Case Study: Knapheide accelerates product development and enters six new markets with SOLIDWORKS

Growing service truck body business into new markets with solidworks solutions

Knapheide, the leading U.S. manufacturer of service and utility truck bodies, faced the challenge of accelerating product development and designing more complex truck body solutions to enter new markets. To overcome this, the company adopted SolidWorks design, simulation, product data management (Enterprise PDM), and technical communication tools to replace its prior CAD platform and better support sheet‑metal–heavy workflows.

Using SolidWorks Professional and Premium design tools, SolidWorks Simulation (Professional and Premium), Enterprise PDM, Composer/eDrawings and custom API integrations to automate sheet‑metal tooling and bending data, Knapheide increased development speed, automated fabrication, and enabled more complex designs. Those improvements boosted throughput and helped Knapheide expand into six new markets (including military/defense, alternative‑fuel vehicles, dump bodies, forestry, industrial products, and van equipment); by 2013 the company had deployed dozens of SolidWorks licenses (for example, 55 Standard and 75 Enterprise PDM) to support the growth.

Knapheide

Chris Weiss

Vice President of Engineering