities. The process bends long sheet metal strips incrementally and consistently until achieving a desired cross-section. With the right tooling sets, a single roll former can bend a variety of parts into complex shapes.

For large parts produced in high volumes, such as rail tracks and grill bars, roll forming fabrication is preferred over other methods like brake forming for its high output and low cost. Roll forming requires less capital investment than brake forming, while maintaining the ability to roll much longer parts.

In the trucking and transportation industry, specifically, roll forming yields many benefits:

• Versatility – Roll formers can process virtually any profile or part geometry, as well as a range of materials including steel, stainless steel, galvanized steel, hot-rolled steel, and more.

• Longer Part Lengths and Heavy Gauge Capabilities – A single machine can roll sheet metal up to 58’ long and ¼” thick.

• Reduced Costs – Equipment overhead and tooling costs of roll forming are less expensive than other processes such as brake forming. The ability to roll extra-long parts also lessens the need for welding and secondary finishing services.

• Durability – Manufacturers can create strong structural beams, cargo control racks, and more.

• Improved Turnaround Time – Because it’s a single, in-line process, roll forming can produce high volume orders completely in-house.

The streamlined process of roll forming fabrication results in improved turnaround time, inventory management, and cash flow, as well as reduced costs on equipment overhead, tooling, and cost of ownership.

Cargowall Ltd. has been a steel roll forming industry leader for more than two decades. We have experience with large tractor trailer and trucking manufacturers, as well as special logistic tracks for shipping and components for smaller body trailers. Whether your order is high volume, low volume, standard, or customized, we’re confident that our capabilities will be the right fit for your next roll forming job.

For more information on the benefits of the roll forming process and how it can save you time and money, we invite you to download our eBook, “How to Make Roll Forming Your Cost-Effective Parts Manufacturing Process.”